(Colorado Politics) A Muslim inmate has plausibly alleged that the Colorado Department of Corrections and two food services workers violated his rights by canceling his religious diet, a federal judge decided in allowing the claims of Ray Anthony Smith to proceed.
Smith is seeking to force the department to update its food list to reflect items that are appropriate for a diet that is halal — or permissible under Islamic law — as well as to pay $1,000 for each day he was allegedly denied his religious diet, totaling 246 days.
Incarcerated at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in southeast Colorado, Smith believes the prison has improperly labeled some food items as halal when they are not. Conversely, some non-halal items are actually acceptable, but are not marked as such. That alleged discrepancy affected Smith’s compliance with a corrections policy stating that an inmate’s second violation of his religious diet “will result in cancellation of the diet for one year.”
