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The plaintiff, Tracey Taylor, a pretrial detainee in the Cook County Department of Corrections (Illinois), brought an action, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, against the respondents Cook County and Sheriff Thomas Dart for alleged violations of his civil rights in denying him access to Islamic prayer services and by failing to serve ḥalāl meat (prepared in accordance with Islamic law). The respondents moved for summary judgment after alleging that Taylor failed to exhaust his administrative remedies and failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether they violated his constitutional rights. The Court granted summary judgment for the respondents, determining that the denial of Islamic prayer services was related to a legitimate penological interest, and that the prison had adequately provided the plaintiff with sufficiently nutritious Islamic meals, even though they were vegetarian/vegan.

The plaintiffs, two Muslim prisoners, sued state and prison officials for failing to provide Muslim inmates with ḥalāl meat options while incarcerated. The defendants claimed that inmates in the custody of the state are not entitled, under either the First Amendment or RLUIPA, to a diet that includes ritually-slaughtered meat. The defendants also requested summary judgment because they claimed that Wells-Bey did not have an allergy to eggs that inhibited his ability to eat a lacto-ovo diet as a substitute for meat. The Court determined that the defendant was not entitled to summary judgment because the plaintiff claimed he had an egg allergy and therefore could not subsist off the vegetarian meal plan; however, the Court allowed the defendants to refile their motion if they were able to obtain more information about the plaintiff's "alleged allergy."

The petitioners, Elwood "Atheem" Small and Parlie DuBose, Jr., alleged that their First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when they were strip-searched in the presence of women and when their participation in religious holiday events was, according to prison policy, conditioned upon their signing a document that allegedly placed restrictions on their religious practice. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted the respondent's motion to dismiss the claim. The petitioners appealed. The Appellate Court affirmed the District Court's dismissal. The Appellate Court held that the Ramadan policy was reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. The Appellate Court also determined that the practice of strip-searching the petitioners in a group of inmates in the presence of female staff members did not violate the petitioners' Fourth Amendment rights, because exigent circumstances existed that necessitated the search.

Faris Matiyn, an inmate at the Attica prison, mounted a § 1983 claim against the commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections and prison superintendent Walter Kelly. The plaintiff alleged that the prison violated his First Amendment free exercise right by not allowing Sunnī and Shīʿī Muslims—the two major Muslim denominations—to have separate worship services. The Court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant, concluding that the plaintiff did not speak for the majority of the Sunnī Muslim community and that keeping the two groups together satisfied legitimate penological objectives, such as maintaining a safe prison environment. 

The Plaintiffs, two Muslim prisoners, challenged prison policies that 1) failed to provide adequately nutritional ḥalāl meals, and 2) denied them the ritual end-of-Ramadan feast. The District Court found that the ḥalāl meals provided did not substantially burden the Plaintiffs' religious practice. The District Court also decided that although the denial of the ritual feast marking the end of Ramadan substantially burdened the Plaintiffs' beliefs, the prison demonstrated that this policy was the least restrictive means of achieving the government's interest in security.

Plaintiff William C. McKinnedy, a South Carolina inmate, brought this suit against the Respondents, over 30 South Carolina Department of Corrections (“SCDC”) staff members and state government officials, alleging that the Respondents violated his religious beliefs by 1) refusing to provide a food tray prior to sun-up during Ramadan; and 2) not allowing the Plaintiff to attend the Eid feast at the conclusion of Ramadan. The Respondents filed a motion for summary judgment, stating that on multiple occasions the Plaintiff informed the Chaplain that he did not consider himself part of the Muslim community. The Magistrate Court granted summary judgment for the Defendants, determining that the Defendants’ refusal to allow the Plaintiff to participate in Ramadan was related to a legitimate penological interest, such as security concerns.

Prison inmate Lawrence Cochran filed a §1983 claim against prison officials for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights by not allowing him to have food in his cell at night to break the Ramadan fast and by limiting his attendance of religious services. The Court granted the motion for summary judgment in favor of the defendants, holding that incarceration necessarily curtails some freedom, and that, in this context, the curtailment did not go so far as to place a substantial burden on Muslim inmates’ ability to practice their religion.

