Federal Judge Says Muslim Inmate's Claims about Violation of Rights Can Proceed
Ray Anthony Smith says they infringed on his rights by canceling his religious diet.
Smith is seeking to force the department to update its food list to reflect data-x-items that are appropriate for a diet that is halal — or permissible under Islamic law — as well as to pay $1,000 for each day he was allegedly denied his religious diet, totaling 246 days.
Incarcerated at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in southeast Colorado, Smith believes the prison has improperly labeled some food data-x-items as halal when they are not.
Conversely, some non-halal data-x-items are actually acceptable, but are not marked as such.
That alleged discrepancy affected Smith's compliance with a corrections policy stating that an inmate's second violation of his religious diet "will result in cancellation of the diet for one year."
Source: coloradopolitics.com
