Haight v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 15 August 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–6005.,13–6005.
• Parties: Randy HAIGHT, et al., Plaintiffs–Appellants, v. Ladonna THOMPSON, et al., Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

763 F.3d 554

Randy HAIGHT, et al., Plaintiffs–Appellants,

v.Ladonna THOMPSON, et al., Defendants–Appellees.

No. 13–6005.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: May 9, 2014.

Decided and Filed: Aug. 15, 2014.

Recognized as Unconstitutional

42 U.S.C.A. §§ 2000bb, 2000bb–1, 2000bb–2, 2000bb–3, 2000–4ARGUED:Jacob M. Roth, Jones Day, Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Stafford Easterling, Justice & Public Safety Cabinet, Frankfort, Kentucky, for Appellees. ON BRIEF:Jacob M. Roth, Jones Day, Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Stafford Easterling, Justice & Public Safety Cabinet, Frankfort, Kentucky, for Appellees.

Before: COLE, Chief Judge; SUTTON, Circuit Judge; CLELAND, District Judge.^*

SUTTON, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which COLE, C.J., and CLELAND, D.J., joined. COLE, C.J. (pp. 570–73), delivered a separate concurring opinion.

OPINION

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act prohibits state and local governments from placing “a substantial burden” on the “religious exercise” of any inmate unless they establish that the burden furthers a “compelling governmental interest” and does so in the “least restrictive” way. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc–1(a). Congress did not leave it to the National Government alone to enforce the law or to the whims of potential implied rights of action that might (or might not) allow inmates themselves to enforce the law. It created a private cause of action that empowers inmates to obtain “appropriate relief” from those who violate the statute. Id.§ 2000cc–2(a).

Five death-row inmates, currently housed in a maximum-security prison in Kentucky, filed this lawsuit under the Act for a variety of reasons—some related to requests to practice their Native American faith, some related to a request for clergy visits. They lost across the board before the district court, which granted summary judgment in favor of the relevant prison officials at each turn. At this stage of the case, no one debates the sincerity of the inmates' religious beliefs.

The appeal presents three questions: (1) Is there a triable issue of fact over whether RLUIPA gives the inmates a right to have access to a sweat lodge for faith-based ceremonies? (2) Is there a triable issue of fact over whether RLUIPA gives the inmates a right to buffalo meat and other traditional foods for a faith-based once-a-year powwow? (3) Does RLUIPA permit inmates to collect money damages from prison officials sued in their individual capacities? The answers, as we explain below, are yes, yes and no.

I.

A.

RLUIPA arose from the embers of two prior efforts to require the States to respect the faith-based practices of their citizens. In the first, Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990), Alfred Smith and Galen Black were fired from their jobs as counselors at a drug rehabilitation clinic because they had ingested peyote as part of a religious ceremony conducted by their Native American Church. When Smith and Black sought unemployment benefits, the State denied the benefits on the ground that they had been fired for misconduct, namely violating Oregon's criminal prohibition against possessing and using peyote. The Supreme Court rejected the individuals' claims that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, prevented the State from penalizing their faith-based practices. The reason? A State does not violate the free exercise rights of its citizens when it enforces “neutral” and “generally applicable” laws—laws in other words that apply to everyone regardless of their faith or lack of faith. Id. at 878–82, 110 S.Ct. 1595.

The second effort arose from Congress's response to Smith, a legislative measure that sought to provide greater protections for religious practices than those offered by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. See Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq. The Act, RFRA as it has come to be known, imposed strict scrutiny on all governmental burdens placed on individuals' religious practices, even those arising from generally applicable laws. Id.§ 2000bb–1. In City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 117 S.Ct. 2157, 138 L.Ed.2d 624 (1997), however, the Court faced a challenge to Congress's authority to enact RFRA in the context of a city's rejection of a church's application to expand the size of its church, which by then had been designated an historic landmark under state law. The Court invalidated the law as applied to the States (though not the Federal Government) because it exceeded Congress's enforcement authority under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to impose “congruent and proportional” legislation on the States to remediate or ward off free-exercise violations. Id. at 529–36, 117 S.Ct. 2157.

