Harris v. Chapman

• Decision Date: 11 October 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95-4665,95-4665
• Parties: 45 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1063 Vincent D. HARRIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Curtis CHAPMAN, M.J. Piggott, J.W. Barton, T. Kovalsky, R. Ridley, Sgt. Bentley, and R. Cotterman, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 499

97 F.3d 499

45 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1063

Vincent D. HARRIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Curtis CHAPMAN, M.J. Piggott, J.W. Barton, T. Kovalsky, R.

Ridley, Sgt. Bentley, and R. Cotterman,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 95-4665.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Oct. 11, 1996.

John Davis Hoffman, William Davis Hoffman, Hoffman & Hoffman, Miami, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Charles Fahlbusch, Asst. Atty General, Department of Legal Affairs, Hollywood, FL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before HATCHETT, Chief Judge, ANDERSON, Circuit Judge, and WOOD ^*, Senior Circuit Judge.

WOOD, Senior Circuit Judge:

On September 25, 1989 several correctional officers at the Martin Correctional Institution ("MCI") in Martin County, Florida forcibly removed Vincent D. Harris from his cell and had his hair cut, allegedly while beating him and using racial slurs. Harris, alleging a violation of his constitutional rights under the First and Eighth Amendments, brought a § 1983 action against the six officers involved, all of whom are parties to this appeal. ¹ Harris is familiar with both such claims and the prison haircut policies which underlie them; this is not his first such challenge. ² This case and appeal present some new issues, however.

The district court dismissed Harris' First Amendment claim, but allowed his Eighth Amendment excessive force claim to go to the jury. That jury returned a verdict clearing five of the defendants but finding for Harris against the sixth, Sgt. John R. Cotterman. ³ The jury assessed $500 in punitive damages against Cotterman for his part in the ordeal but declined to award any compensatory damages. After receiving the verdict, however, the district court entered judgment as a matter of law in Cotterman's favor. The court also vacated an award of sanctions against the defendants for discovery violations which had been granted by a previous judge. Harris filed a timely notice of appeal, challenging these and other rulings.

I. BACKGROUND

When the events in question occurred, Vincent D. Harris was an inmate at the Martin Correctional Institution ("MCI") in Martin County, Florida. One of the provisions of the Florida Administrative Code governing such institutions states that:

[M]ale inmates shall have their hair cut short to medium length at all times with no part of the ear or collar covered. Sideburns shall not extend beyond the bottom of the earlobes and will have straight lines with no flare at the base. All male inmates shall be clean shaven, provided however, an exemption from this requirement may be granted on the basis of a medical diagnosis when it is determined by the staff physician that shaving would be detrimental to the inmate's health.

Fla.Admin.Code Ann. r. 33-3.002(11) (1989). This rule is enforced by similar Department of Corrections Rules and by MCI's internal operating procedures. Harris, however, is a Rastafarian. Rastafarians believe that men should not shave, cut, or comb their hair or beard. See Note, Soul Rebels: the Rastafarians and the Free Exercise Clause, 72 Geo.L.J. 1605, 1608 (1984). In accordance with these beliefs, which the parties assume are sincere, Harris refused to voluntarily submit to a haircut on several prior occasions and had been administratively disciplined at MCI for his reluctance.

On September 25, 1989, after receiving orders to enforce the hair length rule, several corrections officers at MCI ⁴ forcibly removed Harris from his cell, took him to the laundry room, and restrained him while his hair was cut by another inmate. Harris resisted in a variety of ways throughout the five to six minute affair (he admitted threatening to kill the prison barber, among others) and was accordingly restrained. Harris claims, however, that this restraint exceeded the amount of force authorized. He alleges that the officers kicked and beat him about the face; also that a towel was used around his neck to "squelch" and secure him. Though uncertain about the particular acts of each officer, Harris specifically charges that Sgt. Cotterman "snapped" his head back with the towel and twice "mugged" him in the face (a "mugging" or "palming" is apparently a slap or hit with a palm or open fist). He also claims that Sgt. Cotterman used various racial slurs and otherwise taunted him throughout the ordeal. Witness testimony supported these allegations at least in part. Following the event Harris was uncooperative with prison medical personnel. The routine examination which follows an authorized use of force against an inmate noted no visible injury. Later, however, Harris complained of back and knee pain resulting from the incident.

