Cochran v. Morris

• Decision Date: 26 January 1996
• Docket Number: No. 94-6014,94-6014
• Citation: 73 F.3d 1310
• Parties: Dennis Wayne COCHRAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, United States of America, Intervenor, v. E.C. MORRIS, Deputy Director of Corrections; David K. Smith, Warden, Buckingham; Bobby Soles, Assistant Warden; C.N. Lewis, Chief of Security, Defendants-Appellees, Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion, Amicus Curiae.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1310

73 F.3d 1310

Dennis Wayne COCHRAN, Plaintiff-Appellant United States of America, Intervenor, v. E.C. MORRIS, Deputy Director of Corrections; David K Smith, Warden, Buckingham; Bobby Soles, Assistant Warden; C.N. Lewis, Chief of Security Defendants-Appellees Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion, Amicus Curiae.

No. 94-6014.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Sept. 26, 1995.

Decided Jan. 26, 1996.

ARGUED: William Ray Baldwin, III, Hirschler, Fleischer, Weinberg, Cox & Allen, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Patricia Ann Millett, Civil Division, United States Department Of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Intervenor. Mark Ralph Davis, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Steven H. Goldblatt, Director, Bonnie I. Robin-Vergeer, Supervising Attorney, Appellate Litigation Clinical Program, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Frank W. Hunger, Before ERVIN, Chief Judge, and RUSSELL, WIDENER, HALL, MURNAGHAN, WILKINSON, WILKINS, NIEMEYER, HAMILTON, LUTTIG, WILLIAMS, MICHAEL, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, sitting en banc.

Assistant Attorney General, Helen F. Fahey, United States Attorney, Michael Jay Singer, Civil Division, United States Department Of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Intervenor. James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. Marc D. Stern, American Jewish Congress, New York City, for Amicus Curiae.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the majority opinion, in which Judges RUSSELL, WIDENER, HALL, WILKINS, NIEMEYER, HAMILTON, LUTTIG, AND WILLIAMS joined. Judge MICHAEL wrote a dissenting opinion, in which Chief Judge ERVIN and Judges MURNAGHAN and MOTZ joined.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

We granted en banc review in this case to consider whether the district court properly dismissed appellant Dennis Wayne Cochran's in forma pauperis complaint. Because we find that the court dismissed Cochran's complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1915(d), its judgment is entitled to great deference. Nasim v. Warden, Maryland House of Correction, 64 F.3d 951, 954-55 (4th Cir.1995) (en banc); Adams v. Rice, 40 F.3d 72, 74 (4th Cir.1994), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1371, 131 L.Ed.2d 227 (1995). Guided by the standards set forth in our recent decisions, we affirm.

I.

This case is one of a series that Dennis Wayne Cochran has generated from his prison cell. The lawsuits, filed in both the Western and Eastern districts of Virginia, all stem from a single incident that occurred when Cochran was incarcerated at the Buckingham Correctional Center (BCC). A fellow prisoner stabbed Cochran in a stairwell in December of 1990. After the assault, BCC officials placed Cochran in protective custody.

The record does not fully disclose what transpired after Cochran was placed in protective custody. What is clear is that Cochran objected to BCC's treatment of him. According to Cochran, he and BCC officials had a succession of disputes about several subjects, including Cochran's investigation of security in the stairwells at BCC, his continued placement in protective custody, his on-again, off-again request for a kosher diet, and his transfer to the Powhatan Correctional Center (PCC) in late April, 1992.

As a result of the assault and ensuing disputes, Cochran filed a number of lawsuits against his jailers. In March of 1992 Cochran brought two suits in the Western District alleging a denial of equal protection and deliberate indifference by BCC officials based on their failure to post security guards in the stairwells. Cochran sought to file these cases in forma pauperis; the court assessed a partial filing fee of $40 for each case pursuant to Evans v. Croom, 650 F.2d 521 (4th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1153, 102 S.Ct. 1023, 71 L.Ed.2d 309 (1982). At the same time, the court advised Cochran he would have twenty days to respond to defendants' motion for summary judgment. Soon after he received the notices regarding filing fees and summary judgment, Cochran moved to withdraw the suits without prejudice. Cochran, who was transferred from BCC to PCC on April 29, explained that his legal materials were "disarranged and missing" as a result of the transfer and he thus wanted to withdraw his complaints. The court granted Cochran's motion.

