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Northwest State Correctional Facility. Photo by Cory Dawson/VTDigger

BURLINGTON – A Muslim inmate suing top Department of Corrections officials over claims that prison food does not meet his religious dietary needs is pressing ahead to make his lawsuit a class action.



Justin Russell has been engaged in a long-running battle in federal court in Vermont with the corrections department over access to halal food for nearly four years.



Now, Russell, through his attorney David Bond, is making a push to add other Muslim inmates to the lawsuit. Russell is currently incarcerated at Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton.



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Bond said previous attempts to make the case a class action have failed due to the lack of proof of other inmates who would likely join the lawsuit. However, Bond said, when he went to the Swanton facility early this week he found several willing to join the case.



Six inmates signed affidavits saying they would like to be added to the case, he said Tuesday.



Michael Touchette, Vermont’s corrections commissioner, named as a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment on the matter. He said the department does not comment on pending litigation.



While there is no set number for a case to proceed as a class action, Bond said, typically that number hovers around 40 for federal courts in the district circuit that includes Vermont. He said he expected he could easily meet that number based on the six who signed affidavits this week in just one Vermont prison facility.



“(Russell) has reached out to his fellow Muslim brothers in DOC custody with a message of hope that this litigation will someday help bring an end to the denial of free exercise and equal protection rights that Muslim inmates are subjected to within the custody of Vermont DOC,” Bond wrote of his client in a recent filing. “He cares deeply about the issues presented.”



Russell, in his civil rights lawsuit, claims that corrections officials are violating his constitutional right stemming from a policy that provides Muslim inmates with prepackaged kosher meals instead of halal meals.



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“One of the fundamental tenets of Islam is the consumption of a Halal diet. ‘Halal’ simply means permissible according to the Quran. Food that is not Halal is ‘Haram,’ or forbidden,” the lawsuit stated.



“Although there are many considerations that come into play in determining whether food is Halal or Haram, the Quran absolutely prohibits the consumption of pork, blood, or alcohol,” according to the lawsuit. “In addition, all meat and meat by-products must come from ritually slaughtered animals.”



While kosher dietary restrictions are similar to halal, they are not the same, the lawsuit stated.



“Alcohol may be permissible in certain forms to persons keeping Kosher. However it is never anything but Haram to Muslims,” according to the lawsuit. “Likewise, the slaughter of animals is performed according to different rituals, and by adherents of a different faith.”



The corrections department, the lawsuit stated, switched on a “system-wide basis” to prepackaged “kosher/halal” meals in late 2014 and early 2015.



“They’re taking the position that kosher is interchangeable with halal,” Bond said of the corrections department, “which is contrary to our position.”



Justin Russell

In the lawsuit, Russell is seeking an injunction ordering the department to rollback that switch and go back to how halal meals were handled prior to late 2014 by preparing them on site using halal ingredients.



Russell and those other inmates willing to join the lawsuit, Bond said, are now eating food they believe is not halal and are praying for forgiveness.



Also, Bond said, when he went to the correctional facility in Swanton earlier this week he discovered that the corrections department was no longer serving the prepackaged “kosher/halal” meals there.



“All they’re doing now is saying there is no pork in the food so it’s halal, which is completely wrong,” he said. “So we’re going to try to turn it into a class action.”



At a hearing in the case Wednesday, the parties argued whether an expert witness, an imam, who supports the state’s position should be allowed to testify if the case goes to trial.



Magistrate Judge John Conroy took the matter under advisement and said he would “promptly” issue a written ruling.



Conroy did ask several questions during the hearing.



“Wouldn’t the fact that some members of the plaintiff’s religious community hold a contrary interpretation of Islamic dietary requirements be at least relevant to the sincerity of the plaintiff’s religious beliefs,” Conroy said to Bond.



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Bond responded that according to past case law it comes down to what his client believes.



“Ultimately, you could have a religion of one,” Bond told Conroy. “We’re not in that position by any means. There’s millions of people who hold similar beliefs to Mr. Russell.”



Tabitha Bono is an attorney for Trinity Services Group and argued in support of allowing the testimony of the imam.



Assistant Attorney General David McLean, who also attended the hearing Wednesday, told the judge during the proceeding that the state has a contract with the Florida-based Trinity Services Group “for designing religious meals.”



Bono told Conroy that the case centers on whether Russell’s religious belief is a “sincere” religious belief.



Bono then talked about a deposition that was taken earlier of Russell. “He was asked where in the Quran he gets his beliefs,” Bono said of Russell. And she said, “He did not know.”



Bond, speaking later in the hearing, went back to that point.



“Mr. Russell was asked where in the Quran do find your beliefs,” Bond told the judge. “If I were challenged, where in the Bible did I find my beliefs, I’d very hard pressed to be able to cite chapter and verse.”



Bond added, “It’s a big book, as is the Quran.”



Asked after the hearing how much in damages he is seeking for his client and others, Bond said that hasn’t been determined. “I haven’t attempted to sort out how we might present that to a jury yet,” he said.



Russell, according to court filing, has served time in a variety of different correctional facilities in Vermont. He also had been released for a period as the lawsuit has remained pending, but has since been reincarcerated.



According to the state’s online prisoner locator, Russell is currently being held without bail on an aggravated assault charge. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and is awaiting trial.



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