Thursday, February 5, 2026
Page 3
Ninth Circuit:
Judge Erred in Questioning What Inmate’s Religion Requires
Opinion Says District Court Wrongly Denied Preliminary Relief to Death-Row Prisoner Based on Assertion That His Buddhist Beliefs Do Not Actually Demand That He Be Fed Halal Prison Diet With Self-Imposed Exceptions
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that a California death-row inmate, who claims to be a practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism, was wrongly denied preliminary relief as to a decision disenrolling him from a diet program designed for Muslim prisoners due to his discretionary purchases of non-compliant food based on a finding that his beliefs did not demand the special accommodations.
Declaring that it is not for judges to inquire into the details of an inmate’s belief system, the court said that “[t]he district court erroneously dictated the content of [the inmate’s] beliefs and questioned the centrality of those beliefs” in denying his request for a preliminary injunction.
Writing for the court, Circuit Judge Ryan D. Nelson explained:
“Judges ought not be Pharisees, decreeing from on high what practices are relevant to a prisoner’s understanding of his own faith….It is for [the prisoner] to determine whether being on [the Muslim-diet] satisfies [his] Nichiren Buddhist beliefs. And if external forces cause [him] to fall short of the exact dictates of his religion, it is for him and his conscience, not us as courts, to decide what compromises are appropriate. Thus, it is sufficient that [he] asserts that he sincerely believes that the [diet] program ‘is closest to his spiritual needs.’ ”’
Challenging Exclusion
Challenging his exclusion from the special diet offering was Maurice Lydell Harris, who was convicted of the 1994 murder of Alicia Allen and her unborn child inside a Gardena residence. A jury found true special circumstances, including that the killings were carried out during the commission of a robbery, and sentenced him to death.
In 2007, Harris, who became a practicing Nichiren Buddhist while in prison, asked the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (“CDCR”) to provide a diet that complies with his religious beliefs, which he described as requiring him to “eat wisely” and avoid “highly processed,” non-organic, and artificial foods.
CDCR suggested that he choose from four meal plan alternatives, including kosher, vegetarian, plant-based, and the Religious Meat Alternative Program (“RMAP”), which provides meals with halal-certified meat that is slaughtered in accordance with Islamic religious requirements. He selected the RMAP option after a prison chaplain purportedly advised him that it was the closest fit to his religious demands.
Enrollees in RMAP must agree to allow officials to monitor their discretionary food purchases to ensure halal-compliance so CDCR employees can filter out prisoners who sign up simply as a matter of preference.
Multiple Citations
After he was cited multiple times for canteen purchases that included pork rinds, beef steaks, salami, and meat-flavored instant ramen, he filed a complaint against CDCR officials and chaplains in 2021, asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”) based on allegations that his religious rights were being violated.
In the operative complaint, he asserted that “[the] [d]efendants are conditioning his ability to maintain a GMO-free diet, as his Buddhist religion requires,” on otherwise eating in compliance with an Islamic tradition.
After he was disenrolled from the program in 2023, he moved for preliminary relief, requesting that he be “[]placed back into” RMAP without being restricted to buying only halal-compliant foods. He claimed that his purchases at the canteen were made after the prison began replacing meat with vegetarian options, leaving him lightheaded and interfering with his religious goal of achieving “enlightenment.”
District Court Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. of the Northern District of California denied the request in April 2024, saying:
“Expulsion from the RMAP diet would…not affect Plaintiff’s ability to observe his religion….[B]ecause the RMAP diet does not fulfill the dictates of Plaintiff’s religion, requiring Plaintiff to abide by the restrictions in the RMAP diet does not treat Plaintiff differently from [other] inmates and does not require Plaintiff to abide by another religion’s requirements to receive a diet compliant with his religion.”
Preliminary Relief
Nelson noted that, in order to obtain a preliminary injunction, Harris must establish a likelihood of success on the merits and of irreparable harm as well as show that the requested relief is in the public interest and favored by the balance of equities.
Saying that “[t]he district court erred by considering impermissible factors when it held that Harris is unlikely to succeed on the merits,” the judge opined that if he “shows an injury to his religious freedom rights, then the other factors will likely tip in his favor.”
RLUIPA provides that “[n]o government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person residing in or confined to an institution” unless “imposition…is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest[] and…is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”
Acknowledging that “[p]rison officials may deny a special diet if they find that the prisoner is insincere in his religious beliefs,” Nelson remarked that no such showing was made. He wrote:
“Harris sufficiently shows that the prison imposed a substantial burden on his religious exercise as he understands and interprets his faith. His Second Amended Complaint details how his removal from RMAP leaves him to choose ‘between his religious diet or receiving a prison violation, and possible loss of his religious diet accommodation of fifteen years.’ By conditioning his ability to receive the diet which most aligns with his beliefs on whether he keeps Islamic dietary laws, Harris has shown a substantial burden on his religious exercise.”
Judicial Assessment
Reasoning that “[h]olding otherwise imposes a judicial assessment of what diet is required by Harris’s Nichiren Buddhist faith,” he commented:
“But ‘[i]t is not within the judicial ken to question the centrality of particular beliefs or practices to a faith, or the validity of particular litigants’ interpretations of those creeds.’…[I]t is sufficient that Harris asserts that he sincerely believes that the RMAP program ‘is closest to his spiritual needs.’ In holding that an Islamic diet is not required by Harris’s Buddhist faith, the district court erred by discounting Harris’s own understanding of his faith—that he should eat meat as close ‘to its natural state as possible’— and instead reduced his faith to requiring a non-GMO diet.”
Saying that his canteen purchases do not invalidate his assertion, he said:
“Harris’s departures from the Islamic diet—or even a Buddhist diet— do not demonstrate that his beliefs do not require him to adhere to that diet if possible….Each man’s faith is his own, and judges must avoid questioning whether a prisoner has strictly abided by the letter of his own sincere belief.”
Adding that “[n]either the district court nor the prison inquired into the sincerity of Harris’s beliefs, only their centrality to his religion,” he declared that “[t]he district court should consider that issue in the first instance.”
Yesterday’s opinion, joined in by Circuit Judge Patrick J. Bumatay and Senior Circuit Judge David F. Hamilton of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting by designation, vacates Gilliam’s denial and remands for the District Court to conduct a proper analysis that does not include “question[ing] the centrality” of Harris’ beliefs.
The case is Harris v. Muhammad, 24-3307.
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