Barnes v. Fedele

• Decision Date: 02 October 2018
• Docket Number: 07-CV-6197L
• Citation: 337 F.Supp.3d 227
• Parties: Arrello BARNES, Plaintiff, v. FEDELE, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of New York

337 F.Supp.3d 227

Arrello BARNES, Plaintiff,

v.FEDELE, et al., Defendants.

07-CV-6197L

United States District Court, W.D. New York.

Signed October 2, 2018

Arrello Barnes, Elmira, NY, pro se.

Gary M. Levine, New York State Office of the Attorney General, Rochester, NY, for Defendants.

DECISION AND ORDER

DAVID G. LARIMER, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Arrello Barnes, proceeding pro se , brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc et seq. Plaintiff sued a number of officials and employees of the New York State Department of Correctional Services ("DOCS")¹ , asserting various violations of his rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution to the free exercise of religion.

In February 2014, the Court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment, denied plaintiff's cross-motion for summary judgment, and dismissed the complaint. Dkt. # 164; 2014 WL 11460504. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed in part and vacated in part this Court's decision, and remanded the case for "further proceedings and development of the record" as to one particular issue: defendants' denial to plaintiff of a "Tsalot-Kob," which is a head covering, also known as a "crown," which is worn for religious purposes. See 629 Fed.Appx. 52, 53 n.1 (2d Cir. 2015) (stating that a Tsalot-Kob is "a hemispheric head cap that can be made of cloth, knitted or crocheted" and "measures approximately 12? long at its longest point in order to cover all [dread]locks").

After the Second Circuit's mandate was filed in 2016 (Dkt. # 173), defendants moved for summary judgment. (Dkt. # 194.) Plaintiff then cross-moved for summary judgment. (Dkt. # 199.) Those motions were accompanied by declarations of the parties and other evidence, which collectively have substantially fleshed out the factual record, in accordance with the Second Circuit's directives.

BACKGROUND

The relevant factual background has been set forth in the above-cited decisions, and in this Court's 2011 decision granting in part defendants' motion to dismiss. 760 F.Supp.2d 296. Familiarity with those decisions is assumed, but the Court will briefly summarize the pertinent facts.

Plaintiff's request to be allowed to wear a Tsalot-Kob was denied in 2007 because at the time of his request, he had registered his religious affiliation as "Jewish." At that time, DOCS Directive 4202 provided that Tsalot-Kobs were "approved religious headwear [only] for members of the Rastafarian religious faith." Dkt. # 194-7 Ex. A § M(1)(c). DOCS officials had decided, based on advice from the New York State Board of Rabbis, that the only appropriate head covering for Jews was a yarmulke. 629 Fed.Appx. at 55.

Plaintiff "contend[ed] that wearing a religious crown [was], in his sincere belief, consistent with his religious beliefs, and that the wearing of a yarmulke over his dreadlocks as an alternative was at best, impractical, and at worst, impossible." 2014 WL 11460504, at *5. In my 2014 decision, this Court "conclude[d] that the DOCS restriction at issue, insofar as it was enforced to prevent plaintiff from adopting the religious crown specific to plaintiff's sincerely-held beliefs, and permitted by DOCS for use by other religious adherents, violated plaintiff's free exercise rights under the First Amendment and RLUIPA." Id. at *6.

This Court also held, however, that all the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity, "[b]ecause no clear case law existed in 2004 which would have informed the individual defendants that the policies at issue were unconstitutional or violative of RLUIPA when applied to plaintiff ...." Id. at *7.

On appeal, the Second Circuit agreed with this Court that "there is no legitimate reason for DOCS to afford members of only one religious denomination the opportunity to adhere to a sincerely held religious belief relative to grooming or headwear," 629 Fed.Appx. at 56 (internal quotes omitted), but the court held that there were issues of fact as to the individual defendants' qualified immunity. The court remanded for further proceedings, as explained in greater detail in the Discussion, infra.

The court also affirmed this Court's holding that Barnes's requests for injunctive and declaratory relief are moot. The Court stated that "Barnes's claims [for equitable relief] are moot because he has since changed his religious designation to Protestant and no longer has dreadlocks," and thus no need for a Tsalot-Kob. Id. In addition, the court noted that DOCS has changed its policy, to remove the limitation that Tsalot-Kobs can only be worn by Rastafarians. See id. at 55 ; Def. App. Brief Dkt. # 100 at 56 (stating that "[i]n an effort to ensure compliance with RLUIPA, inmates will no longer be required to pick faith specific items for individual worship only ") (emphasis in original). And by his own admission, plaintiff's crown was returned to him in January 2008. See Dkt. # 199 at 3 ¶ 14; Dkt. # 194-8 at 4. Thus, the only remaining issue is whether the defendants can be held liable for damages, for the temporary denial to plaintiff of a Tsalot-Kob, or whether they are entitled to qualified immunity on that claim.

