corrections trento we're good good yeah ok thank you all as i mentioned all of the relevant burdens in this case were borne by the defendant department of corrections there's no dispute that mr ware has a genuine belief that his religious beliefs compel him to maintain his drug long drug laws there's no dispute that the application of the defendant's grooming policies which apply without exception would substantially burden mr ware's exercise of those religious but we ask you question is there a picture of either him or someone that looks like him dreadlocks in the record there are three pictures of him that were taken at various points over the course of his pretty pre conviction incarceration in the record and be happy to get those so they show dreadlocks they will one of them at least one of them to us also that's what i know and is there any evidence in this record of not necessarily him but somebody hiding something in a whatever evidence is there in this record of how someone hide something in a drug block i'm i'm asking because i'm unfamiliar no that's a very fair question and the evidence is as follows as as  court is aware and as this court has held that this analysis has to be done on an individual i's basis every case is different and needs to be examined within the context of a particular plaintiff seeking a particular exemption and in this case there's unrebutted testimony from mr ware that if he were to try to insert something into his drug law they would fall apart and so the actual within the drug law is not a place that's at all feasible for him to try to hide this now the dreadlocks are court together and there a money from the department of corrections witnesses that well he might be able to you know just put things in there and conceal them in the various and there was testimony from the department of corrections witnesses that the various methods by which mr or suggested that his hair could be searched and that it has in fact been searched in the past would not be effective but there was no specific evidence no hard evidence no no specific testimony about a witness recollection or experience that they ever  witnessed or experienced somebody with dreadlocks hiding something in their hair and is the record show that these dreadlocks are i got how you described is what you'd call naturally forming in the sense that if you grow your hair out this looks dreadful but it just hangs like straight but is that that this hair forms itself naturally into dreadlocks or does he have to work at that what mr ware does what he testified to was that when he washed his hair he keeps the drug locks separated at the scalp otherwise i think naturally what they would do is all come together and so he does do some work to make sure that the drug locks stay separate but otherwise the hair  that's the word that's if it is going i i got it right but if i may have just made the verb ok thank you so the burden was borne by the defendant to prove that it's grooming policies further compelling interest in this case and to prove that it's grooming policies again without exception or the least restrictive means of doing so this is no small point the supreme court in the whole clip made clear that this is an exceptionally demanding standard requires a prison system not merely to explain why i requested exemption but to prove that it lacked the means of achieving its compelling interests except for the use of those policies for this reason courts in this that the the parish jails don't require they don't apparently don't have hair length restrictions is that right let me address that question for you do that first the district sorry the department of corrections has promulgated policies relating to the grooming of its offenders but it has not extended those policies to the parish jails as a parish jails don't have a parish jails have whatever the paris things that they need to have but it's not something that's mandated by the department of corrections and if they were going to require it's a problem here has to do with the length of this here and they were going to require i gather and if the if the they were going to require shorter hair then that's expensive because they just have to keep cutting and they're the ones that cut it prisons or the jails so that if they at where the expense issue comes from i don't believe that that evidence is in the record i would suggest that because there is a heroin limitation on every prisoner every prisoner needs to have their hair regularly cut otherwise everybody would have hair grown long so i'm not sure that that would pose an added burden but that wasn't an issue that was raised below and so i don't believe it's in the record that is that that is the expense concern as i understand in the obviously my my brother will will will speak to what the department's position but as i understand it the record reflects that the concern about bird was that it would for people with long hair people with dreadlocks it would take a little longer to search them everybody gets searched when they come back into the prison people work crews people that go out for events in the community and so somebody with longer dreadlocks takes in my view and i believe the record shows marginally a bit more time to search than somebody without further locks and whose hair come conforms to the current in the back and there is also a style policy i think the style policy is a little more vague but it says that they want to get the language right but but there cannot be extreme hairstyles oh dreadlocks under th dreadlocks have been ruled out no matter whether they're too long or not are not too long that's that's my understanding and that's the position that apartness taken in this case obviously the record here has