NY agrees to let six prisoners watch solar eclipse for ‘religious’ reasons with glasses provided
Their prayers were answered.
Six inmates who cited “religious beliefs” when suing their upstate New York prison to view Monday’s solar eclipse have reached a settlement allowing them to witness the astronomical marvel.
The prisoners at Woodbourne Correctional Facility — who include a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist, two practitioners of Santeria and even one atheist — will be allowed to observe the celestial wonder from the prison’s yard, the inmates’ lawyers said in a statement Thursday.
The prison system will even provide the inmates with glasses to watch the event safely “in accordance with their sincerely held religious beliefs,” the attorneys said.
But the fate of thousands of other inmates across New York remains in limbo after corrections department officials announced that outdoor activities would be barred between 2 and 5 p.m., during the period when the Moon will eclipse the Sun and temporarily send much of the state into complete darkness.
And inmates who don’t have a religious reason to view the phenomenon may out of luck — as the settlement does not cover them at all.
“We’ve got people who don’t believe in God, and they still want to watch the eclipse,” one of the plaintiffs, Jean-Marc Desmarat told the news website Hell Gate. “They want to be able to watch it, they want to be part of something magnificent.”
The deal comes days after the inmates, with pro-bono help from law firm Alston & Bird, filed a lawsuit arguing that they have a constitutional right to see the eclipse — calling it “a religious event that they must witness and reflect on to observe their faiths” in court papers.
Attorney Chris McArdle told the Post Friday that the inmates were “ecstatic” when he informed them in a Thursday afternoon phone call that they’d be able to view the eclipse.
“They were very, very happy to hear the news,” the attorney said.
The suit notes that an eclipse-like phenomenon is described in the Bible during Jesus’ crucifixion and that Islamic books of worship depict a similar event during the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s son.
Even the atheist plaintiff, Jeremy Zielinski, argued that it is a “central aspect of atheism to celebrate common humanity and bring people together to encourage people to find common ground.”
He claimed he was granted approval by the corrections department to view the eclipse, but just days later, officials announced they would lockdown the state’s prisons during the astronomical event.
A spokesperson for the State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said the agency had already begin analyzing requests to view the eclipse before the suit was filed.
“The lawsuit came to an appropriate resolution,” the spokesperson said.
Woodbourne, in Sullivan County, is not near the zone of totality but many of maximum and medium security prisons are, including Attica – home of the deadly 1971 riot, and Clinton Correctional Facility, where Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped from in 2015.
The next full solar eclipse isn’t expected to happen until 2044.
