Incumaa v. Stirling, No. 14-6411 (4th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff is a member of the nation of Gods and Earths (NOGE), a group whose adherents are also known as "Five Percenters." Plaintiff participated in a prison riot in 1995 with other Fiver Percenters and was placed in solitary confinement, where he has remained for 20 years. Plaintiff challenged his confinement under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc-1, claiming that a Department policy required him to renounce his affiliation with the NOGE, which he alleges is a religion, before the Department will release him from solitary confinement. Plaintiff also argued that defendants violated his rights to procedural due process. The district court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment. The court held that plaintiff's 20-year period of solitary confinement amounts to atypical and significant hardship in relation to the general population and implicates a liberty interest in avoiding security detention. Further, there is a triable dispute as to whether the Department’s process for determining which inmates are fit for release from security detention meets the minimum requirements of procedural due process. Accordingly, the court reversed as to this claim and affirmed as to the RLUIPA claim.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on July 7, 2015.
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