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A Prisoner's Right To Religious Diet Beyond The Free Exercise Clause, 51 Ucla L. Rev. 1151 (2004), Benjamin Liu

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Are religious prisoners entitled to dietary accommodations consistent with their religious beliefs? The current answer for this question derives from two 1987 cases, Turner v. Safley and O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, in which the U.S. Supreme Court articulated a factor-driven balancing test. Under this test, a prison regulation may burden an inmate's rights only if, on balance, the regulation reasonably serves a penological interest. However, the application of the Turner test often leads to conflicting results in the lower courts. The conflicting legal decisions stem from ambiguities in the concept of "reasonableness." In this Comment, I argue that the …