CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – The state prison should not take away religious diets from sincerely religious inmates, a federal magistrate said in a case involving an orthodox Jew.
Inmate Albert Kuperman was given three prepackaged kosher meals a day and was allowed to buy kosher items from the prison canteen. But prison officials took Kuperman off the kosher diet three times after he was caught with non-kosher foods.
Kuperman’s lawyers said revoking his kosher diet violated his First Amendment right to practice religion, and U.S. Magistrate Judge James Muirhead agreed.
“If a diabetic inmate were placed on a medically appropriate diet and was then caught purchasing a candy bar from the canteen, the prison would not be justified in removing the inmate from his medical diet and forcing him to eat a high sugar diet for six months for the violation,” Muirhead wrote. “Similarly, an inmate eating an extra helping or unauthorized item isn’t restricted to bread and water for six months.”
Kuperman signed a form acknowledging that the punishment for eating non-kosher food would be a six-month suspension of his kosher diet, but Kuperman testified at a hearing that he bought meat from the canteen for another inmate who was “strong-arming” him. Kuperman said he did not eat it.
The magistrate’s report also said Kuperman was accused of eating non-kosher chicken from the prison kitchen.
Muirhead agreed with Kuperman’s lawyer, who argued it served no legitimate security purpose to punish a sincerely religious inmate by barring an essential religious practice.
“Removing an orthodox Jew from a kosher diet serves, religiously speaking, to distance an inmate from his own spirituality and religious practice,” Muirhead wrote. “Such a move has a direct negative impact on the inmate’s ability to better himself or maintain himself spiritually.”
The prison could instead punish him by revoking his canteen privileges, requiring him to eat in his cell or even placing him in isolation, Muirhead said. Such punishments also would discourage other inmates from faking religious belief to get better food, he said.
Albert Kuperman is serving 3 to 7 years on charges he sexually molested a girl under 13. He was 18 at the time of the crime in 2002, said state prison spokesman Jeffrey Lyons.
While his kosher diet was suspended, the prison chaplain arranged to have him put on a vegetarian diet so he wouldn’t have to eat non-kosher meat, and arranged to have some packaged kosher foods brought in to help him observe Jewish holidays.
Kuperman’s kosher diet was restored last week. Muirhead issued his report and recommendation on April 18. It must be approved by a U.S. District Court judge.
AP-ES-04-30-07 1436EDT
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