Hale v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 18-1141
| Decision Date | 07 January 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 18-1141,18-1141 |
| Parties | REVEREND MATTHEW HALE, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS; DAVID B. BERKEBILE; BLAKE DAVIS; CHRISTOPHER SYNSVOLL; BENJAMIN BRIESCHKE; S. M. KUTA; L. MILUSNIC; PATRICIA RANGEL; WENDY HEIM; S. SMITH; DIANA KRIST; A. TUTTOILMONDO, and H. REDDEN, individually, Defendants - Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
(D. Colo.)
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*Before McHUGH, MORITZ, and EID, Circuit Judges.
Reverend Matthew Hale, a pro se federal prisoner, sued the Federal Bureau of Prisons and some of its officers and employees (collectively, BOP) for, broadly speaking, religious discrimination. The district court granted the defendants' motions to dismissand for summary judgment, prompting this appeal. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Hale is "a minister in The Church of the Creator," which "embraces and espouses the religion of Creativity." R., Vol. I at 28. "The overriding mission of the Church and the Creativity religion is the permanent prevention of the cultural, genetic, and biological genocide of the White Race worldwide and thus the achievement of White racial immortality." Id. at 28-29. "Creativity thus espouses the collective salvation of the White Race through its immortality on earth rather than individual, personal salvation in a supposed 'afterlife.'" Id. at 29. One of the central tenets of Creativity is that "Good is personified by the White Race and the crusade for its future[,] while evil is personified by its antithesis in this world, the Jewish Race." Id. at 43.
Mr. Hale's incarceration at the Administrative Maximum penitentiary (ADX) in Florence, Colorado has a connection to his church. Specifically, he is serving a forty-year sentence for obstructing justice and soliciting the murder of a federal judge who entered a judgment against the church's predecessor. In affirming Mr. Hale's convictions, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals described Mr. Hale's church as a "white supremacist organization," for which he was the leader. United States v. Hale, 448 F.3d 971, 975 (7th Cir. 2006).
The BOP has designated Creativity a security threat group (STG), because inmates following its tenets have engaged in acts of violence, including murdering other inmates and instigating race riots. Accordingly, the BOP has placed restrictions on Mr. Haleimpacting his participation in Creativity. In particular, the BOP imposed mail restrictions for roughly six months in 2010 when he sought to reestablish himself as Creativity's leader, eight months in 2013 when he encouraged a neo-Nazi leader to pursue mass activism tactics, and for an ongoing period beginning in 2014 when he targeted a federal magistrate judge.1 The BOP also denied Mr. Hale's requests for a special diet and for access to a book that Creativity adherents regard as their bible, "Nature's Eternal Religion."2 Finally, the BOP prevented Mr. Hale from being interviewed in person by a television reporter.
In 2014, Mr. Hale filed the instant lawsuit, alleging that the defendants violated numerous constitutional and statutory rights "by . . . taking away and interfering with his mail rights, forbidding his participation in his church, and denying . . . his religious diet." R., Vol. I at 26. Mr. Hale sought monetary and injunctive relief against the defendants in the context of multiple claims for relief: (1) the mail restrictions violated FirstAmendment guarantees of free speech, free religious exercise, and free association; (2) the mail restrictions were imposed to retaliate against Mr. Hale for invoking his speech and religious rights; (3) the mail restrictions violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1 to -4; (4) the mail restrictions violated procedural due process; (5) the restriction on "Nature's Eternal Religion" violated the "First Amendment," R., Vol. I at 45; (6) the differential treatment of inmates from different faiths violated equal protection; (7) the restriction on "Nature's Eternal Religion" violated RFRA; (8) the denial of a religious diet violated the "First Amendment," id. at 49; (9) the denial of a religious diet violated RFRA; and (10) the denial of a news interview violated the "First Amendment," id. at 50.3
On the defendants' motion, the district court dismissed Mr. Hale's due-process, equal-protection, and First Amendment (news interview) claims. The court explained that Mr. Hale's due-process claim failed to allege a protected liberty interest in mail rights, and that the equal-protection claim failed to allege differential treatment of similarly-situated prisoners. The news-interview claim failed, the court said, because there was no allegation of a possible interview.4
The defendants prevailed on the remaining claims at summary judgment. Specifically, the district court granted summary judgment in the defendants' favor regarding (1) whether the mail restrictions violated either the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA, or were imposed in retaliation for asserting a constitutional right; (2) whether the denial of a Creativity diet violated either the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA; and (3) whether the denial of a copy of "Nature's Eternal Religion" violated Mr. Hale's free-speech rights. Most of the claims were resolved by the district court determining that Creativity did not qualify as a religion, and even if it did, the BOP had compelling and narrowly tailored interests in restricting Mr. Hale's rights. As for the denial of"Nature's Eternal Religion," the district court noted that the BOP had changed course and allowed its possession, but in any event, the BOP had the discretion to bar it.
