Supreme Court Bars Lawsuit After Prison Guards Shaved Inmate’s Dreadlocks
Damon Landor, a Rastafarian, tried to sue Louisiana prison officials for violating his religious rights.
Reporting from Washington
June 23, 2026Updated 2:18 p.m. ET
The Supreme Court said on Tuesday that a Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were forcibly shaved by prison guards could not sue state employees for money.
In a 6-to-3 vote dividing the court along ideological lines, the majority said federal law did not allow the prisoner, Damon Landor, to sue individual guards in their private capacity for violating his religious beliefs.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, saying there were limits to Congress’s power to attach strings to the federal money given to state institutions like the Louisiana prison where Mr. Landor was held. The three liberal justices dissented, warning that the court’s decision would leave few options for state prisoners whose religious rights were violated.
In a statement, Mr. Landor said: “I am disappointed but not defeated. What happened to me violated my faith and my dignity,” and it “should not happen to anyone else.”
The decision was a departure from a series of Supreme Court rulings in recent years that have repeatedly bolstered religious rights. In 2022, the court sided with a Texas death row inmate who wanted his pastor to touch him and pray aloud at the time of his execution. That same year, the court said a high school football coach had a constitutional right to pray at the 50-yard line after his team’s games.
The Trump administration and lawyers for the former inmate, Mr. Landor, had urged the Supreme Court to allow his lawsuit to proceed.
When Mr. Landor reported for a five-month sentence for drug possession in Louisiana, he had not cut his hair for almost two decades, in keeping with his faith. His dreadlocks fell nearly to his knees.
