Ali v. Dixon

• Decision Date: 12 October 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-6505,89-6505
• Citation: 912 F.2d 86
• Parties: Rabah Muhammad ALI, a/k/a Robert Lee Thacker, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Gary T. DIXON, Gene T. Cousins, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 86

912 F.2d 86

Rabah Muhammad ALI, a/k/a Robert Lee Thacker, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Gary T. DIXON, Gene T. Cousins, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 89-6505.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued March 8, 1990.

Decided Aug. 28, 1990.

Rehearing and Rehearing In Banc Denied Oct. 12, 1990.

Joseph C. Lombard, argued, Student Counsel, Appellate Litigation Program, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., (Steven H. Goldblatt, Director, Maureen F. Del Duca, Supervising Atty., Jeffrey E. McFadden, Jo-Anne D. Venneberg, Cindy Lebauer, Student Counsel, Appellate Litigation Program, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., on brief), for plaintiff-appellant.

Jacob Leonard Safron, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., argued (Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen., Raleigh, N.C., on brief), for defendants-appellees.

Before MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge, BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge, and KAUFMAN, Senior United States District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation.

MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge:

The district court granted summary judgment for defendant prison officials against the plaintiff, Rabah Muhammad Ali, a Muslim inmate who had alleged that certain prison practices violated his free exercise of religion rights under the first amendment. Ali has appealed.

I.

Ali converted to Islam after he began serving his sentence at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. Upon his conversion, Ali adopted his new name as a replacement for Robert Thacker, the name under which he had been committed. His name change is official under North Carolina law. At the time of Ali's conversion, Central Prison had theretofore maintained all of its records pertaining to Ali under his former, committed name. In response to Ali's name change, Central Prison placed the certificate of name change in Ali's official prison file, processed modifications to his visitors list under both his religious and committed names, and added his new name to the prison's mailroom location list.

However, the prison did not add Ali's new name to his official prison jacket. Moreover, Ali has alleged that the absence of his new name from his prison trust fund card requires him to use his former name when collecting trust fund benefits to which he is entitled. Furthermore, the prison uses his former name in corresponding with him. Ali also has alleged that the prison staff refuses to address him by his new name and that he sometimes has not received mail addressed to him under his new name.

Ali, proceeding pro se, filed suit against Warden Gary Dixon and Deputy Warden Gene Cousins, seeking injunctive relief and compensatory damages. Because Ali's complaint lacked specificity, the district court entered two particularization orders. Eventually, Ali's complaint charged that his freedom of religion rights were infringed by a) the prison's refusal to add his new name to its records, b) the prison staff's failure to address him by his new name, c) his inability to receive certain mail addressed to him under his new name and to see visitors who asked for him by his new name, and d) the refusal of the prison to correspond with him under his new name.

The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment. In support of that motion, the defendants filed their own affidavits, as well as the affidavit of Glenn G. Williams, an official with the North Carolina Department of Corrections. The affidavits detailed the "administrative nightmare" that would result from substituting Ali's new name for his old name in official prison records. As to Ali's complaint that the prison staff addresses him by his former name, Dixon's affidavit asserted that although Dixon was not personally aware of how the prison staff addresses Ali, addressing Ali by his committed name would be penologically justified. Dixon referred to the "absolute priority for all correctional staff to ... know as many of the inmates by name as possible," and opined with certainty that "the staff does find it easier to recall the name under which the plaintiff was sentenced, convicted, and committed to the custody of the Department of Correction." As to Ali's alleged failure to receive mail or visitors under his new name, Dixon's affidavit claimed that he was aware of no such incidents. Finally, Dixon's affidavit conceded that the prison corresponds with Ali under his former name because, "if official correspondence generated by correctional staff were addressed to this plaintiff under the name 'Rabah Muhammad Ali', it is quite likely that this material would not be properly inserted into the appropriate file."

The magistrate to whom the case had been assigned informed Ali of the defendants' motion and of the need for him to respond. Ali filed a response and the magistrate recommended judgment for the defendants. The magistrate concluded that Ali's request to have his Muslim name added to his internal prison records failed "to implicate a constitutional right" because the prison's internal record-keeping procedures, standing alone, are left to the prison's discretion. The magistrate recognized that Ali would have a stronger claim if he could show denial of benefits due to failure to add the new name. Nevertheless, the magistrate concluded that Ali's claims regarding the failure to deliver mail and to allow him to receive visitors must fail because Ali had not supported the claims with particularized and verified evidence. As to Ali's complaint that members of the prison staff do not address Ali by his new name, the magistrate found Ali's claim to be unsupported by the evidence. The magistrate additionally concluded, however, that, even if Ali could demonstrate that the prison staff refused to call him by his religious name, incidents of that kind "do not rise to the level of a constitutional violation" because Ali was not forced to acknowledge his committed name of Thacker in order to receive any benefit.

Upon notification of the magistrate's report, Ali filed a motion and an accompanying affidavit in opposition with the district court, alleging the same arguments but adding the allegation that he was being "forced to use his former name to withdraw his prison work pay." The district court subsequently accepted the magistrate's recommendations and entered summary judgment for the defendants. Ali has appealed. ¹

II.

The Supreme Court has recently summarized the general principles that guide the analysis of a prisoner's claim that a prison policy violates the free exercise clause of the first amendment:

First, convicted prisoners do not forfeit all constitutional protections by reason of their conviction and confinement in prison. Inmates clearly retain protections afforded by the First Amendment, including its directive that no law shall prohibit the free exercise of religion. Second, lawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system. The limitations on the exercise of constitutional rights arise both from the fact of incarceration and from valid penological objectives--including deterrence of crime, rehabilitation of prisoners, and institutional security.

O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 348, 107 S.Ct. 2400, 2404, 96 L.Ed.2d 282 (1987) (citations omitted). In addition, "evaluation of penological objectives is committed to the considered judgment of prison administrators, who are actually charged with and trained in the running of the particular institution under examination." Id. at 349, 107 S.Ct. at 2404 (citations omitted).

More specifically, the Court has held that "when a prison regulation impinges on an inmate's constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests." Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 2261, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987). The Court has identified the following four factors to be considered when assessing a regulation's reasonableness:

First, there must be a valid, rational connection between the prison regulation and the legitimate governmental interest put forward to justify it.... A second factor ... is whether there are alternative means of exercising the right that remain open to prison inmates.... A third consideration is the impact accommodation of the asserted constitutional right will have on guards and other inmates and on the allocation of prison resources generally.... Finally, the absence of ready alternatives is evidence of the reasonableness of a prison regulation. By the same token, the existence of obvious, easy alternatives may be evidence that the regulation is not reasonable, but is an exaggerated response to prison concerns.

Id. at 89-90, 107 S.Ct. at 2262. Implicit in the Turner approach is the principle that the four-factor analysis applies only after it is determined that the policy impinges on a first amendment right. Thus, for each of Ali's claims we must determine whether the prison action impinges on a free exercise right and, if so, whether the prison action is "reasonably related to legitimate penological interests."

With this framework in mind, we now examine each of Ali's claims.

A

Ali argues that the prison's refusal to add his new name to his prison record, as opposed to substituting his new name for his old name on his prison record, cannot withstand the Turner analysis. Ali contends that the requested a.k.a. addition is an easy alternative to the prison's current policy, indicating that the prison's refusal to accommodate his request is unreasonable. He calls to...