A Muslim inmate has plausibly alleged that the Colorado Department of Corrections and two food services workers violated his rights by canceling his religious diet, a federal judge decided in allowing the claims of Ray Anthony Smith to proceed.

Smith is seeking to force the department to update its food list to reflect items that are appropriate for a diet that is halal – or permissible under Islamic law – as well as to pay $1,000 for each day he was allegedly denied his religious diet, totaling 246 days.

Incarcerated at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in southeast Colorado, Smith believes the prison has improperly labeled some food items as halal when they are not. Conversely, some non-halal items are actually acceptable, but are not marked as such. That alleged discrepancy affected Smith’s compliance with a corrections policy stating that an inmate’s second violation of his religious diet “will result in cancellation of the diet for one year.”

“This is what Plaintiff is being accused of violating when he did no such thing; how can you correctly purchase, possess, or consume any food items that are not permitted under your religious diet when the list you order them from is not correctly marked…it is a catch 22 situation,” Smith wrote in his federal complaint.

Reportedly, prison staff terminated his halal diet in January 2020 because he consumed such items as kosher buffalo wing chips, tortilla chips and roast beef and gravy. Smith attempted to use the Qur’an to explain his dietary restrictions to no avail. He filed a lawsuit alleging the revocation of his halal diet placed a substantial burden on his religious exercise by forcing him to eat a non-halal diet against his beliefs or to forgo food altogether.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge William J. Martínez declined to dismiss Smith’s claims against the prison defendants. In doing so, he adopted the recommendations of U.S. Magistrate Judge Nina Y. Wang, who reviewed the case and determined that the government officers should not receive immunity for allegedly violating an inmate’s First Amendment and statutory right to a diet that complies with his faith.

“Given this clearly established right, the court finds that the CDOC Defendants were on notice that the wrongful revocation of an inmate’s religious diet could violate that inmate’s constitutional rights,” Wang wrote in October.

Beyond Smith’s religious exercise claims involving the revoked halal diet, he also alleged retaliation based on a letter he received from food and laundry administrator Charlene Crockett informing him that Sgt. Carlos Lopez had reported Smith for violating his gastroesophageal reflux disease medical diet. Lopez’s report of Smith “ordering foods with spices in them” came shortly after Smith had filed grievances related to the prison’s cancelation of his halal diet.

Smith saw Lopez’s report as retaliation for the grievances. Both Lopez and Crockett are named as defendants in Smith’s lawsuit.

Under the First Amendment, retaliation claims must show that a person performed a constitutionally-protected activity and that the defendant’s negative actions were substantially motivated by that activity. 

Wang’s review of the lawsuit found that Smith’s halal diet grievances and Lopez’s medical diet report happened within six weeks of each other, and the timing could conceivably show that Lopez had acted in retaliation for Smith’s assertion of his religious rights.

Lopez objected to her interpretation that he could be held liable.

“Mr. Smith admits that he violated his medical diet by ordering spicy foods prior to Defendant Lopez reporting him for violating his medical diet,” the Colorado Attorney General’s Office argued. “Because Mr. Smith admits that he violated his medical diet, it is implausible that the grievances he filed are the … cause for reporting the violation of his medical diet.”

Martínez rejected the government’s interpretation, noting that Smith had described his medical diet as one that merely “limits” spicy foods.

“A limit is a restriction on the amount of something permissible; therefore, the existence of a limit implies that some amount below the limit is permissible,” the judge wrote in his Dec. 2 order, finding no support for the claim that Smith had admitted to any violation.

Martínez did, however, agree to dismiss the other allegations by Smith. Those included a fraudulent misrepresentation claim stemming from the reported mislabeling of halal products, and his allegation that the certification nonprofit Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America was also liable for his First Amendment violations. Finally, the order dismissed Smith’s claims for monetary damages against the government defendants.

Smith is representing himself in the lawsuit. 

The case is one of several that have arisen in Colorado over the government’s alleged infringement upon the religious rights of inmates. A federal judge this summer reinstated the lawsuit of another Muslim prisoner alleging the Federal Bureau of Prisons failed to provide food that followed Islamic guidelines. Another Muslim inmate, since moved outside of Colorado, has asked the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit to let him pursue his claims of being denied access to group prayer while imprisoned.

On Thursday, a magistrate judge declined to recommend an injunction ordering the Colorado Department of Corrections to prepare kosher meals in a manner that satisfies one Orthodox Jewish inmate’s beliefs. However, the judge also authorized pro bono representation for the plaintiff, keeping alive the possibility of a court order against the department in the future.

The case is Smith v. Crockett et al.