MIAMI — A Jewish man serving a life sentence in prison for murder has won the right to kosher meals in a settlement with the Florida Department of Corrections.

Alan J. Cotton, 58, filed a civil lawsuit in September 2002, charging that his Orthodox Jewish dietary requirements were not being met by the Everglades Correctional Institution.

"They fought us every step of the way," said Derek Gaubatz, senior legal counsel at the Becket Fund, a religious-liberty law firm in Washington that took up Cotton's cause.

Settlement clauses that would let the state stop providing kosher meals if Cotton is observed eating non-kosher food were "their way to establish that he was sincere and this was not some kind of stunt," Gaubatz said.

"It's definitely true that prisoners don't enjoy the same rights as those outside," said Gaubatz. "But they do still maintain basic constitutional rights," including the "freedom to exercise their religion."

An estimated 300 Jewish inmates in state prisons would like to receive kosher meals, said Rabbi Menachem Katz, director of prison programs for the Aleph Institute, which provides counseling to Jewish prisoners.

Katz said he met with the kitchen staff of the Everglades prison to show them how to prepare kosher meals.

"He's very, very happy that he can start eating kosher and observing God's will," Katz said of Cotton.

Department of Corrections spokesman Sterling Ivey said that it was "probably a cost factor" that led state prisons not to offer kosher meals while federal and some county prisons do.

The prepackaged kosher meals for the Everglades prison cost $15 a day, while regular fare cost $2.49 a day per prisoner, Ivey said.

"Traditionally if you look at the Florida prison system, a vegan or vegetarian-type meal is usually sufficient to satisfy a religious requirement," said Ivey, noting that Florida prisons have about 120 identified religions.

Further applications for kosher meals would be "evaluated on a case by case basis," Ivey said.