California Court Considers Salami, Festivus

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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There are plenty of flaws with the California criminal justice system; actually, it can be pretty awful. But it’s not all bad news. The OC Register reports that earlier this year, an Orange County inmate successfully persuaded a Superior Court judge to accomodate his special religious diet:

Festivus may only come around once a year…but longtime county inmate Malcolm Alarmo King was able to celebrate it three times a day while locked up at the Theo Lacy jail in Orange.

King’s quest for a healthier eating option while behind bars ended with a county lawyer forced to research the origin of Festivus and its traditions and a Superior Court judge recognizing the holiday – which lodged its place in pop culture on an episode of “Seinfeld” – as a legitimate religion.

At issue was King’s objection to eating salami, which Orange County feeds its inmates. Key quote:

The Sheriff’s Department interviewed King about his religious leanings in May. When asked what his religion was, he answered “Healthism.”

A couple of quick points here: 1) Salami is horrible. More importantly, 2) this kind of thing actually happens all the time.

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA!) stipulates that authorities can only evaluate the sincerity, rather than the validity, of an inmate’s beliefs. As a result, thousands of inmates who aren’t really Jewish request and receive kosher meals each year simply by claiming that it’s a religious requirement. As Seattle Weekly reported in 2006, “interviews with Washington prisoners who have declared themselves Jewish and are receiving kosher food have yet to yield an actual Jew.”

Sometimes, this can reach the level of farce—like the 2008 case of Norman Lee Toler, a Missouri inmate who won the right to receive kosher meals despite having been disciplined by prison authorities for decorating his cell with photos of Hitler.

Still there are limits. In Strope v. Cline, “a Kansas federal district court rejected an inmate’s claim that his rights under the free exercise clause and RLUIPA were violated when authorities removed beef, tomatoes and cucumbers from the ‘common fare’ diet and frequently served peanut butter.” Actually, lawsuits over peanut butter are quite common.

I’d also refer you to the the landmark case, Stanko v. Patton, in which a federal court tossed out the complaint from a white supremacist who said his faith (the Church of the Creator), required a balanced diet of fresh fruit and nuts. This was initially reversed (pdf) by an appeals court, but the district court had the last, exquisite word: “Hate is not a religion and jails do not have to provide nuts and fresh fruits to satisfy the whims of haters.”

Haters gonna hate.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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