New York, USA - Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, told the State of New York in 1994 that it must allow prison inmates who practice Santeria to wear multi-colored beads. Santeria is a sect that combines African religious traditions with elements drawn from Roman Catholicism.
In the case of Campos v. Coughlin , Sotomayor told state prison officials that their fear of a growing gang movement within the prison was less important than the right of Santeria faithful to wear religious beads.
Then a Southern District of New York federal judge, Sotomayor claimed in Campos v. Coughlin that the New York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) had engaged in what she called an “erroneous deprivation” of the rights of Santeria followers Tony Campos and Alex Lance, by expressing an “unabashed bias” towards Christianity.
Santeria, a religion which came to the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993 in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, is relatively unknown in the United States. With adherents in Cuba and elsehwere in the Caribbean, Santeria juxtaposes African polytheism with Roman Catholic saints and rosary beads.
The saints, or orishas, as they are referred to in Santeria, are considered gods and goddesses honored by the faithful. Each devotee has a specific orisha as their patron and guide, which they venerate with shrines, sacrifices and the daily wearing of multicolored beads. These beads signify, according to Santeria beliefs, devotion to their patron and in return gain the wearers positive lives.
The plaintiffs, Campos and Lance, filed suit on First and 14th Amendment grounds that they were denied the right to wear religious beads, which they said were the “hallmark” of their beliefs.
Under a New York corrections system rule, inmates were allowed to wear under their clothing “only traditionally accepted religious medals, crucifixes or crosses” that are affixed to chains.
“It is not acceptable to wear religious medals, crucifixes or crosses that are affixed to beads, leather, strings, or rope,” the state regulation states. “The religious medal, crucifix, or cross on a chain, shall not be of such size and design that can be used as a weapon, conceal contraband, or constitute any other threat to the security or safety of the institution."
Under the state’s policy, religious beads “like rosary, Dhikr, or ‘any other traditionally accepted prayer beads’” cannot be worn but may be possessed with permission,” the policy added.
However, Judge Sotomayor ruled that this policy violated the inmates’ constitutional rights.
“Directive #4202 establishes a hierarchy of religious artifacts, with those items recognized by DOCS personnel as ‘traditional,’ such as crucifixes and crosses, receiving preferred treatment in that inmates may receive and possess and wear them, under their clothing, without DOCS’s prior approval,” the judge wrote.
Sotomayor also said that the state correctional services department was “blind” to the distinctions made between religions in Directive #4202, which she said impinged on the plantiffs’ rights.
“These distinctions--distinctions which favor ‘traditional’ over ‘nontraditional’ religions--are more intolerable than any distinction which would permit the wearing of beads by Santeria adherents.” Sotomayor wrote.
Sotomayor drew a distinction between the Santeria beads and those of “traditional” medals and prayer beads to inmates
“Only in the case of Santeria beads,” she wrote, “does the failure to wear them, according to plaintiffs’ beliefs, result in negative and possibly irreversible life consequences for the practitioner.”
It was up to the state corrections system to prove that the inmates were gang members, Sotomayor said, or else the prison was required to allow the inmates to wear the distinctive beads.
“Defendants’ further concern that some currently non-existent inmate group may in the future form and adopt the colors, or that existing gangs may change colors, to coincide with the colors of plaintiffs’ Santeria beads, and then choose to wear them under their clothing without public display, is nothing less than ‘pure speculation,’ which, as I have already stated, cannot and should not be the basis for burdening plaintiffs’ constitutional rights,” she wrote.
“Even if defendants (DOCS) had presented cogent and compelling evidence establishing a correlation between the wearing of Santeria beads and gang violence, defendants have failed to dispute plantiffs’ allegations that they are not gang members or that the beads they request to wear do not reflect any gang colors,” Sotomayor added.
After her review of Campos v. Coughlin, Sotomayor ruled in favor of the plaintiffs' preliminary injunction and ordered the state to allow the inmates to possess and wear the beads.
Hearings on the Sotomayor nomination begin the week of July 13.