to do with somebody with long dreadlocks but but yes that's my understanding  so in this case the district court erred because it failed to appropriately to adequately under the precedence of this court and of the supreme court to test the asserted interest of the department of corrections against the wrists and the accommodations the risks and costs of the accommodation being sought in this case but you would concede that there are some compelling interest of some sort it in this case without a doubt we don't dispute that in the abstract of course there is a compelling interest in reducing contraband there's an a compelling interest in offender identification but the department has to show that its policies for those interests and not only that but it has to show that the policies that is adopted the fact that it doesn't allow exemptions to these policies for people who can demonstrate a substantial burden on the basis of religious exercise it has to show that these policies are the least restrictive means of furthering those interests me make sure i understand what the evidence is in this case individually reviewed it sees me one of the biggest problems that we have to deal with with this post or whatever where we come out of this this is a potential under inclusiveness not just long here on men along here on women it's not just red box it seems to me is there no evidence in this record that long hair is in fact a convenient and used location to hide contraband and weapons shanks or whatever would be light enough to stay and you see me braided dreadlocks up there in the braided would be a good place to hide a stiffer weapon of some sort is there no evidence that the hair is in fact a place used by prisoners to hide things that need to be found there are not specific examples in the record but there is evidence in the form of testimony by the department of corrections witnesses that yes hair can be used to hide things and yes men are likely to use hair to hide things were they speaking from a fifteen year veteran of this particular jail or prison or wherever they were speaking from i have encountered they were speaking from their experience again i don't want to speak from these witnesses but the record reflects that the policies  in effect the current policies and substance were put into place at some point in the ninety's there were there was not clear evidence as to one it happened and the testimony that was  was based on the experience of the witnesses that's all i can speak to i would guess a red locks make it more difficult to do if it were just a matter of long hair or you can run your fingers through there are a comb but because it are red locks it's more difficult to search through the here yeah the record reflects that there are there are ways to search dreadlocks what would what does what the the the the plaintiff testified to was that he will bend over and shake his hair and then the corrections officer will just squeeze his hair in clumps  anything is and that's in his experience has proven effects of in the past and i believe a district court found that can be searched and the issue was that the search would be unduly burdensome because it would take more time and we submit that the actual evidence in the record there's evidence that there's i guess under an elusive people because you have half the people that are incarcerated the should be in the custody of the of the louisiana corrections are in parish jails and they're not obligated to be under this rule does this evidence of under inclusiveness alone justify a preliminary injunction or is that just one of the factors that we need to take into account judge i think that of the presence of this court and of the supreme court it alone justifies imposition of an injunction or or the word of judgment to the point reversal of district court in this case the reason is that it goes to whether the policies in question satisfy the prong of the test that they further the compelling interests at issue again we don't dispute that there are these all four of the issues in this appeal contraband identification hygiene and preventing violence those are compelling interest in the abstract the issue is whether these policies further them and the fact that the department of corrections fifty percent of its offenders you know overcrowding are housed in parish jails and as the as we've discussed the  policies effect here the parish jails and department corrections together have promulgated a set of one hundred guidelines over one hundred guidelines that that provide the kind of minimum standards for the administration of these jails that house d o c offenders these again  offenders that are in the legal custody of the d o c the d s e is responsible for their security and well being but they are housed in parish jails to deal with overcrowding those one hundred five provisions the basic jail guidelines deal with contraband th deal with searches they deal with hygiene they deal with admissions you know that what i gather what i mean i don't know this but i would think that the politics between the department of corrections in the people running the parish jails are maybe maybe a sensitive area and so if the department of corrections says ok we're going to put half of our inmates down there with you and you need to be sure that they cut their hair way they're supposed to you know they may have decided they don't want to put that burden on the and and the question is there any evidence in this record that that's an issue as between the department of corrections and the people who run the parishes parish jails one of the issues in the record is in fact that your honor according to secretary leblanc the sheriffs association has specifically requested that the department