num_pages: 19
description: Appellant Gilbert Jay Paliotta, a Nevada inmate who follows the Thelemic faith, filed suit under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc to 2000cc-5, the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment after respondents State of Nevada, Nevada Department of Corrections, and Renee Baker, Warden (collectively, the State) denied his request for a religious diet. The district court dismissed Paliotta's claims, finding as a matter of law that a religious diet is not central to the Thelemic faith. Because the district court used the centrality test rather than the sincerely held belief test in its analysis of Paliotta's Free Exercise and RLUIPA claims, we reverse.
language: English
title: Paliotta v Nevada
publisher: Supreme Court of the State of Nevada