LEBANON CO. DREADLOCKS CASES — Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project

In February 2020, the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project (PILP) filed a motion for preliminary injunction on behalf of Eric S. McGill, Jr., a pretrial detainee at Lebanon County Correctional Facility (LCCF) who had been held in solitary confinement for over a year solely because he refused to cut off his dreadlocks. Lebanon County’s practice of punishing people who refuse to cut their dreadlocks, without allowing for religious exemptions, violates Mr. McGill’s rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).

In compliance with his Rastafarian faith, Mr. McGill does not cut his hair and has not for several years. Mr. McGill believes that his spirit lives through his dreadlocks and to cut them off would be to lose his strength and essence needed for the afterlife. Lebanon County’s own rules and regulations allow incarcerated people to have long hair if it is tied up or in a single ponytail. Despite Mr. McGill offering to tie his hair up in a ponytail, Lebanon County continued to detain him in solitary confinement.

UPDATES

May 22, 2020
PILP files Amended Complaint in a second lawsuit against Lebanon County, on behalf of Leonttayy Pratt and Lamont Robinson.

April-May 2020
Mr. McGill, Mr. Pratt, and Mr. Robinson are released from solitary confinement and moved to general population after Lebanon County adds religious exemption to its prohibition against dreadlocks.

March 31, 2021
In an Opinion that denied the Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, the Court allowed Mr. Pratt and Mr. Robinson’s race discrimination claim to go forward.

January 6, 2022
PILP announces that a settlement agreement has been reached in the case of three Black men placed in solitary confinement at the Lebanon County Correctional Facility for refusing to cut their hair.