Recent RLUIPA and free exercise cases

Professor Howard Friedman this morning has some interesting information on recent free exercise cases on his essential (to those in prison and jail ministry) blog Religion Clause. He features this quote from Wisconsin federal district judge Barbara Crabb's recent decision in Perez v. Frank, where a Muslim prisoner sucessfully claimed that various corrections officials had prevented him from freely practicing his faith. Crabb analyzes the difference between claims based on the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) and the free exercise religion clause of the First Amendment:

Although both the free exercise clause and RLUIPA protect religious "exercise," each defines religious exercise in a slightly different way. Under RLUIPA, a "religious exercise" is "any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief."... In other words, RLUIPA protects individual acts of piety, regardless of their centrality. By contrast, the free exercise clause is concerned with the macrocosm of belief: so long as a believer's ability to freely practice his faith (rather than engage in all possible expressions of his faith) is not substantially burdened, the free exercise clause is not violated (hence the requirement that a belief be "central" before it can fall within the ambit of the free exercise clause....

Despite the technical differences between the types of religious exercise protected by each law, courts frequently fail to differentiate between the central practices protected by the free exercise clause and the wider variety of practices protected by statutes such as RLUIPA. The reason for this is fairly apparent. Courts are poorly positioned to decide which religious practices are "central" to any given faith tradition or any given believer; therefore, increasingly free exercise jurisprudence has emphasized deference to individuals' professed beliefs, so long as there is no reason to doubt their sincerity.....

So what, then, is the practical difference between a free exercise claim and a claim arising under RLUIPA? It appears that the answer is "not much," at least insofar as the "substantial burden" requirement is concerned.

Professor Fineman also lists recent prisoner free-exercise cases of particular interest.