Appeals court reinstates inmate's suit for sweat lodge

ST. LOUIS -- A federal appeals panel has restored a Missouri inmate's lawsuit demanding religious use of an American Indian sweat lodge, suggesting that the imprisoned killer perhaps deserved more time to make his case.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that a federal district judge erred in dismissing the lawsuit by Lance Pounders, who is serving a life sentence for murder at the Northeast Correctional Center in Bowling Green.

Sweat lodges are used in some American Indian religious ceremonies to purify the spirit. Participants sit within an enclosed structure and pray while water is poured over fire-heated rocks during a ritual that can involve a shovel and garden rake.

While many states already allow sweat-lodge ceremonies behind bars, inmates in states that have barred the practice often have sued, pitting their claims of religious infringement against worries by prison administrators that sweat lodges pose potential security threats.

But some inmates' lawsuits have arisen from safety issues.

In 1999, an Iowa inmate claimed that rocks supplied for a prison sweat lodge made him sick while others exploded, shooting fragments into his eye. In 2001, some New Mexico inmates who were allowed to participate in sweat-lodge ceremonies claimed they were forced to use chemically treated wood with dangerous toxins.

Apparently without incident, Missouri for years has offered a sweat lodge exclusively at its maximum-security Potosi Correctional Center, home to the state's death row, Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Tim Kniest said Saturday.

That wasn't lost on the 8th Circuit panel, whose ruling contained a footnote mentioning that "interestingly, it appears that a sweat lodge has since been built at Potosi."

Kniest said other inmates of American Indian descent have had access at other Missouri prisons to "sacred grounds," including rocks laid out as a ceremonial "prayer wheel" at Northeast Correctional, where Pounders is housed.

Kniest could not immediately offer specifics about the Potosi prison's sweat lodge or speculate about whether use of such sites would be broadened to other Missouri prisons.

Pounders filed suit last year, contending that he adheres to an American Indian "pipe religion" and that preventing him from using a sweat lodge was unconstitutional because it "substantially burdened his religious practice."

In dismissing the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Donald Stohr pointed to a 1996 ruling in which another 8th Circuit panel upheld the state's refusal to let imprisoned killer Mark Juan Hamilton -- an American Indian -- use a sweat lodge at the Potosi prison, citing security concerns.

That decision conflicted with a 1994 finding by U.S. District Judge Scott O. Wright, who said prison officials must let Hamilton grow his hair long and build a sweat lodge in keeping with his American Indian religious beliefs.

After Wright's ruling, a sweat lodge was built at Potosi, though the state appealed the matter, leading to the 8th Circuit's 1996 ruling that prison officials must be given "wide latitude within which to make appropriate limitations."

But in its ruling Friday, the 8th Circuit panel distinguished Pounders' case from Hamilton's situation, which had presented a "fully developed record."

"In contrast, here (in Pounders' case) there was nothing before the district court but Pounders' complaint, which involved a different Missouri prison" of lower security status than Potosi's, Friday's opinion read.