of corrections not impose not that they will tolerate the one that they specifically do not want them underscores how unimportant ultimately they are to furthering the interests of contraband control identification you don't know whether it's a matter of whether they're on important or whether it's a matter of they line up all their various issues with the department of corrections and they say well this is a problem but we're not going to fight we're not you know and we're going to fight over this one or we're not you know and to that i would respond the district the department of corrections has taken no effort they have not explored they have not considered whether it would be feasible to prioritize putting v o c offenders in those jails that do have these ties to the people in the parish jails i mean i take it that they can have dreadlocks all they want as far as the people running the parish jails are concerned mr ware was housed in a parish jail caddo parish had a correctional facility and for several years he was permitted to have long dr locks i can't speak for what all of the other parish jails do i presume that they have different policies just as different policies made system different states throughout the country but again the point is that d could have considered if these were so important to the safety and security of the public of these inmates that are in deities custody they could have said well if you guys are going to do that if these certain jails are going to do that we're going to make sure we put our offenders to who for whom we are responsible in those jails that that have these kinds of polity ok one last question yes to what degree are the people who run the jails are also responsible for the state prisoners that are well to the people that run the jails are responsible for administering their prisons their jails according to the requirements set out by the department of corrections in the basic jail guidelines they're audited regularly by the department of corrections for compliance with those and  they are required to abide by them so they are responsible in that sense the fact that the d n c has not they they have not included haircut requirements in those basic jail guidelines i think is telling thank you thank thank you jot them down on behalf of the department of corrections they're ours obviously we're here asking that you would uphold the district court's decision that found that the department's grooming regulation was at least restrictive means to control various compelling interest including i i guess one of the things that i want to address that brought up was the evidence about hiding things in contraband and i guess that presents a couple of issues for the wheezy and but i've got an answer for that this grooming policy has been in place for thirty years so essentially you have for our prisons within our prison system the short hair policy to call it that you know there would be no evidence and that we see and of having done that however because they wouldn't have to have to do it however warden goodwin did testify that he's worked for so long enough he remembers when there was no grooming policy and he had personal experience as he stated on the record with searching dreadlocks and he was the one that stated well he couldn't attest to the fact that he remembered and that eighty's early that somebody had put you know contraband like a needle or canned or you know any various form of object drugs inside dreadlocks he did offer extensive testimony but i remember it when there was no hair policy and he also stated that he believed that our policy was instrumental in preventing the flow of contraband into the into the prison once it was implemented and that it began to great effect so is there documentary evidence from other states where you know we hold various states or things of that nature i know there's not we did not do that but there is testimonial evidence from morton goodwin that contradicted things that were started by mr ware's expert saying that you know i don't personally believe based on my experience my thirty for thirty five years having search dreadlocks that they can be effectively searched at all and what he stated is that even to do a minimally effective pin which i mean could easily be slipped into a piece of hair some piece of metal if it were cash a pill you know any other various forms of contraband you could think of he stated that he would not be able to detect it because those drugs have the consistency of rope so it wouldn't be like my hair if i drew it all the way out these are thick bunches of hate that again run all the way down to his waist misstated by mr ware he has no intention of ever cutting his head and i think that's what separates this case from this court's recent decision in ali and the supreme court's decision and whole where each one of these people sought some form of a measured exemption i half inch beer purposes and that is religion had had the belief that you should not cut your hair hundred percent yes or no there's no argument with that at all but i just think that that is the difference in the cases is that that you know i think that that sort of goes back to this court's decision ali which i believe boasters our position because the shoes just on the other foot this time in the sense that you had differing experts that offered conflicting testimony on the stand the trial judges to try or fact if he sided with us necessarily found our experts to be more credible as it came to that we see in our prisons and chose to but we know and root in our favor and i think that if you look at this court's decision and e as i told your friend on the other side that one of the biggest problems to me is under inclusion in this case and