2 Prisoner Religious Freedom 4th Cir. cases
Keywords
The Fourth Circuit issued two opinions upholding the rights of prisoners under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (“RLUIPA”). Two of the three judges on the panels were identical. The judge writing the opinion in one of the cases dissented in the other case. The decisions were decided on the same day, and they discuss the power of Congress and the Eleventh Amendment. Madison v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 2006 WL 3823181 (4th Cir. Dec. 29, 2006); Lovelace v. Lee, 2006 WL 3823127 (4th Cir. Dec. 29, 2006).
The Madison case was the second appeal to the Fourth Circuit regarding the denial of a prisoner’s request for kosher meals. Ira Madison is a Hebrew Israelite and member of the Church of God and Saints of Christ. Local prison officials approved the request for kosher meals, but the Central Classifications Services (CCS), an agency of the Virginia Department of Corrections, overturned the approval. CCS found that the daily regular, vegetarian, and no-pork prison menus afforded him adequate dietary alternatives and questioned the sincerity of his religious beliefs, after considering his history of disciplinary problems. In its first decision in the case, the Fourth Circuit held that the RLUIPA did not violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution and remanded for consideration of whether RLUIPA exceeded Congress’ authority under the Spending and Commerce Clauses. Madison v. Riter, 355 F.3d 310 (4th Cir. 2003). On remand, the district court held that RLUIPA is a valid exercise of Congress’ Spending Clause power and that Virginia had waived its sovereign immunity for damages by accepting federal funds. Madison v. Riter, 411 F.Supp.2d 645 (W.D.Va. 2006).
The Fourth Circuit agreed with the lower court that RLUIPA is a valid exercise of Congress’ spending power. The court noted that it was joining four other courts of appeals in so holding, citing Cutter v. Wilkinson, 423 F.3d 579 (6th Cir. 2005); Benning v. Georgia, 391 F.3d 1299 (11th Cir. 2004); Charles v. Verhagen, 348 F.3d 601 (7th Cir. 2003); Mayweathers v. Newland, 314 F.3d 1062 (9th Cir. 2002).
Virginia argued that RLUIPA is unconstitutionally coercive because it conditions one hundred percent of federal funding for state prisons on compliance with RLUIPA. The court noted that Virginia received a mere 1.3% of prison funding from the federal government. The court found that Congress has a legitimate interest in protecting the religious freedoms of inmates and not funding systems that violate it. The court held that the state was not coerced by the withholding of funds, since the funds were only a small fraction of the corrections budget.
The Fourth Circuit held that, by taking federal funding for state prisons, the state had waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity to suit for injunctive and declaratory relief under RLUIPA, since the statute contains an express private right of action to file suit for “appropriate relief.” However, the court found that the term “appropriate relief” did not contain the necessary unequivocal textual waiver of sovereign immunity for damages. The court concluded that the inmate’s claims for damages were barred by the Eleventh Amendment, reversing the decision of the district court.
The Lovelace case involved a prisoner who sought to observe Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and prayer. The prisoner, Leroy Lovelace, was on a list of inmates participating in the prison’s Ramadan observance program, in which pre-dawn and post-sunset meals were served. After six days, he was denied access to the special evening meal and informed that he had been taken off the list of participants. A correctional officer claimed that Lovelace had eaten the regular lunch meal. Lovelace denied this, and while exhausting his administrative appeals, he suggested that prison officials review surveillance tapes and hear testimony from twenty witnesses who would attest that he never left the housing unit during lunchtime that day. The prison officials refused to do so and did not reinstate him. After exhausting his administrative remedies, he filed suit for declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and punitive damages.
In its response to the suit, the correctional officer claimed that he had made an “honest mistake” in identifying Lovelace as the prisoner who had eaten lunch that day. He acknowledged that several inmates had told him that Lovelace had remained in his housing unit during the entire lunch period that day, but he insisted that he did not realize his mistake until after Ramadan was over. The district court granted summary judgment to the prison officials, holding that officials were entitled to qualified immunity and that no constitutional violation occurred because the actions of the prison officials were negligent rather than intentional.
The Fourth Circuit began by finding that Lovelace’s observance of Ramadan qualified as religious exercise under the RLUIPA and that his removal from the Ramadan observance pass list qualified as a substantial burden on his religious practice under the RLUIPA. The court noted that the burden then shifted to the prison to justify its exclusion policy as compelled by considerations of security or good order. The court remanded the case for consideration of the prison’s justifications. Yet, the court added the instruction that even if the asserted governmental interest is compelling, the defendants would have to show that the exclusion policy is the least restrictive means of furthering this interest.
The court found that only the state Warden who issued the challenged policy was liable in his official capacity, and not the Assistant Warden. The court noted that it had already decided in the Madison case issued on the same day that damages are barred by the Eleventh Amendment.
Lovelace further sued the prison officials in their individual capacities. RLUIPA confers individual liability on a state official if the official imposes a substantial burden on an inmate’s religious exercise without compelling justification. The court inferred into RLUIPA a fault requirement and held that negligence would not suffice to impose individual liability on officials. The court held that if an official intended to burden free exercise, then the official would be liable under RLUIPA. The court concluded that there was sufficient evidence of culpability to defeat the correctional officer’s motion for summary judgment. The court found that there was a genuine question of fact whether the correctional officer acted intentionally in depriving Lovelace of his free exercise rights. The court reviewed the evidence and found that a reasonable fact-finder could conclude that the correctional officer acted maliciously in misidentifying Lovelace and in failing to correct his error during the remainder of Ramadan. The district court had held that the correctional officer was entitled to qualified immunity since the constitutionality of RLUIPA was under question. The Fourth Circuit reversed and held that the proper inquiry was whether a reasonable person would have understood that his conduct violated clearly established rights. The court denied the motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. However, the Assistant Warden and Warden could not be held liable under RLUIPA, since they only negligently relied upon the correctional officer’s insistence that he had seen Lovelace obtain a lunch tray.
The court of appeals similarly vacated the finding of summary judgment and remanded for further factual development Lovelace’s constitutional claims under the Free Exercise and Due Process Clauses.
Although Judge Wilkinson wrote the Madison decision, he wrote a 15 page dissent in Lovelace. Judge Wilkinson was nominated by Reagan and was George Will’s top choice for a Supreme Court vacancy in July 2005. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/08/AR2005070801689.html. He concurred in the judgment remanding the case for further proceedings against the correctional officer, but dissented from the holding that the prison’s exclusion policy may have violated RLUIPA.