United States Second Circuit

Summary judgment for defendants, in prisoner civil rights action alleging free exercise of religion violations -- where the prison forced Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims to conduct Ramadan services jointly, and denied plaintiff other religious requests -- and cruel and unusual punishment violations, is vacated as to one or more defendants on claims regarding joint-worship, disciplinary keeplock, law-library, and access to the Qur'an or a chaplain, where unchallenged and unresolved factual allegations establish that plaintiff's free-exercise rights were substantially burdened.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/27/2006
• Published 10/27/2006

Judges

• JOHN M. WALKER, JR., Circuit Judge., Before KEARSE, WALKER and WALLACE, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Austin Berry, Rukhsanah Lighari, Jeffrey A. Shooman  (Jon Romberg, on the brief), Seton Hall University School of Law, Center for Social Justice, Newark, NJ, for Plaintiff-Appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• David Lawrence III, Assistant Solicitor General (Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, Michelle Aronowitz, Deputy Solicitor General, on the brief), New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.