Supreme Court Case Study: Holt V. Ray Hobbs

` Holt v. Hobbs Summarization:

The case between petitioner Gregory Holt and responder Ray Hobbs who was the

director of the Arkansas Department of Corrections circles around the idea of freedom

of religion. Now, having the freedom to practice whatever religion that you would like

does bring its advantages and its disadvantages as a citizen of the United States. In this

case, Supreme Court Judges had to make a decision over the whole controversial topic

of freedom of religion. The opinion of the court was written by Justice Alito in which

tells the scenario of what happened to Gregory Holt, which starts off with him as an

inmate and having the religion as being a Muslim. But the Arkansas
But the lower courts did not pay any mind to the

complaint made by Gregory and in my opinion, though the rules and regulations of the

prison were to keep the inmates groomed but at the same time it is in the constitution,

and to be more specific the Bill of Rights, which would be going against it is overall

unconstitutional.

Based on the lower court’s decision, they decided to exercise the rights of mainly the

state and not look at the rights of the individual. In defense of the correctional facility,

the Judge even stated the fact that the inmate could have just followed other forms of

practices that were native to his religion like either dieting or praying. But what I believe

that the judge failed to realize is the fact that religion does not solely apply to just one

action or practice, but it is all of the religion that is applied to the freedom of religion.

Again the judge and the state did have their reasons, one being the fact that in the

Beard, many harmful things could be hidden like a knife or drugs maybe, but it could all

have been resolved by letting Gregory Holt keep the beard but just have to search
Even in the past, there have been many cases in my opinion in which the lower courts

have sided with the state while many supreme court cases have sided with the rights of

the individual. For example in the Texas v. Johnson case, it may not deal with religion

but it does correlate to an extent with the current case at hand. So, in the Texas v.

Johnson case, the Supreme Court sided in the end that a person as a citizen of the

United States has the right of freedom of speech, which includes burning the American

flag. The same decision applies to the Holt v. Hobbs case in which the Supreme Court

decided that freedom of religion does apply to Gregory Holt being able to keep his

beard for religious purposes, even though it did go against the regulations of the

correctional facility of trimming the beard for safety hazards. But overall in my opinion,

this demonstrates that the judicial system favors the rights of the people, which is a

good thing since this country was founded on a democracy, by the people and for