Posted on 11/09/2015 4:55:59 AM PST by HomerBohn
Despite settling a similar case in 2013, the Michigan Department of Corrections is once again being sued by Muslim inmates who claim they were starved during Ramadan.
During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast during the daytime and eat at night. Such a practice presents a problem behind bars, where the routine of prison life revolves around a fixed schedule of meals. The MDoC gave Muslim inmates a choice: They could either break their fast and eat, or stay true to their religion and starve. Heard and his colleagues chose the latter but then sued.
After the initial suit, the courts ruled that the inmates’ religious rights could not be violated. However, in the newest legal action the inmates’ lawyers argue that the earlier court order was ignored, and the MDoC continued to deprive their clients of sufficient nutrition repeatedly.
In the original lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan in 2009, Lamont Heard and three other inmates complained they had received less than half the calories prisons are required to feed inmates during their Ramadan fast.
The court in 2013 ruled in favor of the inmates’ constitutional religious rights, awarding them $450 in damages and ordering MDoC to put 2,350 calories on the plaintiffs’ trays during Ramadan. However, the violations continued and the inmates and their new attorney from the Michigan State University’s Civil Rights Clinic filed a supplement to the lawsuit. That supplement will seek $20,000 in damages for each plaintiff, and the case will go before a jury.
According to the complaint, the inmates should have received 352,000 calories during the five weeks of Ramadan, but instead consumed somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000, causing the prisoners to shed up to seven pounds weekly. In each Ramadan between 2009 and 2012, the plaintiffs were fed as little as 1,000 calories a day, the complaint states. Following the judge’s 2013 order, the MDoC upped the count to 1,900 on good days, according to court documents.
Dan Manville, attorney with MSU Civil Rights Clinic, told Vice that the continued violation stems from incompetence. Previously, the state had dropped an extra scoop of food on the Muslim inmates’ Ramadan dinner trays, but the department changed its policies following 2009 budget cuts.
“It seems like an act of stupidity more than anything,†Manville told Vice.
“I don’t think there was anyone conspiring against them in the head echelon of DOC, but [MDoC bosses] just didn’t understand the reality of what happens in life. You’re supposed to feed prisoners 2,350 calories a day, whether it’s in two meals or three meals.â€
Eff you Muslims. You get one form of food. BACON.
Unless my math is off, that's about 10,000 calories/day. Holy crap!
Don’t do the crime and you won’t do the time so you can eat what and when you want.
Easy peasy for night owls and those who work the night shift.
Ramadam, eh.
Ram a dam half a pork toast down their filthy throats.
NO! Not bacon. OUr central communist government has caused that price to skyrocket.
Oatmeal...no milk and no sugar....bad for big Ram a Dam man.
No TV and clean clothes monthly as they’ll consider that an improvement.
Two meals of oats daily shoved under their cage.
With ball and chain assign them to very hard work out of doors in Winter and in Summer.
But it’s disgusting to rape a muslim woman. Not only is her body covered with hair and lice, but she never brushes her rotten teeth. So, you see why Muslim man want rape young virgin German, French, Swede, Dane, or Norwegian girl.
You’ve got it all wrong.
There are no deer in Dearborn, Michigan, deer are way up in the hill.
I’ve never been to Dearborn, Michigan and I don’t think I ever will.
Winchester Cathedral, you’re bringing me down
As soon as your bell started ringing, my sweetheart left town.
(Ah those crazy, lazy days of a bygone era when there weren’t any lousy Muslims corroding the fabric of American life.
Let’s revive those happy days and meet one or two of our Muslim friends and take them down to the dump and shoot rats with them.)
yummo!
Wonder about the muslim demographics: Prison converts vs “cradle” muslims in America legally vs “cradle” muslims here illegally.
#mooseelimprivlege?
“But it’s disgusting to rape a muslim woman. Not only is her body covered with hair and lice, but she never brushes her rotten teeth. So, you see why Muslim man want rape young virgin German, French, Swede, Dane, or Norwegian girl.” or boy...
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