DISCUSSION

Qualified immunity shields a government official from liability for civil damages "if his conduct did not violate plaintiff's clearly established rights or if it would have been objectively reasonable for the official to believe that his conduct did not violate plaintiff's rights." Mandell v. County of Suffolk , 316 F.3d 368, 385 (2d Cir. 2003). The Court "must look to both the clarity of the law establishing the right allegedly violated as well as whether a reasonable person, acting under the circumstances the[n] confronting a defendant, would have understood that his actions were unlawful." Ford v. McGinnis , 352 F.3d 582, 596-97 (2d Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Second Circuit has held that "a defense of qualified immunity ... is a defense that often can and should be decided on a motion for summary judgment," Walker v. Schult , 717 F.3d 119, 130 (2d Cir. 2013) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). As stated, there has now been discovery in this case related to that defense. See also Green v. City of New York , 465 F.3d 65, 83 (2d Cir. 2006) ("If there is no material question of fact, the court decides the qualified immunity issue as a matter of law"); Warren v. Dwyer , 906 F.2d 70, 76 (2d Cir. 1990) ("The better rule, we believe, is for the court to decide the issue of qualified immunity as a matter of law, preferably on a pretrial motion for summary judgment when possible ...").

The qualified immunity defense in this case largely turns on two considerations: whether the statutory or constitutional right in question was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation, and, if so, whether it was objectively reasonable for the individual defendants to believe that their actions were constitutionally permissible. See Barnes , 629 Fed.Appx. at 56.

" ‘Clearly established’ means that, at the time of the officer's conduct, the law was ‘sufficiently clear’ that every ‘reasonable official would understand that what he is doing’ is unlawful." District of Columbia v. Wesby , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S.Ct. 577, 589, 199 L.Ed.2d 453 (2018) (quoting Ashcroft v. al-Kidd , 563 U.S. 731, 741, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011) ) (additional internal quotes omitted). The Supreme Court has also stated that the defense of qualified immunity provides "ample room for mistaken judgments," Malley v. Briggs , 475 U.S. 335, 343, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986), and protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law," id. at 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092. Accord Kemp v. Liebel , 877 F.3d 346, 350 (7th Cir. 2017) ; Meehan v. Thompson , 763 F.3d 936, 940 (8th Cir. 2014) ; Harman v. Pollock , 586 F.3d 1254, 1261 (10th Cir. 2009).

Before a court can determine if the relevant law was clearly established, "the right allegedly violated must be defined at the appropriate level of specificity." Wilson v. Layne , 526 U.S. 603, 615, 119 S.Ct. 1692, 143 L.Ed.2d 818 (1999). Indeed, "[t]he Supreme Court has ‘repeatedly told courts ... not to define clearly established law at a high level of generality.’ " Volkman v. Ryker , 736 F.3d 1084, 1090 (7th Cir. 2013) (quoting al-Kidd , 563 U.S. at 742, 131 S.Ct. 2074 ). Accord Redd v. Wright , 597 F.3d 532, 536 (2d Cir. 2010). "While the Supreme Court ‘do[es] not require a case directly on point’ for a right to be clearly established, ‘existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.’ " Reed v. Sheppard , 321 F.Supp.3d 429, 444, 2018 WL 3962819, at *10 (W.D.N.Y. 2018) (quoting Mullenix v. Luna , ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S.Ct. 305, 308, 193 L.Ed.2d 255 (2015) (additional internal quotes omitted).

In the case at bar, the Court of Appeals held that its "earlier decisions ha[d] clearly established that prison officials may not prohibit a sincere religious practice without some legitimate penological interest."

629 Fed.Appx. at 56. The court also stated that it was "clearly established before 2007 [when plaintiff's crown was confiscated] that prison officials could not rely solely on the opinions of the New York Board of Rabbis in assessing the sincerity of Barnes's religious belief," and that "the test for whether a prisoner's beliefs are entitled to free exercise protection turns on whether they are ‘sincerely held,’ not the ecclesiastical question of the propriety of Jews wearing head coverings other than yarmulkes." 629 Fed.Appx. at 56.²

"Even so," the court added, "there remains the question of whether ‘reasonable persons in [defendants'] position would not have understood that their conduct was within the scope of the established prohibition.’ " Id. (quoting LaBounty v. Coughlin , 137 F.3d 68, 73 (2d Cir. 1998) ) (additional internal quote...