SAN FRANCISCO — After issuing an ornery dissent that had a dead senator, a judge and Freud posthumously shaking their heads in disapproval of the majority’s holding in a religious freedoms case, Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski has gotten the en banc court on his side.
In a unanimous opinion issued today that reverses the three-judge panel’s May ruling, the court held that an Orange County courthouse lockup is an “institution” under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, meaning a Muslim woman who sued after being forced to remove her headscarf in front of strange men is entitled to the act’s protections. The case is Khatib v. County of Orange, 08-56423.
