In two separate cases decided this past week, federal courts have rejected prisoners' claims that denying them access to Bibles violated their Free Exercise rights. In Dye v. Kingston, decided April 27, the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that the prisoner failed to give officials adequate notice that he was asserting a constitutional claim in his letters protesting the fact that various items, including his Bibles, had been lost when he was transferred to a different prison.
In Sexton v. McBride, 2005 US Dist. LEXIS 7305 (4/25/2005) an Indiana federal district court ruled that denial of access to a Bible during the 30 days a prisoner was held in a strip cell and a holding cell did not violate his Free Exercise rights. Such deprivations were reasonable security measures in a segregation unit.
