A prison inmate is a Muslim and a member of the Nation of Islam, a religious organization. His religious beliefs forbid him from consuming or handling pork. Prison officials ordered the inmate to cook pork loins as part of his kitchen duties. The Ninth Circuit held prison employees violated the inmate’s clearly established right to avoid handling pork on the basis of his religious beliefs, and that the employees were not entitled to qualified immunity for their conduct. With regard to the inmate’s argument the prison’s method of cleaning the cooking grills left pork residual on the grills, the appeals’ court said the issue was moot because the inmate had already been released, but “even assuming that [the inmate] has raised an issue of fact as to whether the grill-cleaning method resulted in the grills being contaminated by Islamic standards or violations of Department regulations, he has failed to show the prison’s grill-cleaning method imposed a substantial burden on his religious exercise.” (Jones v. Williams (Ninth Cir.; June 26, 2015) 791 F.3d 1023.)
