Protecting Freedom of Religion in Prison: The Free Exercise Clause and RLUIPA
CURRENT ISSUES IN CONSTITUTIONAL LITIGATION: A CONTEXT AND PRACTICE CASEBOOK, 3d ed. p. 779, Michael Hunter Schwartz, ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2020
98 Pages Posted: 6 Feb 2011 Last revised: 12 Aug 2020
Date Written: 2020
Abstract
Protecting Freedom of Religion in Prison: The Free Exercise Clause and RLUIPA is a sample chapter from Current Issues in Constitutional Litigation, 3d ed., A Context and Practice Casebook (Carolina Academic Press, 2020). The casebook implements the ideas in the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Lawyers (2007) and in Best Practices for Legal Education (2007) by integrating doctrine and skills and using multiple methods of instruction. In the casebook, Sarah Ricks, Rutgers School of Law - Camden, focuses on the constitutional and statutory doctrines necessary to litigate 4th, 8th, and 14th Amendment claims. Evelyn Tenenbaum contributed the chapter on 1st Amendment religion claims that arise in prison - which is described below and can be downloaded here - and a chapter on the Eleventh Amendment.
The sample chapter on Protecting Freedom of Religion in Prison begins by giving background information so students can appreciate the difficulties involved in accommodating prisoners’ religious needs and the importance of recognizing prisoners’ religious practices. Next, the chapter shows how the standards for evaluating federal, state, and local prisoners’ First Amendment religious claims have developed over the past fifty years. The chapter ends with a more contextualized discussion of particular free exercise issues and how the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and the First Amendment apply to prisoner free exercise claims today. The chapter includes charts and illustrations and contains questions and simulations designed to allow students to assume the roles of legislators, policy-makers for a government agency, fact finders, and litigators.
Keywords: constitutional law, constitutional rights, First Amendment, Free Exercise, civil rights, prisoner litigation, inmate, prisoner, RFRA, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, RLUIPA, Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, inmate preachers, Carnegie, Best Practices
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