On Monday, June 23, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to review a case involving Damon Landor, a Rastafarian inmate from Louisiana who was forcibly shaved while incarcerated. Landor initiated legal action after lower courts rejected his claim for monetary compensation against prison officials, based on a federal statute protecting religious exercise rights within institutional settings.
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Landor served a nearly five-month drug-related sentence at Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in 2020, where he was handcuffed and shaved bald despite presenting a prior court ruling allowing Rastafarian hair accommodation. Landor’s lawyer Zachary Tripp cited a 2020 Supreme Court decision allowing damages claims under a similar federal law, and Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued denying damages would “undermine that important purpose.”
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in its next term starting October 2025 and the ruling may affect prison officials’ legal accountability for inmates’ religious rights.
