Prisoner Required To Show Religious Beliefs Are Sincere

In Hawkins v. Mills, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15594 (WD Va., Aug. 1, 2005), a Magistrate Judge recommended dismissing a claim by a Virginia prisoner that his religious rights were infringed by denying him access to the prison's Common Fare diet. The judge upheld as reasonable the state's insistence that the prisoner show that his beliefs were sincere by adhering to the key tenets of his faith for at least nine months. Hawkins originally claimed to be a Siddha Yogi practitioner, but when informed that the Common Fare diet was not a requirement of that faith, the inmate claimed he was a member of the Nation of Islam. The Court also found that the doctrine of qualified immunity protected defendant from plaintiff's claim for monetary damages.