United States Ninth Circuit

In an action under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act claiming that defendants improperly denied or substantially burdened plaintiff-prisoner's access to Jewish religious materials and services, summary judgment for defendants is reversed where there was a genuine issue as to whether defendants were willful participants in joint action with prison officials to determine eligibility for access to Jewish materials and services, for purposes of acting under color of state law.

Appellate Information

• Argued 12/09/2009
• Decided 05/05/2010
• Published 05/05/2010

Judges

• Before ROBERT R. BEEZER, RONALD M. GOULD and RICHARD C. TALLMAN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Ian Cairns (argued), Theresa DeMonte, and Alysha Yagoda (argued), law students at the University of Washington Law School, Seattle, WA; supervised by Eric Schnapper, University of Washington Law School, Seattle, WA, and Leonard J. Feldman, Stoel Rives LLP, Seattle, WA, for the plaintiff-appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Robert M. McKenna, Washington Attorney General; Sara J. Olson (argued), Assistant Washington Attorney General; and Andrew D. Tsoming (intern), Olympia, WA, for the defendants-appellees.