Barrett v. Com. of Va.

• Decision Date: 20 September 1982
• Docket Number: No. 82-6047,82-6047
• Citation: 689 F.2d 498
• Parties: Thomas Eldridge BARRETT, Appellee, v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA; Arlington Circuit Court, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 498

689 F.2d 498

Thomas Eldridge BARRETT, Appellee, v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA; Arlington Circuit Court, Appellants.

No. 82-6047.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued June 10, 1982.

Decided Sept. 20, 1982.

Burnett Miller, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va. (Gerald L. Baliles, Atty. Gen. of Va., Richmond, Va., on brief) for appellants.

S. Keith Barker, Richmond, Va. (Tuck, Freasier & Herbig, Richmond, Va., on brief), for appellee.

Before WINTER, Chief Judge, and PHILLIPS and MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judges.

HARRISON L. WINTER, Chief Judge:

The Commonwealth of Virginia and the Circuit Court of Arlington County appeal from the district court's ruling that Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-217 (Cum.Supp.1982) violates the first amendment insofar as the statute withholds legal recognition of a prisoner's religiously motivated change of name. We affirm that ruling but reverse a subsequent order in which the court prescribed the manner in which Virginia must reorganize its correctional records.

I.

Thomas Eldridge Barrett, a Virginia prisoner, converted to the Islamic or Muslim faith while in prison. Conforming to the teachings of his religious leader, Barrett assumed the name "Abdul Taleb Mohammed Ali," and he twice applied to the Circuit Court of Arlington County, Virginia, for legal recognition of his adopted name. His petitions were refused pursuant to § 8.01-217 of the Virginia Code, which provides in pertinent part:

Any person desiring to change his own name ... may apply therefor to the circuit court of the county or city in which the person whose name is to be changed resides ...; provided, however, that no application shall be accepted from any person who is incarcerated in any adult or juvenile correctional facility or jail, or who is a probationer unless the court finds that good cause exists for consideration of such application from such probationer under the circumstances alleged.

Va.Code Ann. § 8.01-217 (Cum.Supp.1982) (emphasis added). ¹

Acting pro se, Barrett brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Circuit Court of Arlington County, ² alleging that the proviso of § 8.01-217 violates his first amendment right freely to exercise his religion. The district court denied cross-motions for summary judgment and referred the matter to a magistrate for an evidentiary hearing.

The magistrate received testimony from plaintiff, from the Assistant Director of Corrections for the Arlington County Jail, and from the Deputy Director of the Department of Corrections in charge of prisons. There was no evidence that plaintiff was punished or denied prison privileges for using his Muslim name, and the magistrate found that plaintiff's coreligionists in prison call him by that name without interference by the authorities. ³ Testimony put on by the state, however, indicated that a prisoner's records are maintained in the name of the prisoner and a number which is assigned to him at the time of incarceration, and that legal recognition of plaintiff's adopted name would lead many other prisoners to change their names and would jeopardize the maintenance of adequate identification records. Claiming that it would be unduly burdensome to amend its records to reflect name changes, the state also asserted that such changes would create confusion in prison operations, in communications among various law enforcement agencies, in efforts to apprehend escaped prisoners, and in the service of detainers. The magistrate acknowledged the vital governmental interest in accurately identifying prison inmates, and she noted that some prisoners might abuse name changes to frustrate legitimate law enforcement functions. Balancing the state's concern against plaintiff's interest in religious expression, however, the magistrate concluded that § 8.01-217 violates plaintiff's religious rights under the first amendment by flatly prohibiting him from changing his legal name.

The district court adopted the magistrate's findings and recommendation and invalidated § 8.01-217 as applied. Like the magistrate, the district court did "not denigrate the defendant's concern relative to maintaining identification records," but concluded that "those concerns (are) outweighed by the plaintiff's First Amendment rights." The court ordered the Circuit Court of Arlington County to consider a proper application for a change of name by plaintiff. The order stated that defendants' records may reflect "not only the plaintiff's chosen, changed, religious name, but also such other identifying name, number or symbol as may be necessary to maintain continuity between the records kept on the plaintiff under his name, Thomas Eldridge Barrett, and those kept under a new name." By a motion for clarification, defendants sought the district court's permission to reflect the plaintiff's new name as an alias in their existing records. The district court, however, ruled that "the records (must) be changed to reflect the plaintiff's chosen, changed, religious name followed by his old name and any aliases that he may have as a/k/a's or other identifying material."

