Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act

Previous law

In 1997, the United States Supreme Court held the RFRA to be unconstitutional as applied to state and local governments, in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507. Unlike the RFRA, which required religious accommodation in virtually all spheres of life, RLUIPA only applies to prisoner and land use cases.

In Employment Div. Dep't of Human Resources v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 883–85 (1990), the Supreme Court held that a substantial burden on religious exercise was subject to very strict scrutiny where the law "lent itself to individualized governmental assessment of the reasons for the relevant conduct." It was not a case permitting exceptions for freedom of religion when generally applicable health and welfare regulations were in question, and it should be remembered that Smith lost this case (involving a denial of unemployment benefits where the litigant had used illegal drugs in a religious ceremony). In line with the scrutiny regime established in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish in 1937, the Court ruled that unless the law is not one of general applicability, regardless of specific circumstance, government may act if policy is rationally related to a legitimate government interest, even if the act imposes a substantial burden on the exercise of religion.

Prisoners

In the 2005 case of Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709 (2005), five prisoners in Ohio – including a Wiccan, a Satanist, and a member of a racist, purportedly Christian, sect – successfully sought to apply the protections of the act to their religious practices. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had held that RLUIPA violated the Establishment Clause by impermissibly advancing religion by bestowing benefits to religious prisoners that were unavailable to non-religious prisoners. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, unanimously holding that RLUIPA was a permissible accommodation of religion justified by the fact that the government itself had severely burdened the prisoners' religious rights through the act of incarceration. A concurring opinion by Justice Thomas noted that the states could escape the restrictions of RLUIPA simply by refusing federal funds for state prisons. Cutter v. Wilkinson only concerns the prisoner portion of RLUIPA. The court explicitly declined to extend the rule to land use cases.

In 2008, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report entitled "Enforcing Religious Freedom in Prison."

In a unanimous opinion issued March 15, 2011, that reverses the three-judge panel's May 2010 ruling, a limited en banc panel of 11 judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 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. The lawsuit started as a result of court bailiffs ordering the woman to remove her headscarf while she was temporarily being held inside the courthouse lock up while a county court judge was deciding whether or not to revoke her misdemeanor probation (she was released that same day after the judge decided not to). The District Court had dismissed the case, with said dismissal being upheld by the three-judge appellate panel. The case has now been reversed and sent back to the trial court for further proceedings. It is the first time that a temporary holding facility (like a courthouse lockup) has been deemed to be an "institution" under the Act. The law, passed by Congress in 2000, prohibits the government from imposing a "substantial burden" on prisoners' religious practices unless officials can show a compelling need for the restrictions. The Obama administration joined Khatib in arguing that the law applied to courthouse holding cells.

Zoning and land use

In religious land use disputes, RLUIPA's general rule is the most commonly cited and challenged section. It provides:

42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(a).

During these disputes, the correct interpretation of the term "land use regulation" is almost always an issue. The statute defines "land use regulation" as "a zoning or landmarking law, or the application of such a law, that limits or restricts a claimant's use or development of land (including a structure affixed to land), if the claimant has an ownership, leasehold, easement, servitude, or other property interest in the regulated land or a contract or option to acquire such an interest." 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(5).

RLUIPA and planning debate

The passage of RLUIPA gave rise to increasing number of legal cases whereby (local) planning authorities are sued for violating the free exercise of religion. RLUIPA, therefore, generated heated discussions within professional planning communities. While its advocates (mostly in Congress) argued that this federal statute prevents urban planners from substantially burdening religious practice, its critics (many of whom were planning practitioners) maintained that RLUIPA, in fact, substantially burdens planning practice itself. The American Planning Association (APA), for example, opposed RLUIPA (and its predecessor, RFRA) from the outset, arguing that these statutes effectively change “the playing field in favor of religious institutions” and put local governments “in an untenable position.” In 2005, however, the Supreme Court ruled, in Cutter v. Wilkinson, that RLUIPA is constitutional, at least as it applies to prisons. Since the mid-2000s, therefore, the APA has been offering resources to local governments and practicing planners as to how to effectively navigate the renewed legal-religious landscape of the planning field.

Is eminent domain a land use regulation under RLUIPA?

Litigation focusing on the term "land use regulation" occasionally asks courts to decide whether RLUIPA applies to eminent domain proceedings. Generally, courts deciding this question have held that RLUIPA does not apply to eminent domain because it is not a "zoning or landmarking law." Instead, these courts have held that zoning and eminent domain are two completely different and unrelated concepts. The main argument to support this conclusion is that zoning and eminent domain are derived from two separate sources of power. The zoning power is derived from the state's police power, while the eminent domain power is derived from the Takings Clause of the United States Constitution's Fifth Amendment. However, at least one court has applied the RLUIPA in an eminent-domain case because the authority to condemn the property came from the city's zoning scheme. A court may be more inclined to find that eminent domain falls within the scope of RLUIPA if it was authorized by a zoning ordinance or comprehensive plan.

To date, no cases questioning RLUIPA's application to eminent domain have reached the Supreme Court. A 2003 Seventh Circuit case, St. John's United Church of Christ v. City of Chicago, was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court declined to hear the appeal. A refusal to hear means that the Supreme Court did not consider the Seventh Circuit Court's decision to be obviously wrong on the legal merits, or that the facts of the particular case could have broader constitutional implications. The Supreme Court generally has a substantial workload and tends to refuse appeals which have already received due process in lower courts. A refusal to hear a case does not preclude hearing a similar case in the future, if the court feels that further judicial review is needed.

The controversy in this case centered around the expansion of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. In order to expand this airport, the City needed to acquire 433 acres (175 hectares) of adjacent land through condemnation. Among the properties to be condemned were two cemeteries, one owned by St. John's United Church of Christ, and the other by Rest Haven Cemetery Association. In their amended complaint, St. John's and Rest Haven alleged that condemnation of their cemeteries was a violation of RLUIPA. After a revision to the O'Hare Modernization Project, Rest Haven's cemetery was no longer faced with condemnation and this church dropped out of the lawsuit.