Hudson v. Maloney, 01-CV-12145-RGS.

• Citation: 326 F.Supp.2d 206
• Decision Date: 23 July 2004
• Docket Number: No. 01-CV-12145-RGS.,01-CV-12145-RGS.
• Parties: Mac HUDSON and Derrick Tyler v. Michael T. MALONEY, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

Page 206

326 F.Supp.2d 206

Mac HUDSON and Derrick Tyler v. Michael T. MALONEY, et al.

No. 01-CV-12145-RGS.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

July 23, 2004.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Mary C. Eiro-Bartevyan, Department of Correction, Legal Division, Richard C. McFarland, Department of Correction, Nancy Ankers White, Department of Correction, Boston, MA, for Michael Maloney, Defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

STEARNS, District Judge.

In this lawsuit against the former Massachusetts Commissioner of Correction, two former Superintendents of MCI-Cedar Junction, and one former and one present prison administrator, plaintiff inmates, who are Muslim, allege violations of their First Amendment right to the free exercise of their religion. At the center of the dispute is the contention that prison officials have discriminated against Muslim inmates by refusing to provide "Halal"¹ meat as a regular part of their diet, and by refusing the request that meals be prepared and served exclusively by Muslims. Plaintiffs also complain that prison officials have banned Muslim inmates from possessing full-size prayer rugs.² The Complaint seeks injunctive and declaratory relief and money damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The defendants are named in both their official and personal capacities.

Qualified Immunity

Where a constitutional violation is made out on the face of a party's submissions, the trial court is to decide the immunity issue at the earliest practicable opportunity. "[B]ecause `[t]he entitlement is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability,' ... we repeatedly have stressed the importance of resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible stage in the litigation." Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227, 112 S.Ct. 534, 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991) (per curiam).

Qualified immunity attaches to discretionary conduct of government officials that "does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 528, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) (officers immune unless their actions were "clearly proscribed" by established law). "The right in question, ... cannot be simply a generalized right to due process.... It must be clearly established in a `particularized' sense, so that `the contours of the right' are clear enough for any reasonable official in the defendant's position to know that what the official is doing violates that right." Danese v. Asman, 875 F.2d 1239, 1242 (6th Cir.1989). As a rule, a right is "clearly established" when it is enunciated by a court of controlling authority in the defendant's jurisdiction in a case sufficiently similar in its facts "that a reasonable officer could not have believed that his [instant] actions were lawful." Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 616-617, 119 S.Ct. 1692, 143 L.Ed.2d 818 (1999). See also Starlight Sugar, Inc. v. Soto, 253 F.3d 137, 144-145 (1st Cir.2001) (relevant state, as well as federal decisions should also be considered). While "general statements of the law are not inherently incapable of giving fair and clear warning," they do so only if their application to a specific set of facts is apparent. United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271, 117 S.Ct. 1219, 137 L.Ed.2d 432 (1997). "The qualified immunity standard `gives ample room for mistaken judgments' by protecting `all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.'" Rivera v. Murphy, 979 F.2d 259, 263 (1st Cir.1992), quoting Hunter, 502 U.S. at 229, 112 S.Ct. 534.

Whether a plaintiff has adequately alleged a viable cause of action under § 1983 is a matter of law for the trial court. Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 232, 111 S.Ct. 1789, 114 L.Ed.2d 277 (1991). In making such a determination, a prescribed sequence is to be followed. The court must "determine whether the plaintiff has alleged [a] deprivation of an actual constitutional right at all," before considering whether that right was clearly established when the alleged violation occurred. Conn v. Gabbert, 526 U.S. 286, 290, 119 S.Ct. 1292, 143 L.Ed.2d 399 (1999). Stated differently, the "threshold" question that must be answered is this: "Taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right? ... If no constitutional right would have been violated were the allegations established, there is no necessity for further inquiries concerning qualified immunity." Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). Only if the violation of a right is found does the court proceed to answer the remaining questions in the sequence: whether the right was clearly established; and if so, whether a similarly situated reasonable official would have understood that his conduct violated clearly established law. Savard v. Rhode Island, 338 F.3d 23, 27 (1st Cir.2003). "This order of procedure is designed to `spare a defendant not only unwarranted liability, but unwarranted demands customarily imposed upon those defending a long drawn-out lawsuit.' ... Deciding the constitutional question before addressing the qualified immunity question also promotes clarity in the legal standards for official conduct, to the benefit of both the officers and the general public." Wilson, 526 U.S. at 609, 119 S.Ct. 1692.

