The
U.S. Supreme Court heard
oral argument on Tuesday in the case of Holt v. Hobbs,
which asks whether the Arkansas Department of Corrections
violated a federal religious liberty law by preventing a Muslim
prisoner from growing a one-half inch beard in accordance with his
religious beliefs. Judging by the oral argument, it appears the
prisoner stands a good chance of winning.
“You have no comparable rule about hair on one’s head,” Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg told Arkansas Deputy Solicitor General David
Curran, “where it seems more could be hidden than in the beard.”
How does a ban on beards make sense from a security point of view
when there’s no ban on long hair?
Justice Stephen Breyer soon raised another objection. “I take it
there’s no example, not a single example in any State that allows
[prisoner beards],” he said, “where somebody did hide something in
his beard.”
“I think that’s mostly right, Your Honor,” Curran was forced to
concede.
But perhaps the biggest critic of the state’s prison policy was
Justice Samuel Alito, who asked the state lawyer, “why can’t the
prison just give the inmate a comb…and say comb your beard, and
if there’s anything in there, if there’s a SIM card in there…a
tiny revolver, it’ll fall out.”
Against the backdrop of laughter in the courtroom, inspired
perhaps by Alito’s reference to a revolver hidden in a one-half
inch beard, the state lawyer was once again forced to acknowledge
the weakness of his position. “I suppose that’s a possible
alternative,” he told Alito.
A ruling in Holt v. Hobbs is expected by June 2015.
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