(Continued from page 19)

mates' religious rights, and ordered state officials and members of the Native American Council of Tribes to submit suggested revisions.
• Corrections officials agreed in their suggested revisions to allow tobacco at pipe ceremonies but wanted to prohibit its use in tobacco ties, prayer flags and inside the prison's sweat lodge. Schreier ruled in late January that tobacco should be permitted in all those circumstances.
• "Plaintiffs demonstrated at trial that tobacco ties and prayer flags which include tobacco play an important role in the exercise of their religion," she wrote.
• Pamela Bollweg, the inmates' attorney, said she's disappointed that the state continues to deny Native American inmates their right to use tobacco as part of their traditional ceremonies.
• "We'll continue to work to vindicate our clients' rights for religious freedom," she said Thursday.
• Attorney James Moore filed the appeal with the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday. Moore did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
• Schreier in her ruling agreed with one state limitation, capping the amount of tobacco that could be mixed with other botanicals at 1 percent. Members of prison-based Native American Council of Tribes had wanted to be able to go up to 10 percent tobacco in their mixtures, but Schreier said they didn't provide any rationale on why that much was needed.
• Schreier in her ruling also said that the tobacco used for smoking does not have to be ground, but she required that it be ground when used for ties and flags. She denied the state's request to limit inmates to only cherry-blend tobacco.
• The state argued that the policy was not overly restrictive because it allowed other botanicals, such as red willow bark, to be burned.
• The South Dakota prison system went tobacco-free in 2000 but made an exception for Native American ceremonies. Officials in October 2009 eliminated that exemption, saying tobacco was being sold or bartered and inmates had been caught separating it from their pipe mixtures and tobacco ties.
• Members of the Native American Council of Tribes sued after the exemption was eliminated, saying the policy change violated their U.S. constitutional rights ensuring that no prisoner be penalized or discriminated against for their religious beliefs or practices. Inmates Blaine Brings Plenty and Clayton Creek argued that for Native American prayer to be effective, it must be embodied in tobacco and offered within a ceremonial framework.
• The U.S. Justice Department weighed in last July, saying in a brief that the state's position ran contrary to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons

(Continued on page 21)