Parent-Killing Jewish Inmate Wins Round in Kosher Meals Fight
An Orthodox Jewish prison inmate from Florida who was convicted of murdering both his parents has won a key battle in his court fight to get kosher prison meals.
A federal appeals court reinstated Bruce Rich’s lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections, which denied him the special meals after eliminating them in a cost-cutting measure.
In 2010, Rich sued, claiming Florida violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 by forcing him to choose between religious practice and adequate nutrition. The state said it needed to control costs and maintain security.
But the appeals court ruled that, “the evidence submitted by the [DOC] on summary judgment in support of its position is insubstantial.”
The case will now head to federal district court for further proceedings. The Florida DOC is also involved in another lawsuit by the United States Department of Justice over ending its kosher meals even for religious Jewish inmates.
In 1995, Rich was found guilty of shooting and killing his parents, Irwn and Blanche Rich in their Florida home.
Authorities said he staged the crime to look like a murder-suicide.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO