Florida correctional officials trying to "paper over" weak legal case

Nov 27, 2002

Attorneys for the Florida Department of Corrections rely on "unsupported and irrelevant" assertions in their motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by an Orthodox Jewish inmate, and thus their "motion should be denied in its entirety," according to a brief filed with a Miami federal court this week (PDF format, 179K).

Alan J. Cotton, the inmate, "is a sincere adherent of Orthodox Judaism," the brief notes, and the refusal of Florida prison officials to provide him with a kosher diet is "precisely the type of claim Congress had in mind in enacting RLUIPA," the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.

Among the numerous "unsupported factual assertions" in the Department of Corrections motion are that providing a kosher diet would render "the smooth and efficient functioning" of prisons impossible, and would entail unspecified "great expenditures."

"Other prisons in Florida are able to provide a kosher diet . . . despite the fact that those prisons presumably have an interest in a smooth and efficient operation," the brief observes, and U.S. Supreme Court precedent in Turner v. Safley provides that "inmates continue to possess the right to a diet conforming to their religious beliefs." Moreover, "in at least three [other] prisoner cases involving requests for kosher meals, the weight of the evidence showed that the request could be accommodated with minimal cost."

A federal court may not simply dismiss a case where a prisoner is able to state a prima facie claim "that a prison has imposed a substantial burden on his religious exercise," the brief continues, and Cotton has clearly done so.

Alan Cotton is represented in the lawsuit by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and by the Miami office of the law firm of Greenberg Traurig.

Relevant Cases

• Cotton v. Florida Dept. of Corrections