Muslim Prisoners' Free Exercise Challenge To Double-Celling Rejected

Jones v. Goord, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 34835 (SDNY, May 26, 2006), involved a challenge to New York state’s administration of a policy for double-celling its maximum security prisons. In the case, a New York federal district court rejected the First Amendment claims made on behalf of Muslim prisoners that double-celling gives them insufficient room to pray, that a cellmate may render a cell unclean and therefore unfit for prayer, that the morning call to prayer could disturb a sleeping cellmate, that several prayers must be made in solitude, and that certain rituals require privacy which is not available in a double cell. The court also refused to permit plaintiffs to amend their complaint to assert a RLUIPA claim, finding that any such claim had been waived.