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Although the Dodge County Detention Facility in Wisconsin has a policy prohibiting “personal worship” in the dayroom common areas, jail officers permitted Christian detainees to participate in Bible study and communal prayer in the dayroom. Mohamed Salah Mohamed A Emad, a practicing Muslim, was a civil detainee at the jail for fourteen months. As part of Emad’s religious practice, he was to pray at five prescribed times each day, a practice known as salah. Emad believes that such prayers must be done in a clean and pure environment; thus, prayer in a room with a toilet is prohibited and considered unclean. Additionally, Emad believes he is required by Islam to attend a weekly sermon and congregational prayer, known as Jumu’ah, with two or more people on Fridays. Emad’s requests to pray outside of his cell in an area without a toilet were denied by jail officials, and the jail did not offer Jumu’ah services and denied Emad’s request to allow him to conduct Jumu’ah with other Muslim detainees. Emad sued the jail for substantially burdening his First Amendment right to the free exercise of his religion. While the trial court found that the jail did not have a sufficient justification for refusing to allow Emad to pray in other areas outside his cell, which caused a substantial burden on his religious practice, the trial court still dismissed the case against the jail officials whom the court considered to be protected by qualified immunity. Emad appealed to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
In its amicus brief supporting Emad’s case, The Rutherford Institute argues that where there is a clear constitutional violation and plenty of time for government officials to consider their course of action, officials should not be allowed to feign ignorance or use qualified immunity to shield them from liability. Institute attorneys also warn that the broken doctrine of qualified immunity creates unending cycles which shield government officials who commit constitutional violations.
Paul R. Steadman, Emma Cone Roddy, and Sean O’Neal of DLA Piper LLP helped advance the arguments in the brief.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
This press release is also available at www.rutherford.org.
Source: https://bit.ly/3kxTT8V
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