The heightened protections under a federal law for the religious exercise of prisoners may not extend to the $10 million case of a Montana inmate who has sued Yellowstone County jail officials for restricting his practice of Satanism.

Jason Indreland

Jason Indreland's case is very similar to McCorkle v. Johnson, 881 F.2d 993 (1989), in which the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Alabama state prison system did not violate the free exercise rights of an inmate by denying his requests for items including The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Book of Rituals, and a Satanic medallion.

“The restrictions challenged by the plaintiff are reasonably related to valid penological interests,” the court said, applying the rational basis standard of Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987).

Indreland, 35, is now serving five years in a Montana state prison, with two years suspended, for felony drug possession. In a pro se complaint, he says he “has been a practicing Satanist for the past 10 years” but was unable to freely exercise his rights while he resided at the Yellowstone County Detention Facility between March 2007 and July 2008.

When he was booked into the jail, he alleges, guards stripped him of his medallion -- “a protective symbol in his religion and belief system” -- and on “numerous occasions” during his confinement denied his requests for “a Satanic Bible or Book of Satanic Rituals to practice his chosen religion.”

Indreland -- who is seeking $10 million in damages -- also says that "staff did purposely and knowingly place Christian natured greeting cards under plaintiffs cell door describing how he was going to undertake a huge change in his life and how Jesus was ready to save and accept him."

The suit includes only a claim for infringement of First Amendment rights, which, under the lenient Turner standard, probably wouldn't get very far. But a federal law enacted in 2000 “accord[s] religious exercise heightened protection from government-imposed burdens.”

Under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), corrections officials must show that a restriction on the free exercise rights of an inmates furthers “a compelling governmental interest” and “is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”

Courts have applied RLUIPA to protect the rights of incarcerated followers of such non-mainstream religions as Wicca, Odinism/Asatru, and Wotanism. In finding the law constitutional, moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of five Ohio inmates including a Satanist who accused prison officials of failing to accommodate their religious exercise. Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709 (2005).

In McCorkle, the 11th Circuit concluded that “The prohibition on Satanic materials such as those requested by the plaintiff is justified by the defendants' concern for institutional security and order. It is an informed and measured response to the violence inherent in Satan worship, and to the potential disorder that it might cause within the prison.”

Indreland could argue that the restrictions on his free exercise are not justified under the strict scrutiny standard of RLUIPA, but what the McCorkle court called the “violence inherent in Satan worship” could make that argument a tougher sell than it would be for a Wiccan or Wotanist inmate.

A U.S. magistrate judge allowed Indreland to file an amended complaint, recommending that he specifically allege the defendants “prevented him from engaging in sincerely held religious belief without a legitimate penological interest” and/or “imposed a substantial burden on his religious exercise without a compelling governmental interest.”

But the amended complaint does not include such language. So unless the judge gives Indreland another bite of the pleading cherry, he may never reach the merits of his case.

By Matthew Heller
2/23/09