Plaintiff James McRoy claimed that prison officials violated his First Amendment free exercise rights by cancelling some of the scheduled Muslim prayer services without notice, limiting the number of services that Muslim inmates could attend each week, limiting the number of Muslim inmates who could attend each service at any given time, subjecting Muslim inmates to strip searches before they could leave their cells to attend services, prohibiting imams from bringing religious publications onto the prison’s premises, and prohibiting Muslim inmates from exclusively living together in one of the prison’s living units. The prison officials, however, claimed that their actions resulted from a lack of volunteers to organize services and the need to curtail inmate movement on some days because of heightened security concerns. The Court held that McRoy did not sufficiently demonstrate that a jury could conclude that he had been subjected to a violation of his rights. It thus entered summary judgment in favor of the defendants.

The Court reversed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York’s grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant prison officials, John McGinnis, Patrick McGann, and Gordon Lord. Plaintiff Wayne Ford sued under § 1983, alleging a violation of his First Amendment rights by the denial of his request to attend the Eid al-Fitr feast (the holiday at the end of Ramadan); prison officials had moved the event to fall several days after its official occurrence in order that it coincide with a weekend. Defendants argued that their denial of plaintiff inmate’s request to attend the event did not amount to a constitutional violation because the event, once moved, no longer fell on a date of religious significance. The Court concluded that summary judgment was inappropriate because the matter required closer scrutiny of the Turner/O’Lone Test (which balances prisoners' religious accommodation requests with legitimate penological concerns) than the District Court accorded it before finding in favor of either party.

Petitioner Tyrone Walker alleged that the prison violated his civil rights when it refused to provide him with the opportunity to participate in jumu'ah (Friday prayer) services when he was confined to the SHU. The District Court determined that the Respondent did not violate the Petitioner's rights under RLUIPA, as the Respondent's decision to deny the requests for access to Friday prayer services through closed-circuit television or through an audio feed was reasonably related to articulable, legitimate penological interests, which included the safety and the cost of installing the necessary equipment.

The plaintiff, Sefidkar Janali, a Shi'a Muslim, claimed that he should be allowed to attend a worship service apart from Sunni Muslims. The plaintiff alleged that the prison violated his First Amendment rights and RLUIPA because Muslims are not allowed different worship times, while other denominations have separate times. The plaintiff also alleged that he should be provided a ḥalāl diet (upon entering the prison, he was given the choice of a regular meal, vegetarian meal, or Jewish Kosher meals). The District Court found that the prison officials did not violate the plaintiff's First Amendment or RLUIPA rights because there were legitimate security and administrative concerns with offering separate Shi'a and Sunni services. The District Court similarly found that the meal options provided for Muslim inmates was adequate because they were lawful options for Muslims. The District Court therefore granted summary judgment for the respondents.

The plaintiff, state prisoner Horace Crump, filed suit against a Michigan Department of Corrections chaplain, David Leslie. The plaintiff alleged that he was barred from attending Friday prayer (jumu'a) services in retaliation for informing Muslim prisoners that the prison's suspension of Islamic religious services was unconstitutional. The respondent moved for summary judgment. The District Court granted summary judgment for the respondent, finding that the plaintiff failed to adequately state his need to attend these services to the prison.

Plaintiff William Welch claimed the Saginaw Correctional Facility violated his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion by providing meals that provided insufficient nutrition and calories. The appellate court agreed that Welch had demonstrated a potential violation of his constitutional rights, and affirmed the district court's earlier denial of qualified immunity to the defendants. 

Plaintiff Leila Diab, an observant Muslim teacher who was hired to teach social studies and English as a second language, filed a suit against the Respondents, the Chicago Board of Education and John F. Kennedy High School Principal George Szkapiak, alleging that the Respondents discriminated and retaliated against her, and further subjected her to a hostile work environment, on the basis of her Islamic faith. The Plaintiff alleged that she was forced to resign from her teaching position following anti-Islamic comments made by the principal and various teachers at the Kennedy high school. The Plaintiff further claimed that she received a hate mail note (which read: “Israel is doing OK) and that her Qur'an was desecrated on school property [in violation of norms taken to be governed by Islamic ritual law, of treating the Qur'an with respect]. In response, the Respondents filed a motion for summary judgment, seeking dismissal of the complaint. The District Court determined that in order to prevail on her discrimination claims, the Plaintiff had to show that the Respondents subjected her to an adverse employment action, such as: "(1) termination or reduction in compensation, fringe benefits, or other financial terms of employment; (2) transfers or changes in job duties that cause an employee's skills to atrophy and reduce future career prospects; and (3) unbearable changes in job conditions, such as a hostile work environment or conditions amounting to constructive discharge." Barton v. Zimmer, Inc., 662 F.3d 448, 2011 WL 4921603, at *4 (7th Cir. 2011). The Court granted the Respondent’s motion as to the Plaintiff’s hostile work environment claims, finding that it could not conclude that a reasonable jury would find the note, taken together with the Qur'an incident nine months later, to create a hostile work environment. While the Court acknowledge that the incidents may have proved upsetting to her, it observed that the two incidents were not repeated and did not involve any physical contact or verbal abuse.

