Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Clinic filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court this week to assert that all people — including those who are incarcerated — have a fundamental right to live in accordance with their religious beliefs. The brief was filed in support of a petition asking the Supreme Court to review and reverse the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Smith v. Ward . Smith v. Ward involves a Muslim man named Lester Smith who is incarcerated in Georgia. Smith has been fighting the prison system in Georgia for more than 10 years in an attempt to gain permission to wear a full-length beard, as his faith requires. Smith filed a lawsuit in 2012 after the Georgia Department of Corrections, citing safety and security risks, denied his request to grow a beard that is more than a half-inch in length. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit also ruled against Smith, despite the fact that most prison systems in the United States allow inmates to have untrimmed beards. The Eleventh Circuit also vacated a partial remedy that the district court in Georgia had awarded Smith, which would […]
