Indigenous Inmates’ Religious Exercise Claims Advance on Appeal

Two Native American inmates can pursue their First Amendment claims after being prohibited from participating in a Connecticut prison’s sweat lodge and smudging congregational services, a federal appeals court said.

The lower court erred in granting the warden and other officials at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution qualified immunity on the free exercise of religion claims of Joe Baltas and Peter Tarasco, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Wednesday. But the appeals court affirmed the grant of qualified immunity to the officials on all other constitutional claims asserted by Baltas, Tarasco, and ...