The plaintiff, Dominic Ali, a Muslim inmate at the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility, sued several prison officials for allegedly violating his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), and the state's constitution. The plaintiff alleged that the prison failed to provide jumu'a (Friday prayer) services for Muslim inmates, failed to ensure that he was provided with healthy food during Ramadan (the Islamic month of fasting), and denied him the ability to observe Ramadan by removing his name from the prison's internal Ramadan fasting list. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the plaintiff's claims should be dismissed because he did not exhaust his administrative remedies before bringing suit. The Court agreed: it found that the plaintiff had not brought his grievances to the attention of the prison's commissioner, and therefore granted the defendants' motion.

The plaintiffs, a group of inmates held at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute in Concord, filed suit against Massachusetts prison officials for alleged violations of their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). The plaintiffs alleged that the prison officials violated these rights by refusing to provide separate accommodations for adherents of the Nation of Islam, whose practices (according to one of the plaintiffs) are "distinctly different" from those of Sunnī Islam. The magistrate judge recommended that the defendants' motion to dismiss be allowed because the plaintiffs had not yet exhausted their administrative remedies within the prison system.

The plaintiff, Michael Mootry, sued prison officials for implementing a policy that he claimed constituted a violation of his First Amendment rights. The policy banned inmate ministers from leading religious services without the direct supervision of a hired chaplain or volunteer. As a result of this policy, for two years, Muslim inmates were not accommodated with a hired chaplain to supervise jumu'a (Friday prayer) services. The Court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss because it found that the defendants knew about the plaintiff being prevented from participating in the prayer services, that this was an ongoing issue, and that they did nothing to correct the situation.

The plaintiff, Kiaza Loccenitt, a Muslim inmate in the custody of the New York City Department of Correction, sued New York City and several prison officials for allegedly violating his civil rights by denying him ḥalāl meals and by denying him and other Muslim inmates in his unit the services of an imām (Muslim chaplain). The plaintiff alleged violations of his rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, as well as New York Corrections Law § 610. In response to the defendants' motion for summary judgment, the Court dismissed the plaintiff's claims against some of the prison officials (who were not directly involved in the alleged violations or the creation of policies that led to the alleged violations), but allowed the plaintiff to file an amended complaint to add factual details to his allegation about being denied ḥalāl meals, and about "the impact of that denial on the practice of his religion."

Plaintiff Leo Pittman-Bey, a Muslim inmate, sued Texas prison officials for allegedly violating the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and his constitutional right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment by denying him after-sunset meals during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Previous prison regulations allowed practicing Muslim inmates to receive after-sunset meals during Ramadan, but only if they had attended jumuʿa (Friday prayer) services in the 60 days prior to Ramadan or had received a special exception from the Muslim chaplain. Pittman-Bey did not attend the services because, as an adherent of the Ḥanafī school of Sunnī Islam, he said he believed that jumuʿa services are not proper if conducted in nonpublic settings like prisons. The District Court granted summary judgment for the defendants, determining that denying Ramadan meals in accordance with the jumuʿa attendance policy did not violate the First Amendment.

Plaintiff Dorian Davis challenged the Kern Valley State Prison policy that prohibited Muslim prisoners from purchasing and possessing prayer oils in their cells. The prison officials, however, claimed that a compelling governmental interest made their policy the least restrictive means of ensuring prison safety. The District Court agreed with them, determining that the prison did not violate the plaintiff's First Amendment rights because the Muslim chaplain had previously provided contraband to prisoners; in addition, it found that RLUIPA rights were not violated because the prison had to cancel Friday prayer services until another Muslim chaplain could be hired.