That the plaintiffs clearly identified viable and pertinent constitutional rights in their Complaint under the First and Fourteenth Amendments is not seriously contested by defendants. While the rights afforded to an inmate are necessarily circumscribed by virtue of incarceration, he does not lose all protections of the Constitution. "In the First Amendment context ... a prison inmate retains those First Amendment rights that 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, 41 L.Ed.2d 495 (1974), "including [the Amendment's] directive that no law shall prohibit the free exercise of religion." O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 349, 107 S.Ct. 2400, 96 L.Ed.2d 282 (1987). Free exercise claims brought by prisoners are "judged under a `reasonableness' test less restrictive than that ordinarily applied to alleged infringements of fundamental constitutional rights." Id.See also Shaw v. Murphy, 532 U.S. 223, 228-229, 121 S.Ct. 1475, 149 L.Ed.2d 420 (2001).

Plaintiffs allege that corrections officials violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause by refusing to allow them to practice their Muslim faith in accordance with their understanding of Islamic dietary laws.³ They also argue that the defendants have violated their rights under the Equal Protection Clause because similarly situated Jewish and Seventh Day Adventist inmates are offered meals prepared according to the dietary laws of their religions, while Muslim inmates are offered in lieu of Halal meat, the alternatives of a vegetarian or pork-free diet.

Consequently, it is to the second step of the Saucier test that the court turns: would a reasonable prison administrator when confronted, in September of 2002, at the latest, with plaintiffs' demands for Halal meals prepared by Muslim inmates, have determined that a clearly established right was being invoked. Here, it is important not to confuse the general with the particular and to frame the issue precisely. In September of 2002, a reasonable prison official would have known that a prisoner's right to the free exercise of his religion, so long as it did not compromise institutional security, was clearly established, and further that this right encompassed a diet consistent with the prisoner's sincere religious beliefs. See, e.g., Kahane v. Carlson, 527 F.2d 492, 496 (2d Cir.1975). Rather, the precise question that would have been asked is whether the law had clearly established a Muslim inmate's right to a particular dietary ingredient (Halal meal), prepared in a particular way (by other Muslim inmates), or whether it was sufficient for prison authorities to provide an alternative diet (vegetarian or pork-free) that was "consistent" with the teachings of the inmate's faith, if not every aspect of his belief.

In consulting the decisions of courts that had considered the issue before September of 2002,⁴ a reasonable prison official would have learned that the vast majority of these courts had determined that a prison permissibly discharged its constitutional duty to respect the dietary beliefs of Muslim inmates by offering an alternative, pork-free diet, and more broadly, that the law permitted prison authorities to limit the dietary options available to prisoners in the interests of reducing the costs and burdens entailed in accommodating the smorgasbord of food-related religious beliefs likely to be encountered in a prison population. See, e.g., Kahey v. Jones, 836 F.2d 948, 950 (5th Cir.1988) ("[P]risons need not respond to particularized religious dietary requests."); Denson v. Marshall, 59 F.Supp.2d 156, 158-159 (D.Mass.1999), aff'd, 230 F.3d 1347, 2000 WL 1450999 (1st Cir.2000) (no constitutional violation where a Muslim inmate in a disciplinary unit was denied a request for special food items to be delivered before sunrise during three to five fast days each month); Abdul-Malik v. Goord, 1997 WL 83402, at *7-8 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 27, 1997) (after a bench trial, the district court found that Muslim inmates' rights were not violated by the prison's failure to provide Halal meat three times a week where a "Religious Alternative Menu" (RAM) was available); Muhammad v. Warithu-Deen Umar, 98 F.Supp.2d 337, 344-345 (W.D.N.Y.2000) (no constitutional violation where a Muslim inmate was denied Kosher meals because an available RAM did not...