6th Cir. and RLUIPA

[Rick Duncan]

I think you need to read RLUIPA's statutory language--compelling interest and least restrictive means--together with Cutter's dictum about deference to prison officials. When you read the two together you still get strict scrutiny, however the deference should often lead courts to concur with prison officials about the compelling nature of security concerns. But least restrictive means should often require prison officials to accommodate prisoners if there is a reasonable way of doing so. And there are often many ways to maintain security. The legislative history should not be interpreted to gut the clear meaning of the actual statutory language. 
 
Rick Duncan

Hamilton02 at aol.com wrote:
RLUIPA should mean what Congress intended, and the Court used Congress's plain intent to interpret it.  As I've said before, RLUIPA is now hardly different from the standard set out in Turner.  I do not mean to open up a new thread, since it was thoroughly beaten to the ground, but I am not surprised to see a decision like Hoevenaar.  The Ninth Cir's recent interpretation of RLUIPA's prison provisions post-Cutter, without reference to Cutter except to say RLUIPA was upheld, and with extraordinarily strict scrutiny, is further evidence of why it is the most highly reversed Cir in the country.  
 
Marci
 
In a message dated 9/16/2005 5:11:35 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, speters at mtu.edu writes:
Cutter, and now Hoevenaar seems 
to have made the states job much easier.  If anyone is interested in the 
states short brief let me know. Hoevenaar seems to leave very little, 
room for the goals articulated by RLUIPA. I am wondering what is or 
should be left.

Susanna Peters


 
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Rick Duncan 
Welpton Professor of Law 
University of Nebraska College of Law 
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902

"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle

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