DISCUSSION
"We review de novo the grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim." Gee v. Pacheco, 627 F.3d 1178, 1183 (10th Cir. 2010). "To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). "Under this standard, all well-pleaded factual allegations in the complaint are accepted as true and viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party[.]" Acosta v. Jani-King of Okla., Inc., 905 F.3d 1156, 1158 (10th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Our review of an order granting summary judgment is likewise de novo. See J.V. v. Albuquerque Pub. Sch., 813 F.3d 1289, 1294 (10th Cir. 2016). Summary judgment is required when "there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). In considering a motion for summary judgment, the court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and must resolve all factual disputes and draw all reasonable inferences in his favor. See Cillo v. City of Greenwood Vill., 739 F.3d 451, 461 (10th Cir. 2013).
Finally, "we generally construe pro se pleadings liberally." Comm. on Conduct of Attorneys v. Oliver, 510 F.3d 1219, 1223 (10th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marksomitted). We do not, however, extend that courtesy to a pro se litigant who is a licensed attorney. Id. Mr. Hale, a law school graduate, falls somewhere in between a typical pro se litigant and a licensed attorney. Nevertheless, under the circumstances of this case, we choose to apply our ordinary liberal pleading construction. See Tracy v. Freshwater, 623 F.3d 90, 102 (2d Cir. 2010) (). "[B]ut we will not act as [Mr. Hale's] advocate." James v. Wadas, 724 F.3d 1312, 1315 (10th Cir. 2013).
Under the mail restrictions, Mr. Hale may correspond with anyone outside the prison, even other Creativity adherents, but he may not communicate about Creativity.5 Further, no ADX inmate may send or receive communications about STGs, including Creativity.
Mr. Hale claims the mail restrictions violate his rights under RFRA, the Free Exercise Clause, and the Free Speech/Association Clauses. He also asserts that the restrictions constitute unlawful retaliation.
We begin with Mr. Hale's RFRA centered claims, as those are dispositive of much of this case. RFRA bars the federal government from "substantially burden[ing] a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability," unless the government shows that 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. § 2000bb-1(a), (b). "[A] plaintiff establishes a prima facie claim under RFRA by proving the following three elements: (1) a substantial burden imposed by the federal government on a (2) sincere (3) exercise of religion." Kikumura v. Hurley, 242 F.3d 950, 960 (10th Cir. 2001). A RFRA plaintiff must show by a preponderance of the evidence that his sincerely held beliefs are religious in nature, "rather than a philosophy or way of life." United States v. Meyers, 95 F.3d 1475, 1482 (10th Cir. 1996).
To evaluate the religiosity of a belief system, this court follows the approach laid out in Meyers. See United States v. Quaintance, 608 F.3d 717, 720 n.1 (10th Cir. 2010). "Meyers examined five factors in evaluating religiosity of a belief system: ultimate ideas, metaphysical beliefs, moral or ethical system, comprehensiveness of beliefs, and accoutrements of religion." Id. We address each Meyers factor in turn.
"Religious beliefs often address fundamental questions about life, purpose, and death." Meyers, 95 F.3d at 1483 (internal quotation marks omitted). They cover such"deep and imponderable" topics as a person's "sense of being[,] . . ....
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