Inmate Courtney Royal two years ago sued about a dozen Texas prison administrators and officials at the Hughes Unit where he's doing life for offenses including aggravated assault, robbery and escape.

Royal's nine-page single-space typewritten lawsuit, dismissed by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said he wanted to practice "West African spiritualism and 18th Century Catholicism" marked by prayer to Africans reincarnated by blood.