Substantial Burden Test Rejected in Inmate’s Free Exercise Suit

Prisoners don’t need to show that the actions of corrections officers were a “substantial burden” on their religious activity to prevail on a federal civil rights claim for violating their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, the Second Circuit ruled Monday.

The ruling by a three-judge panel widens a circuit split over the need to establish a substantial burden in free exercise claims under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983.

Plaintiff Jay Kravitz, a former prisoner at the now-shuttered Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill, N.Y., may pursue his claims because he showed that the guards’ refusal to allow him to ...