Court revives establishment clause claim, cites SCOTUS ruling But jail beats separate count over lack of Muslim group prayer A Virginia jail must defend its practice of broadcasting Christian services on every TV screen each Sunday under a new legal test laid out by the US Supreme Court, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit undid part of a ruling against David Nighthorse Firewalker-Fields, a Muslim former inmate at the Middle River Regional Jail who claims the weekly broadcasts unconstitutionally favored Christianity. Firewalker-Fields spent three months at the jail. Judge Julius N. Richardson, writing for the court, cited the allegation that inmates had no way of avoiding the broadcasts in every common area other than retreating to their cells, which could be seen as an ultimatum: “Be Christian or be penalized.” The lawsuit offered “an array of historical sources” to back up its claim that the broadcasts throughout the jail violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which generally bans the government from playing favorites with religion, Richardson said. That evidence is in line with the high court’s directive, in last year’s Kennedy v. Bremerton School District , that courts […]
