A UNANIMOUS Supreme Court said Tuesday that Arkansas can’t dictate the length of a beard maintained by a Muslim prisoner, after he made his own case initially to the Court using a handwritten form.

    The case of Holt v. Hobbs was accepted in March 2014 after Gregory Holt, 38, sent the Supreme Court a 15-page publicly available form asking the nine justices to accept his case. Arguments in the case were heard Oct. 7, 2014, and Tuesday, the court agreed with Holt.

    Justice Samuel Alito said that Arkansas officials violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (or RLUIPA) when it couldn’t offer evidence the beard-length policy protected correctional officials or blocked the hiding of contraband.

    Alito also affirmed that RLUIPA doesn’t require a correctional facility to grant religious exemptions simply because a prisoner asks for one, or because other prisons grant exceptions. But he said that Arkansas couldn’t explain why its beard-length policy conflicted with “the vast majority of states” and the federal government, which permit prisoners to grow 0.5 inch (1.27cm) beards for any reason.

    “Such evidence requires a prison, at a minimum, to of-fer persuasive reasons why it believes it must take a different course,” Alito said.(SD-Agencies)