In the aftermath of Smith's and Black's unsuccessful free exercise claims in Smith and in the aftermath of Congress's unsuccessful efforts in RFRA to impose strict scrutiny on state and local governments regulating religious practices and religious institutions, Congress tried again. In 2000, it passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Instead of enacting a law applicable to all state laws, it enacted one applicable only to state and local regulations of inmates and land use. And instead of invoking its Section 5 enforcement powers, it invoked its Spending and Commerce Clause powers.

As relevant here, RLUIPA, as it has come to be known, applies to prisons that receive federal funds and prohibits state and local governments from placing “a substantial burden” on the “religious exercise” of any inmate unless they establish that the burden furthers a “compelling governmental interest” and does so in the “least restrictive” way. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc–1(a). To establish a cognizable claim under RLUIPA, the inmate must first demonstrate that a prison policy substantially burdens a religious practice. So long as the practice is traceable to a sincerely held religious belief, see Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 725 n. 13, 125 S.Ct. 2113, 161 L.Ed.2d 1020 (2005), it does not matter whether the inmate's preferred exercise is “central” to his faith, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc–5(7)(A). Once an inmate makes this showing, the prison policy survives only if it serves a compelling governmental interest in the least restrictive way. Id.§ 2000cc–1(a).

B.

Two groups of death-row inmates, all held in a maximum-security prison in Kentucky, filed this lawsuit under RLUIPA. The first group, Robert Foley, Roger Epperson and Vincent Stopher, claim that prison officials violated the Act by denying them access to a sweat lodge for religious ceremonies and refusing to provide traditional foods for Native American religious ceremonies. The inmates offered to pay for the lodge, which is “a hut ... or cavern heated by steam from water poured on hot stones and used ... by [Native Americans] for ritual or therapeutic sweating.” Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2308. The warden denied the inmates' grievance in January 2010, writing that the Kentucky Department of Corrections “has not approved ... a sweat lodge at other prisons, so this would be a first, if granted.” R. 1–6 at 4–5, 8. The inmates appealed the warden's decision to the state commissioner, who said in February 2010 that “[a] final decision has not been made yet and this issue needs to be investigated further.” Id. at 10. The commissioner promised a decision “in the near future,” id., which apparently means more than four years, as he has not issued a decision yet.

The three inmates also requested Native American foods for their annual powwow—a “day of ... dancing, speaking, and praying in word, song, and music” accompanied by a “traditional” meal. R. 46 at 45. The inmates made repeated requests to purchase food for this meal, including buffalo meat and corn pemmican, and offered to pay for the food themselves. The prison denied each request, though they did provide “special traditional bread” for the meal. See, e.g., R. 1–6 at 17. When the inmates filed several grievances asking for other traditional foods at the ceremony, the warden and commissioner rejected their complaints.

The district court ruled against the inmates. It granted summary judgment to the prison officials on the sweat-lodge and ceremonial-foods requests, holding that the inmates failed as a matter of law to support their claims under RLUIPA.

The second group of inmates, Randy Haight and Gregory Wilson, contend that prison officials violated RLUIPA when they failed to facilitate inmate access to visiting clergy members. Before June 2010, the Kentucky State Penitentiary had regularly granted visiting clergy members the opportunity to see prison inmates under a “special visit” exception to the prison visitation policy. See R. 1–1 at 35–36. But the practice changed when prison officials discovered that it conflicted with statewide prison procedures. Under the new policy, the prison required visiting clergy members to go through the usual visitation process: Their names had to “appear[ ] on the [inmate's] approved visitation list,” and their names could not appear “on more than one ... inmate['s] list” at a time. R. 32–1 at 4. The prison temporarily suspended all clergy visits for several weeks in the summer of 2010. In response, Haight and Wilson exhausted the prison's grievance procedures and filed this lawsuit in federal court, seeking injunctive relief and money damages.

While the lawsuit was pending, the State changed its visitation policy again. Under the (new) new policy, members of the clergy could appear on more than one inmate's visitation list, and they could visit more than one inmate on each prison visit. All of this satisfied the inmates' request for action, and accordingly the district court dismissed the inmates' request for injunctive relief as moot. It then dismissed the rest of the claim...