Nebraska bows to Indian inmates' worship needs

Nebraska prison officials have agreed to new rules to accommodate the religious and cultural needs of American Indian inmates in order to settle a federal court action. The settlement agreement, obtained on Nov. 11 by The Associated Press, arose out of a complaint filed by inmate Richard T. Walker, an American Indian sentenced to a life term in 1966 for second-degree murder in Thurston County. His complaint was filed in U.S. District Court - Nebraska in Lincoln on behalf of the prison system's approximately 200 American Indian inmates. Among Walker's allegations was a claim that prison officials made so many demands for qualifications on a medicine man that he stopped coming to the prison to conduct religious and cultural affairs for the Indian inmates. Walker also alleged that prison officials required the medicine man to be able to "acclimate" to the religious needs of other inmates, including Christians and Muslims. The settlement agreement would replace a 1974 consent decree signed by U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom requiring prison officials to allow American Indian inmates to conduct religious ceremonies and have access to medicine men and ceremonial tobacco, among other things. [more]