A Connecticut federal judge has rejected the complaint of a death row inmate who said the food he is eating in prison is not prepared using kosher methods, ABC News reported on Friday.
Steven Hayes was convicted of murder when he killed a mother and two daughters during a home invasion. He sued the Department of Correction in August because he said the kitchen's practices for kosher food at the state's maximum-security prison do not live up to Jewish culinary laws.
Hayes says he's an Orthodox Jew, and said he's been pushing for a kosher diet since May 2013. Hayes claims he's been suffering emotional injury because he's been forced to choose between "following God and starving or choosing sin to survive."
Hayes and another man, Joshua Komisarjevsky, were sentenced to death for the 2007 killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, in their home in Cheshire. Two of them were sexually assaulted after they were tied up, and their bodies were recovered after the men set their house on fire. Dr. William Petit, Hawke-Petit's husband, was beaten almost to death, but managed to survive.
U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Thompson said that Hayes is offered kosher food that is monitored periodically by rabbis. The judge added that both rabbis gave the food the green light, as it does conform to dietary laws.
"Although (Hayes) raises as an issue the lack of a reliable orthodox certificate or an onsite Jewish overseer, he provides no evidence suggesting that their absence leads to a finding that the meals are not kosher," the judge wrote.
Hayes' handwritten complaint said that he now weighs less than 120 pounds because he hasn't eaten anything he considers to be violating kosher rules since Aug. 24. According to corrections department officials, he has denied that he's on a hunger strike.
He has filed other lawsuits against the department, none of which have been successful. He has also complained about mental healthcare, the temperature in his cell and harassment from prison staff, the News Tribune reported.
