New hearing ordered in holding-cell hijab suit

A federal appeals court granted a new hearing Monday to a Muslim woman who was ordered by sheriff’s deputies to remove her hijab in a courthouse holding cell.

A panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 2-1 in May that Orange County deputies hadn’t violated Souhair Khatib’s rights by making her take off the religiously mandated headscarf for security reasons when she was placed in the holding cell.

But the court said Monday that a majority of its 27 judges had voted to set aside that ruling and refer the case to an 11-judge panel for a rehearing in December.

The dispute affects thousands of inmates throughout the nine-state circuit who are taken to holding cells before being brought to court, said Khatib’s lawyer, Becki Kieffer. She said it was the first such case to reach a federal appeals court.

Kieffer argued that the majority in the three-judge panel’s ruling had misinterpreted a federal law that broadly protects inmates’ religious freedoms.

The law prohibits government agencies from imposing a “substantial burden” on the right to practice one’s religion in a prison, jail or pretrial detention facility. The issue in the case is whether a courthouse holding cell, where inmates are held up to 12 hours before hearings, is a pretrial detention facility.

Khatib and her husband pleaded guilty in June 2006 to a misdemeanor welfare crime and were ordered to perform 30 hours of community service apiece while on probation. Kieffer said the case involved overpayments the couple received.

When they went to court to ask for an extension of the community service deadline, a judge revoked their probation and put them in holding cells, where deputies ordered Khatib to remove her hijab.

Later, still without the headscarf, she was brought into court, where the judge extended the deadline and restored her probation.

Khatib, who says her religion forbids her to expose her head or neck to men outside her immediate family, sued the county for damages.

See more on this Topic