or newish supreme court justice he's being quoted in your beer when he wrote about the tenth circuit so what do you say to that women having long here in the jail parish jail with no grooming policies at all how do you support the compelling  interest when you have these sorts of variations the answer that this way just south of the women briefly because this court's looked at that issue and i have to tell you that our testimony on that about the women was substantially similar to what texas presented  that the women are just not the same concern they don't bring in the same types of contraband i think that the testimony that we presented was centrally unopposed warden more that it's i mean forgive me it's lipstick it's make up it's things of that nature and they just don't have the same violent tendencies with the men that we're talking about now with regard to the men that are housed in local facilities and state prison systems there's a good answer for that and here is the reason they're treated differently the people that are house and local systems and parish jails are of a particular type ok if you're serving less than twenty years for nonviolent nonsexist you're eligible to be house on the local facility inevitably  but these people are considered low risk offenders they are not the types of people that are housed in state prisons because of the way the state prison system is set up where half of the people are housed at the local level the only people that are eligible to be house in the state prison are people serving more than twenty years these are violent offenders these are sex offenders if you're in for a violent offense or a sex offense these are very demographic profile that you're worried about bringing in contraband you're going to be housed in the state prison the violent offenders and sex offenders don't get an instance of less than twenty years in louisiana no answer i would not say that but i would tell you that if you are a violent offender or a sex offender some strange request from the sheriff there we go again with the sheriff's association you are not going to be elsley house on the local up so let's say it's a normal robbery and they give you i think the minimum to ten years you're not going to be housed in a parish jail we would not approve that sheriff could request that that is not the type of person that we're looking at so again i would say that we view the people that are housed on the local level as again exceedingly low risk drug offenders it's a different demographic of people they're not the same so in the same sense that we're not as worried about the women you know bringing in things to harm other people you know weapons whatever big it's the same thing with the people that are house from the local love and i think that's  that the answer to the under inclusiveness you know question is that they're just not the same i mean it's a plausible explanation it's it's a reasonable explanation and it's what our people testified to that you know we're much more worried about the people that are house sitting go  you don't have these restrictions what makes louisiana special or different from from these other situations that would require that  louisiana have this regulation of the her cut i'll answer that this way your honor this sort of goes back to what i was just saying as a minute ago i'm not sure how texas sets up their state prisons i don't know if they house anybody in local jails i know california does a few because i've got overcrowding issues but i can tell you that our state prisons only house violent and sex offenders and people serve an extremely long sentences i can tell you that the testimony that was presented by warden goodwill and secretary along stated that they're not sure why these other systems have chosen to i guess more or less accept the risk but in their opinion based on their years of experience and especially warden goodwin who again could recall the days before there was a grooming policy this was necessary for the easy and it was the only way to achieve that go the other thing that i would say to is noted by the district court judge and i know the point it's hard to say that the there's a budget document that's in the record that sort of shows the cuts do you see what we've taken from the state over the last ten years it's called i think significant budget changes and at the last reply i believe the point of saying that even secretary boss said that it was confusing we're not going to learn a lot from it i don't think that's entirely true because if you look at the secretary's testimony he gave extensive testimony on the record about what's happened with the budget and it's essentially this so cam ten years ago we were at forty thousand prisoners we've made some headway to get some of these people while we're down to thirty six thousand that document and the secretary is testimony shows that we've taken i think fifteen million dollar budget cut if you just looking at raw numbers from today to back then what it also doesn't show that what the secretary talked about is that included in that number is fifty million additional dollars they were given that was given to us to take care of all prisoners health care because a state charity hospital system is gong governor jindal saw to shutting that down so when you look at that that's not even real money that's money that was given to us now you're responsible for all their health care and sort of being able to take them to the charity hospital system that's essentially one hundred billion dollars cut and then the secretary goes on to detail other cuts that are not shown in there basically additional cost without it so or without getting additional money so again it goes back to the same thing that were