BY ANDY DAVIS
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
A rule that prohibits an Arkansas prison inmate from keeping tarot cards in his cell doesn’t improperly restrict his religious freedoms, a federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday.
The opinion by a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge H. David Young in a lawsuit filed by Mark Singson, 45, who is serving a 20-year-sentence in the Arkansas Department of Correction’s Tucker Unit for a robbery conviction in Pulaski County.
Singson said he uses tarot cards as part of his Wiccan beliefs. Under the prison’s policy, he has to check out cards from a chaplain and is not allowed to keep them in his cell. He claimed that violated his rights by preventing him from making spontaneous readings.
Prison officials said the cards could be used as playing cards for gambling or to intimidate inmates who believed the cards have special powers. They also said some symbols on tarot cards are gang symbols.
The appeals court panel agreed with Young that the restriction was allowed under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. That law allows restrictions on religious freedoms only when it is the least restrictive means of furthering a “compelling government interest.” Young had noted that prison chaplains never rejected Singson’s request to check out the cards and that he was allowed to keep other Wiccan religious items in his cell.
“The district court properly analyzed the prison’s security concerns as a group, concluding that in-cell use would strain the prison security resources,” appeals court Judge Duane Benton wrote in the opinion.
Joining in the opinion were appeals court Judge Michael Melloy and U.S. District Judge David Doty of Minnesota.
Correction Department spokesman Dina Tyler said the ruling “affirms that we were doing what we could do to meet [inmates’] religious needs and still protect our security interest.” “You may have 100 inmates who use them correctly, but all it takes is that one who doesn’t to cause huge problems,” Tyler said. “We have to think of everything.”
Copyright 2009 Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.