CON: Gregory Houston Holt, AKA Abdul Maalik Muhammad, Petitioner
Douglas Laycock, Counsel of Record
In June 2010, Abdul Maalik Muhammad, formerly known as Gregory Houston Holt, was convicted of aggravated residential burglary and first-degree domestic battering and sentenced to life in prison. The following month, he was admitted into the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADC) facility, where the grooming policy required that he shave his beard. Muhammad, a practicing Muslim, initially refused, stating that his beard was part of his religious expression. After being denied a waiver from the prison warden, he relented, but in June 2011, he sued six ADC officials, charging that the no-beard policy violated the Federal Religious Land Use and…
