You don’t have to love the guy’s choices to love the Constitution. The Denver Post reports Colorado will pay $245,000 to a Muslim inmate who says he was forced to shave his beard during prison intake in 2016, despite telling staff it violated his faith.
This played out inside the Colorado Department of Corrections, and it ended in a settlement after a long court fight. Stunning concept: paperwork and common sense could have been cheaper than a check with all our names on it.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Colorado agreed to pay $245,000 to settle a lawsuit over forced shaving of a Muslim inmate’s beard.
- The incident occurred during prison intake in July 2016 after a parole violation.
- The lawsuit says a correctional officer threatened discipline and solitary confinement if he refused to shave.
- The case dragged on for years and was settled in September, finalized in mid-January, per court records.
- CDOC did not provide an immediate comment in the article.
My Bottom Line
I’m old-fashioned: I like the First Amendment. If someone’s religious exercise is protected, the state doesn’t get to bulldoze it just because it is inconvenient, or because a policy was written by a committee that never met a human being.
Now the other side of the ledger: I also know David Lane is an attack attorney and thrives on finding cases like this. That doesn’t make the underlying issue fake, but let’s not pretend the incentive structure is church choir stuff. Lawsuits are a business model, and taxpayers are the captive customers.
Here’s the part they skip: the Colorado taxpayer is paying for this man’s incarceration and now we get to pay for his grevience. That is what happens when front-line systems are sloppy and management acts surprised later. If it worked, they wouldn’t need a settlement.
Protecting rights is non-negotiable, but preventable screw-ups should never get a blank check from the people who did nothing wrong.
The state managed to turn a beard into a quarter-million-dollar invoice. The fix is painfully simple: train intake staff on religious accommodations, write clear procedures that actually get followed, and enforce accountability so we stop learning the same damn lesson with a bigger price tag each time. And yes, show me the numbers on where settlement dollars go, because my guess is over half of that money will go to lane and the other half will go someplace that likely doesn’t have an overly strong love for the United States of America.
Source: Colorado state news, events, trends | The Denver Post