lower staff have a high turnover rate we can't offer raises i mean the turnover rate at most of these prisons is thirty percent a year and go up well it might be about the same turnover rate can even fill positions because it's exceedingly difficult to get somebody to come work as a religious interest of prisoners you have conceded the legitimacy validity of the interest here the honesty of the interest here and  itself we we must find the least restrictive means consistent with the religious interest in the least restrictive means available inch and it does way i think on at least  that many states have not found it necessary to do what you do and we see and it does seem to me there's a specific concern about dreadlocks because of the stiffness of them perhaps conceivable that i could think of another plaintiff out there that may be a better plaintiff but as far as mr weyers here oh no point at his hair i was just saying say please don't sign up and go  pick mississippi but now it's conceivable that there's somebody else that may make a better argument out look at this court's decision with a four inch me but mr ware's case as applied to him what he's asking for a complete and unlimited exemption to ferry in faith are incarcerated in louisiana i mean the only one hundred are there ten of them or fifteen of them are it is in the record i don't have to cite for you but it's one hundred seventy eight hundred yeah there's a worst breakdown and when you see it it breaks everybody down by their various religious faiths or if they're going to choose not to choose any religion and those are first state prison facilities so that would include people the local level but it is one hundred seventy eight i think maybe ninety percent of those are housed and go but yes there is there was a breakdown of that record what's the record evidence about other inmates for example using here as a part of beaten up and somebody you here it's difficult i'm sorry to interrupt you it's difficult in this state other than the testimonial evidence that was given by a warden good one from when there was no grooming policy at all so we're talking thirty years ago and secretarial ball about inmates being prone to grab hair and fight during a fight now there's a lot of evidence about how the male offenders are housed in state prison facilities or are more prone to i guess get into fisticuffs get into fights and their fights tend to be  much more violent much more physical it's hard to point to anything in the last thirty years because i mean it's this i mean i guess you could grab that but basically my hair would essential meet requirement but we don't have anything other than  what warden goodwin stated you know would have occurred prior to that in that they're prone to do that in mr worst case i mean it would seem to me that that would be exceedingly dangerous because it can it's sepsis only long and to the point where it's so long i mean it might even take a dreaded wrap around his neck if they wanted to or vice versa with him and i don't mean to implicate him in any sort of way but you know that's that's just the reality you know where we are going to say let me go to a couple of other things that i know that  ware brought up that yes to try to show that maybe we were treating religion differently than other things and i think that the record pretty fairly reflects what that there's a department reckon they're dealing with religion i mean how common even we offer for this and we make a lot more exceptions and even with the great state of texas does but what are things like pointed out was a contact visitation you know that's a method for entry of contraband or what about boots and socks and shoes and pockets and i think that the testimony that was given by warden goodwin and by the secretary showed that all those served very very functional purposes and that's not to slight an individual's religious interest in wanting to have you know hair that complies with the what their faith requires of requests but the visitation according to the secretary's exceptionally important for helping these people to adjust to being in prison to ensure that you know they when they're ready to reenter society that they're on a good level it's that they found it to be very beneficial to people before they get out to have contact visits to keep their spirits up with regard to the other items six boots sops you know pockets and things like that this is the easy answer and those are all very functional things i mean these guys even though they may be prisoners they need pockets to carry things around with this warden good and good one stated you have to have socks he's got work i mean these hope these are hard labor sentences you have to have shoes you can't get rid of everything to control every single aspect of it to make sure there's no contraband but you do the best you can and you know we get it down to the point where you've got the bare essentials the stuff that you have to have but if there are other ways that we can look at it to make sure that you know we can stop this from coming in by somebody not being allowed to have hair down to the fore then i mean that's something that obviously you know we chose to look at or to be compelling i'm trying to think it's up to both sides to put on whatever evidence is is necessary was there  any evidence as to the the amount of contraband either in louisiana or another states that comes in in this way as opposed to the myriad of other ways it should you know along here i don't think you've probably stopped the contraband problem  confiscate on a monthly basis i don't know that there's nothing in there that would compare that we see and any of the other states i mean this is just our evidence but when you look at the