In Jones v. Shinn, (9th Cir., Dec.14, 2022), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the district court should not have dismissed an inmate's claim that his rights under RLUIPA were violated when prison authorities denied him access to four texts by Elijah Muhammad. The court said in part:
[T]he district court erred in characterizing the religious exercise at issue as whether Jones was denied all Nation of Islam texts rather than whether the exclusion of the specific texts constitutes a substantial burden on his exercise of religion....
And because Jones provided evidence that all texts by Elijah Muhammad are “essential religious texts needed to practice the Islamic faith in accordance with the Nation of Islam,” he raised a triable dispute as to whether the exclusion of the texts constitutes a substantial burden on his exercise of religion.
However, the court affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff's 1st Amendment free exercise claims, because defendants showed the exclusion was reasonably related to a legitimate penological interest.
