Prison’s Shower Policy Survives First Amendment Scrutiny Over Prisoner’s Free Exercise Challenge

In Rodriguez v. Burnside, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit considered whether two Georgia prison policies that governed the transportation of inmates to showers interfered with the plaintiff inmate’s First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. “To test whether a state prison regulation violates an inmate’s constitutional rights, courts ask whether the regulation is reasonably related to a legitimate penological interest.” Because the prison’s regulation survived this strict scrutiny, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the prison officials.

Jonathan F. Hughes, Rodriguez v. Burnside, 4 Cumb. L. Rev. Online 47 (2022).