In April 1990 Harris filed this § 1983 action against the defendants-appellees. Harris charged that prison officials and officers violated his First Amendment right to freedom of religious expression when they cut his "religiously mandated" hair style. He further alleged that the officers used excessive force and subjected him to verbal abuse, thus violating his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

In September 1991 defendants moved for summary judgment, or in the alternative for dismissal of Harris's complaint for failure to state a claim. In May 1992 the district court adopted the findings of the magistrate and dismissed Harris's verbal abuse claims. The court also granted defendants' motion for summary judgment on the First Amendment claim, finding the hair length rule constitutional, but also finding that a material issue of fact existed regarding the excessive force claim. ⁵ Finally, the district court, per Judge Jose A. Gonzalez Jr., also granted Harris's motion for sanctions because of the defendants' alleged failure to comply with discovery requests. The order, however, stated that "[i]mposition of sanctions will be deferred until the conclusion of the case and considered at the time of taxing costs."

On December 30, 1992, this case was reassigned to Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages. Harris, now represented by counsel (he had previously proceeded pro se), moved to reinstate his First Amendment claim. He asserted that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 ("RFRA"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1, mandated the application of a higher standard for First Amendment claims than that applied to his complaint previously. ⁶ This motion was denied.

After a four-day trial a jury returned its verdict on Harris's remaining excessive force claim. The jury found that defendants Piggot, Barton, Kovalsky, Ridley, and Bentley had neither used excessive force, nor "acted with malice, willfulness or callous indifference to the rights of the Plaintiff," the basic instructions for assessing compensatory and punitive damages, respectively. They also found, however, that defendant Cotterman had done both of these. The jury assessed $500 in punitive damages against Cotterman but declined to assess any compensatory damages.

Despite this verdict Judge Ungaro-Benages dismissed the charges against Cotterman and entered judgment as a matter of law in his favor pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b). After reviewing the record, Judge Ungaro-Benages also vacated the previous grant of sanctions against defendants for their alleged discovery violations. Harris filed a timely appeal.

II. DISCUSSION

Harris contends on appeal that the trial court erred: 1) in not reinstating his First Amendment claim; 2) in allowing the defendants to submit expert testimony to the jury; 3) in granting Cotterman's Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law; and 4) in vacating the previous award of sanctions. Each of these contentions will be addressed below.

A. First Amendment Claim/RFRA

The district court, in adopting the findings of the magistrate, cited Martinelli v. Dugger, 817 F.2d 1499 (11th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1012, 108 S.Ct. 714, 98 L.Ed.2d 664 (1988), a case that upheld as constitutional a prison hair length rule virtually identical to the one in this case. In doing so, the Martinelli court held that hair length regulations were the least restrictive means of advancing substantial governmental interests in maintaining prison security and in identifying escapees. Id. at 1506-07. Under the "substantial governmental interest" standard, this court has repeatedly found that such rules were permissible for those reasons. See, e.g., Brightly v. Wainwright, 814 F.2d 612, 613 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 944, 108 S.Ct. 332, 98 L.Ed.2d 359 (1987); Maimon v. Wainwright, 792 F.2d 133 (11th Cir.1986); Shabazz v. Barnauskas, 790 F.2d 1536, 1540 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1011, 107 S.Ct. 655, 93 L.Ed.2d 709 (1986).

The RFRA, passed by Congress in late 1993, changed the standard relied on in Martinelli. The RFRA provides that "[g]overnment may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person 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(b). This statute applies retroactively. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-3(a); Lawson v. Dugger, 844 F.Supp. 1538 (S.D.Fla.1994), rev'd on other grounds sub nom. Lawson v. Singletary, 85 F.3d 502 (11th Cir.1996). Harris asserts that the district court's decision did not comply with the elements of this new standard and perhaps relied on factors such as economic costs which are not mentioned in RFRA. We disagree.

As an initial matter, though Harris offered no evidence on the point, see Bryant v. Gomez, 46 F.3d 948, 949 (9th Cir.1995) (describing the burden of the religious adherent), we may assume that the prison's hair length rule "substantially burdens" the exercise of his religion. Next we turn to the district court's analysis. Despite the magistrate's citation to Martinelli, it is clear that the district court was fully...