The record also discloses portions of the procedural history of at least two other lawsuits Cochran filed in 1992. Unlike the previous cases, Cochran brought these suits in the Eastern District. One alleged a denial of adequate medical care, and the other asserted improper confinement in segregation. The record does not reveal the final disposition of these actions. ¹

One other suit Cochran filed in 1992 is especially pertinent to this appeal. In June, 1992, Cochran submitted a Sec. 1983 action in the Eastern District (Cochran I ), which contained allegations resembling those in the case now before the court. The Cochran I complaint charged that prison officials violated Cochran's constitutional right to the free exercise of religion when they denied him a kosher diet. This refusal to provide kosher meals was connected, in a roundabout way, to the assault and Cochran's subsequent placement in protective custody. Allegedly forced to choose between his kosher diet at BCC and transfer to another prison where he would be separated from his attacker, Cochran asserted that he initially chose a transfer. After consulting a rabbi, however, Cochran alleged that he changed his mind while still at BCC and sought to revoke his waiver of a kosher diet. BCC officials denied his request; Cochran was transferred to PCC where he was unable to obtain a kosher diet. This chain of events formed the basis for Cochran's free exercise claim.

In July, 1993, the district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment in Cochran I. Cochran v. Murray, No. 92-1021 (E.D.Va. July 7, 1993). Notably, the district court observed that Cochran's change of heart about his need for a kosher diet occurred only after, not before, he transferred to PCC. In this context, the court decided that it was permissible to deny Cochran's request to transfer back to BCC from PCC in order to receive a kosher diet; the court also determined that Virginia's accommodation of kosher diets at one institution satisfied the constitution.

On November 17, 1993, this court affirmed the district court's decision in Cochran I. 12 F.3d 204 (Table), No. 93-6828 (4th Cir.1993). One day earlier, November 16th, the President signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Pub.L. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (1993). Cochran unsuccessfully cited this new statute in his subsequent attempts to reverse Cochran I. Cochran v. Murray, No. 93-6828 (4th Cir.1994) (rehearing denied); --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1658, 128 L.Ed.2d 376 (1994) (certiorari denied); --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2730, 129 L.Ed.2d 852 (1994) (rehearing denied).

In September, 1993, just two months after the Eastern District dismissed Cochran I and while he was appealing its decision, Cochran brought the Sec. 1983 action presently before this court. (Cochran II ). This time, however, he brought suit in the Western District. The factual recitation contained in the Cochran II complaint largely repeated the facts alleged in Cochran I regarding denial of a kosher diet, and it also contained new allegations of official misconduct. On appeal, Cochran asserts four claims: denial of the free exercise of religion; denial of access to the courts; retaliatory prison transfer; and due process violations.

Defendants moved to transfer Cochran II to the Eastern District of Virginia, which Cochran opposed. In support of their motion, defendants called the court's attention to the Cochran I court's resolution of the free exercise claim and a pending and apparently related action in the Eastern District. Noting that "[i]nasmuch as plaintiff has raised many of the same claims in previous actions filed in the Eastern District," the court granted the motion.

After transfer to the Eastern District, Judge Hilton dismissed Cochran's complaint sua sponte and before responsive pleadings had been filed. Judge Hilton had also presided over, and dismissed, at least two other actions Cochran filed; this court affirmed those dismissals. Cochran v. Williams, 8 F.3d 817 (Table), No. 93-6625 (4th Cir.1993); Cochran v. Bair, 905 F.2d 1528 (Table), No. 89-6327 (4th Cir.1990). He had also dismissed Cochran I. His ruling in Cochran II stated that:

Many of plaintiff's claims have been previously ruled on in this Court's Order of July 7, 1993 [ Cochran I ]. The plaintiff now makes further complaints regarding the defendants, none of which state a claim for which relief can be granted, and this case is DISMISSED.

Cochran then filed a motion under Rule 60(b), in which he cited RFRA's passage as a basis to vacate the judgment of dismissal. The district court denied his motion.

Cochran appealed and a panel of this court heard argument. While the case was under submission, a majority of the court voted to hear it en banc.

II.

We must first ascertain the basis for the district court's dismissal of Cochran's complaint. Cochran notes that the district court used the words "none of which state a claim for which relief can be granted" in dismissing his sundry claims. He contends that the district court's dismissal must necessarily have been pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Cochran then argues that the dismissal was improper under Rule 12(b)(6) because it was sua sponte. See, e.g. Ricketts v. Midwest Nat'l Bank, 874 F.2d 1177, 1185 (7th Cir.1989) (sua sponte dismissals improper under 12(b)(6)); McKinney v. Oklahoma, 925 F.2d 363, 365 (10th Cir.1991) (sua sponte dismissals under 12(b)(6) improper save in limited circumstances).

We think Cochran's view of the district court's dismissal ruling unduly...