In September 1979, American Indian prisoners of the New Mexico Penitentiary filed a Section 1983 class action suit in the District of New Mexico against the Warden and other state officials. Plaintiffs claimed that defendants violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments when they refused to allow plaintiffs to worship through the use of a traditional Indian sweat lodge and to wear their hair in the manner that their native religious belief requires. Plaintiffs were represented by lawyers from the Native American Rights Fund and Indian Pueblo Legal Services, as well as private counsel.

In December 1980, the court entered a consent order where defendants agreed to institute changes in the penitentiary's grooming policy and to permit the construction of a sweat lodge for religious use on a trial basis.

The docket for this case is not available on PACER, and therefore our information ends with the 1980 consent order.

Eoghan Keenan - 06/10/2005


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