numbers and they're labeled c o five reports and there's a lot of them in the record that show the t the nature how it was found whether it was a visitor staff you know a prisoner but again it's not going to show anything from hair because you know that's just not it's not an option right now but it shows everything else i guess i would say  comparison to other states that don't have your rules if they have much of a problem with contraband coming in this way but you know what your honor i cannot speak to that other than what are what our witnesses testified to that they thought that it would be a problem and they'd seen it be a problem earlier before there was an honor a lot of points to hit but are there any questions the court would appreciate that address first before i just jump in great a lot of the testimony that  to was that mr ware can hide things in his hair or under but of testimonies they can't because if he tries to put something in the drug law it's going to fall apart so the dreadlock issue as presented in this case is not one that presents an issue about hiding things in the hair expect that they can if this is just how serious is that question here and how hard would it be to find a new saying sort of as a matter of wall there's no evidence no fact that anything can be hidden in his hair anything will stay in his hair i guess is what you're saying young speaking about the specific point about inserting something into the drug laws for one they don't need to be searched individually they've the they can be searched in clumps that's what's happened in the past there hasn't been any issue and just so it's clear the record reflects  mr ware has no issues of violence in his record in this period of incarceration is no issues of contraband issues he is a the record is not such that one would have concerns about him in the first but the but with regard to specifically vacate and reverse on any of the issues presented so when we send it back to the district court to revaluate did evidence using the proper standards or was it wrong and we just  think so and here's why on on the issue about the parish jails which i want to get to because there were some some factual points i want to address but on the issue about the parish jails the district court didn't even touch the issue in find any facts associated with it didn't make any conclusions of law associated with it but the record is clear there are five undisputed facts i think that and i don't want to spend the time i've already gone through them but there are undisputed facts that permit the court to on the record before it addressed reached the issue addressed the issue in reverse on that basis so that would be point one and on the points the court specifically did address the specific compelling interests at issue there is the court erred as a matter of law by exhibiting too much deference to the testimony of the district the d o c witnesses in the face of contrary evidence in the record against them so i think the court is able to reverse on any of those bases but let me address an issue about the local jails there's a suggestion that be the mix of prisoners at the local jails is different because d o c only if and only sends prisoners who have shorter sentences and less violent convictions to be housed in local jails but local jails is also where pretrial arrestees are housed all mix of prisoners people charged with the most serious of violent crimes are housed in local jails before they're convicted and so i think that it's clear that there are both violent and nonviolent offenders that are hard they segregated between the department of corrections prisoners in the just the ordinary parish jail prisoners in these local jails are they own mixed up together there's nothing in the record to suggest one way or the other but there's also nothing in the record to suggest that dio c requires its offenders as a matter of imposing the basic you know guidelines to be treated any differently than the people house are pretrial so i don't think it's clear mr ware himself has been housed during the pendency of this case in a maximum security facility in both your parish and so to the suggestion that there are there simply aren't violent people housed in local jails i don't think is warranted a point about the costs i see him running out of time we're not disputing that louisiana's facing budget issues department of corrections facing both budget issues but this are loop a statute acknowledges that sometimes an expenditure of resources will be required to provide an accommodation and here we make this clear in our papers it's it's clear that the there there was no effort by the d o c to try to quantify try to estimate try to conduct a study of what kind of costs it would face from having to comply having to provide exemptions in these kinds of circumstances there were the hundred seventy eight runs to foreign prisoners that's about one percent of the population of the d o see their chaplain went through that list and identified all of the practitioners of face for whom just based on his understanding of the faiths might seek an exemption relating to long hair and that total amount to do approximately five point five percent of the total population of the the where and that's assuming all of them seek exemptions all of them qualify for exemptions none of them have any concerns about contraband recent histories of contraband that might suggest some pause before granting the granting the exemption but those sorts of numbers do not present i would submit do not present this overwhelming burden that can't be can't be absorbed by the by the system as it currently exists and we make that we think we point that out in our papers and i would refer to those for more infor