II.

One who is incarcerated for violation of the criminal law retains first amendment rights to the extent that those rights are not "inconsistent with his status as a prisoner or with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system." Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 822, 94 S.Ct. 2800, 2804, 41 L.Ed.2d 495 (1974). Under this principle, "reasonable opportunities must be afforded to all prisoners to exercise the religious freedom guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments without fear of penalty." Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 322 n.2, 92 S.Ct. 1079, 1081 n.2, 31 L.Ed.2d 263 (1972) (per curiam). A restriction on prisoners' religious expression will not be deemed unconstitutional if the restriction is necessary to safeguard legitimate institutional and penological interests; moreover, correctional officials' appraisal of those interests command great deference on the part of the courts. See Sweet v. South Carolina Department of Corrections, 529 F.2d 854 (4 Cir. 1975) (en banc); cf. Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Inc., 433 U.S. 119, 128, 97 S.Ct. 2532, 2539, 53 L.Ed.2d 629 (1977) (rights of speech and association); Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 404-05, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 1807, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974) (right to correspond with nonprisoners). But the determinations of prison officials of the need for restrictions are not dispositive; such restrictions are subject to judicial review and will be struck down where they are not "reasonably and substantially justified by considerations of prison discipline and order." Sweet, 529 F.2d at 863. ⁴

In this case, plaintiff asserts that Virginia's categorical prohibition on name changes by prisoners abridges his right to express his faith by adopting a Muslim name. Virginia does not dispute that a change of name may be a religious exercise protected by the first amendment, nor does it question the bona fides of plaintiff's desire to take a Muslim name. ⁵ Rather, Virginia insists that to grant legal recognition of prisoners' religiously motivated name changes would disrupt the correctional authorities' identification records and thereby produce confusion in internal prison operations (such as delivering mail, screening visitors, and accounting for outside medical services), in the interstate detainer system, and in efforts to recapture escaped prisoners.

In arguing that state interests justify the challenged prohibition, Virginia places principal reliance on Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union. There the Supreme Court considered whether a regulation barring all meetings, solicitation, and bulk mailings by a prisoner's union comported with the first amendment. A three-judge district court had invalidated these restrictions, notwithstanding its findings that the state correctional authorities sincerely believed that concerted activities by inmates would jeopardize prison discipline and security and that those fears were arguably justified. The Supreme Court observed that "(w)ithout a showing that these beliefs were unreasonable, it was error for the District Court to conclude that (the state) needed to show more." 433 U.S. at 127-28, 97 S.Ct. at 2538-39. After satisfying itself that the restrictions imposed were indeed reasonable, the Court upheld the regulation. See id. at 129-33, 97 S.Ct. at 2539-2542. See also Pittman v. Hutto, 594 F.2d 407 (4 Cir. 1979) (applying Jones to uphold censorship of a prison newspaper).

Virginia's argument is that it is entitled to prevail here because informed officers of its correctional system testified that a contrary result would threaten important penological objectives and their view has "not been conclusively shown to be wrong." Jones, 433 U.S. at 132, 97 S.Ct. at 2541. Indeed, the magistrate, whose findings were expressly adopted by the district court, found that it is "not entirely unreasonable" to assume that, given the opportunity, some inmates would change their names for the purpose of confounding prison operations and evading service of detainers. Hence, Virginia asserts, the district court was not free to subordinate the state's interests so as to accommodate the plaintiff's interest in religious expression.

We think that Virginia reads the Jones opinion too broadly. Jones, of course, teaches that reasonable restrictions on prisoners' first amendment rights are constitutional and that correctional authorities' assessment of penological and institutional interests are to be received with deference. But Jones does not repudiate the principle that such restrictions are judicially reviewable and that the determination of their reasonableness rests ultimately with the courts. Cf. Gallahan v. Hollyfield, 670 F.2d 1345 (4 Cir. 1982) (per curiam) (upholding a Cherokee Indian prisoner's right to have long hair, in accordance with the...