Charles v. Verhagen

• Citation: 220 F.Supp.2d 955
• Decision Date: 28 August 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-C-253-C.,01-C-253-C.
• Parties: Jerry CHARLES, Plaintiff, v. Dick VERHAGEN and Jon Litscher, Defendants, and United States of America, Intervenor.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Wisconsin

220 F.Supp.2d 955

Jerry CHARLES, Plaintiff, v. Dick VERHAGEN and Jon Litscher, Defendants, and United States of America, Intervenor.

No. 01-C-253-C.

United States District Court, W.D. Wisconsin.

August 28, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Jerry Charles, Oshkosh, WI, Pro se.

Jody J. Schmelzer, Assistant Attorney General, Madison, WI, for Jon Litscher, Dick Verhagen.

Joshua Z. Rabinovitz, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Washington, DC, for U.S.

OPINION AND ORDER

CRABB, District Judge.

This is a civil action for declaratory, injunctive and monetary relief brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc-2000cc-5. Plaintiff Jerry Charles is a Wisconsin prisoner and practicing Muslim presently confined at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He contends that defendants' enforcement of a prison Internal Management Procedure restricting his access to Islamic prayer oil and preventing him from celebrating more than one annual religious feast violates his rights under both the free exercise clause of the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

In an order entered on April 15, 2002, I granted defendants' summary judgment motion on all of plaintiff's claims except his claim that his rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act were violated when he was not allowed to possess prayer oil in his cell. As to that claim, I concluded that, as applied to plaintiff to prevent him from possessing prayer oil in his cell, the prison's religious property Internal Management Procedure violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act because it does not represent the approach to controlling administrative costs and preserving prison resources that is least restrictive of plaintiff's exercise of his religion. However, I determined that although plaintiff might be entitled to declaratory or injunctive relief, he would not be entitled to monetary relief on his surviving claim because defendants are immune from money damages on that claim.

In addition, in that same order, I noted that plaintiff could not yet declare victory because defendants had challenged the act's constitutionality. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2403, I was required to certify to the Attorney General of the United States the fact that defendants had drawn into question the act's constitutionality and give the United States an opportunity to intervene on that question. The United States and the parties have now fully briefed the only question remaining in this case: whether the relevant section of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act is constitutional. In the April 15 order, I informed the parties that once I had considered the question of the act's constitutionality, I would either grant defendants' summary judgment motion as to plaintiff's remaining claim because the act violates the Constitution or, if the act survived constitutional scrutiny, I would enter summary judgment for plaintiff on that claim on the court's own motion. See Borcherding-Dittloff v. Corporate Receivables, Inc., 59 F.Supp.2d 822, 826 (W.D.Wis. 1999); see also 10A Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure 3d § 2720 at 347 (1998) (summary judgment may be entered in favor of non-moving party even though no formal cross-motion has been filed). Because I find that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act is a constitutionally valid exercise of Congress's spending power, does not violate the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution and does not violate the First Amendment's establishment clause, I will enter summary judgment in favor of plaintiff on his remaining claim.

Most of the material undisputed facts in this case were detailed in the court's April 15, 2002 order. However, for the purpose of deciding defendants' constitutional challenge, I find the following additional facts to be material and undisputed.

ADDITIONAL UNDISPUTED FACTS

Defendant Dick Verhagen is the former administrator of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Adult Institutions. Defendant Jon Litscher is Secretary of the Department of Corrections. Typically, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections accepts federal funds in the following general areas: education; alcohol, drug and mental health programs; prison construction; communication and technology systems; work training programs; and miscellaneous areas such as sex offender treatment and community and victim programs. In fiscal year 2001, the Department of Corrections accepted over $14.5 million in federal financial assistance, with the funds distributed according to the following approximate breakdown: $2,523,000 for education; $3,207,275 for alcohol, drug and mental health programs; $4,967,000 for prison construction; $1,813,000 for communications and technology systems; $997,873 for work training programs; and $999,096 for miscellaneous projects. In fiscal year 2001, federal funds accounted for approximately 1.6% of the department's total expenditures. The department receives no federal funds for religious programing.

OPINION

Section three of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act prohibits governmental imposition of a "substantial burden on the religious exercise" of a prisoner, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the burden "(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(a). Invoking its powers under the Constitution's spending and commerce clauses, Congress made section three applicable

in any case in which —

(1) the substantial burden is imposed in a program or activity that receives Federal financial assistance; or

(2) the substantial burden affects, or removal of that substantial burden would affect, commerce with foreign nations, among the several States, or with Indian tribes.

Id. at § 2000cc-1(b). Events leading up to congressional passage of the act are described in the court's April 15, 2002 order, dkt. # 63, at 11-13. Defendants challenge only the constitutionality of section three of the act, which contains the provisions relating to institutionalized persons. They maintain that in approving the act, Congress exceeded its authority under both the spending clause and the commerce clause. Defendants argue also that the act violates both the Tenth Amendment and the First Amendment's establishment clause.

A. Spending Clause

The Constitution grants Congress the power to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the Common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 1. Congress's spending power is broad and "is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution." United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 66, 56 S.Ct. 312, 80 L.Ed. 477 (1936). In other words, Congress may tax and spend to enhance the national welfare generally, not merely to carry out the specific powers assigned to it in Article I of the Constitution. Incident to its spending power, "Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds, and has repeatedly employed the power `to further broad policy objectives by conditioning receipt of federal moneys upon compliance by the recipient with federal statutory and administrative directives.'" South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 206, 107 S.Ct. 2793, 97 L.Ed.2d 171 (1987) (quoting Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 474, 100 S.Ct. 2758, 65 L.Ed.2d 902 (1980) (opinion of Burger, C.J.)). As the leading case on conditional spending, Dole sets restrictions on the ability of Congress to condition the grant of federal funds on the recipients' compliance with federal policy objectives.

Dole involved a federal law that directed the Secretary of Transportation to withhold a percentage of federal highway funds from states that permitted persons under the age of 21 to purchase alcohol. The Court held that Congress's decision to condition federal aid on a state's agreement to impose a mandatory drinking age was "within constitutional bounds even if Congress may not regulate drinking ages directly." Id. In the course of reaching its decision, the Court identified four limitations on Congress's spending power.

The first of these limitations is derived from the language of the Constitution itself: the exercise of the spending power must be in pursuit of "the general welfare." ... Second, we have required that if Congress desires to condition the States' receipt of federal funds, it "must do so unambiguously ..., enabl[ing] the States to exercise their choice knowingly, cognizant of the consequences of their participation." Third, our cases have suggested (without significant elaboration) that conditions on federal grants might be illegitimate if they are unrelated "to the federal interest in particular national projects or programs." Finally, we have noted that other constitutional provisions may provide an independent bar to the conditional grant of federal funds.

Id. at 207-08, 107 S.Ct. 2793 (internal citations and footnote omitted). On top of these specific limitations, the Court has suggested a general requirement that conditional spending programs must be more in the nature of a carrot than a stick. Therefore, conditions may be unconstitutional when they cross the line between permissible encouragement and impermissible coercion. Id. at 211, 107 S.Ct. 2793.

1. The general welfare

The first limitation on Congress's spending power is that federal funds must be appropriated and disbursed with an eye toward advancing the general welfare. "In considering whether a particular expenditure is intended to serve general public purposes, courts should defer substantially to the judgment of Cong...