Muslim convicts now can grow longer beards

AUSTIN — Muslim convicts in Texas cannot be prevented from growing beards up to 4 inches long or from wearing religious skullcaps in cell blocks, a federal appeals court has ruled.

In a Monday ruling, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans refused a request by state prison officials allow them to continue banning beards and kufis, knit skullcaps worn by Mus- lims, for convicts in Texas’ 108 state prisons.

The decision capped a lawsuit that began in 2009 when David Rasheed Ali, serving concurrent 20year sentences for aggravated robbery and arson from Freestone and Limestone counties, alleged the prison rules prevented him from exercising his religious beliefs.

When the suit was filed, prison policy required convicts to be clean-shaven, although those with skin conditions could grow a quarter-inch beard. Last year, Texas began allowing inmates to grow half-inch beards as part of their religious practices after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prisoners had a right to facial hair as an expression of their faiths.

Texas Prison officials had opposed Ali’s demand, arguing that a longer beard and the knit cap could make it easier for convicts to conceal contraband including weapons.

Ali, 33, is a low-security trusty at the Michael Unit near Tennessee Colony in northeast Texas. Court testimony showed he currently is allowed to wear his kufi in his trusty dorm but not in the rest of the prison.

“Although we must respect a prison official’s expertise” on safety matters, Justice Edward Prado wrote for the court’s threejudge pane that the U.S. Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act requires policies that infringe on religious practice to be the “least restric- tive” possible.

Under the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s current procedures, corrections officers require convicts with longer hair to run it through with their fingers to prove it is free of contraband – a policy Prado said could apply with four-inch beards.

Prison officials said they were reviewing the decision, and had not decided whether to appeal.