Muslim Inmate Wins Another Shot at Challenge to Sunday Services

A Virginia jail must defend its practice of broadcasting Christian services on every TV screen each Sunday under a new legal test laid out by the US Supreme Court, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit undid part of a ruling against David Nighthorse Firewalker-Fields, a Muslim former inmate at the Middle River Regional Jail who claims the weekly broadcasts unconstitutionally favored Christianity. Firewalker-Fields spent three months at the jail.

Judge Julius N. Richardson, writing for the court, cited the allegation that inmates had no way of avoiding the broadcasts in every ...