On August 5, 1991, a fundamentalist Christian inmate incarcerated in the Iowa State Penitentiary, in Fort Madison, Iowa, filed a lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act against prison authorities in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. The prisoner alleged that various prison policies infringed on his religious freedom. Specifically, he complained that the prison only employed a Protestant pastor, offered just three hours of group worship each week, prohibited inmates in protective custody from attending Sunday worship, forbid inmates from bringing a Bible into the exercise yard, limited in-cell books and magazines in number, lacked a baptismal font, and prohibited inmates from receiving certain fundamentalist Christian pamphlets.

After trial, the District Court (Magistrate Judge Ross A. Walters) found for the defendants on most issues, but ruled that the inmate should have been allowed to participate in a baptismal ceremony and to receive certain religious publications. Weir v. Nix, 890 F. Supp. 769 (S.D. Iowa 1995). Both parties appealed, but the defendants voluntarily withdrew their appeal when the plaintiff was transferred to another prison. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (Judge David R. Hansen) upheld the lower court's ruling, reasoning that the prison's religious programs did not substantially burden the inmate's exercise of his rights. Weir v. Nix, 114 F.3d 817 (8th Cir. 1997). The court affirmed the district court's ruling.

On June 14, 2000, the court ordered the plaintiff be reimbursed for litigation expenses.

Rebekah Henn Sullivan - 08/11/2005


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