Madison v. Riter

• Decision Date: 25 January 2006
• Docket Number: No. 7:01 CV 00596.,7:01 CV 00596.
• Citation: 411 F.Supp.2d 645
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia
• Parties: Ira W. MADISON, Plaintiff, v. Russell A. RITER, et al., Defendants.

411 F.Supp.2d 645

Ira W. MADISON, Plaintiff, v. Russell A. RITER, et al., Defendants.

No. 7:01 CV 00596.

United States District Court, W.D. Virginia, Roanoke Division.

January 25, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Ira W. Madison, Dillwyn, VA, pro se.

Jay T. Jorgensen, Richard Henry Menard, Jr., Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, LLP, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.

Mark Ralph Davis, William Eugene Thro, State Solicitor General, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, VA, for Defendants.

Jonathan Eli Zimmerman, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Intervenor.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

TURK, Senior District Judge.

The issues before the court at this juncture are whether Congress exceeded its authority under the Spending Clause or the Commerce Clause or violated other federalism provisions of the Constitution in enacting section 3 of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc through 2000cc-5. Because the court concludes that Congress properly exercised its spending power by unambiguously conditioning grants of federal funds on accommodation of prisoners' religious exercise, the court also concludes that section 3 of RLUIPA withstands defendants' federalism challenges and the Commerce Clause challenge to the statute must wait for another day.

I. BACKGROUND

Section 3 of RLUIPA prohibits governments from enacting regulations, including rules of general applicability, or otherwise taking actions that impose a "substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person residing in or confined to an institution," unless the government demonstrates that imposition of that burden furthers "a compelling governmental interest" by "the least restrictive means."¹ § 2000cc-1(a)(1)-(2). This strict-scrutiny standard applies any time such a burden on religious exercise occurs "in a program or activity that receives Federal financial assistance," or "affects, or removal of that substantial burden would affect," interstate or foreign commerce. Id. The statute creates a private cause of action for persons who allege that a government has substantially burdened their religious conduct. § 2000cc2(a).² It is undisputed that the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC), the agency holding Madison in custody, receives federal financial assistance. See Def. Br., Dkt. # 93, at 22.

Plaintiff Ira W. Madison, a Virginia inmate, brought this action under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, with jurisdiction vested under 28 U.S.C. § 1343, and under RLUIPA. Madison states that he is a "Hebrew Israelite" and that his sincere religious beliefs require him to eat a kosher diet and celebrate Passover. He asserts that the Common Fare Diet available to VDOC inmates upon approval from the appropriate VDOC authorities would satisfy his religious dietary needs and allow him to celebrate Passover. When he twice applied for the Common Fare Diet, however, the defendant prison officials denied his request and thus failed to accommodate his religious beliefs.³ Madison seeks monetary and permanent injunctive relief.⁴

Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment as to Madison's First Amendment claims in which they also argued that the court should dismiss his RLUIPA claims because the statute was unconstitutional on several grounds. By opinion and order entered August 23, 2002, the court granted summary judgment on behalf of Defendant Polinsky as to all claims and on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia as to Madison's First Amendment claims under § 1983. The court found that Madison had presented genuine issues of material fact as to the sincerity of his religious beliefs, as to the importance of the requested diet to his practice of those beliefs, and as to defendants' asserted defenses under Turner v. Salley, 482 U.S. 78, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987) (requiring application of rational basis scrutiny for prison regulations infringing on inmates' constitutional rights) and the doctrine of qualified immunity. Accordingly, the court denied the motion for summary judgment as to Madison's First Amendment claims. The court then took the RLUIPA claims under advisement and urged the parties to settle the case.

When the parties failed to reach settlement, the court found it necessary to address the defendants' arguments that Madison's RLUIPA claims should be dismissed because the statute is unconstitutional.⁵ The court took the minority view that RLUIPA violates the Establishment Clause because it has the "impermissible effect of advancing religion by favoring religious rights over other fundamental rights of prisoners." See Madison v. Riter, 240 F.Supp.2d 566 (W.D.Va.2003), rev'd 355 F.3d 310 (4th Cir.2003), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 2536, 162 L.Ed.2d 274 (2005). The court certified the Establishment Clause issue for interlocutory appeal, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed, upholding RLUIPA against the Establishment Clause challenge. Id. The Supreme Court denied defendants' petition for certiorari in Madison after reversing the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cutter v. Wilkinson, ("Cutter I"), 349 F.3d 257, 259-60 (6th Cir.2003) (finding section 3 of RLUIPA to be violative of the Establishment Clause as favoring religious rights over other fundamental rights of prisoners), rev'd, ("Cutter II"), 544 U.S. 709, 125 S.Ct. 2113, 161 L.Ed.2d 1020 (2005) (rejecting Establishment Clause challenge to section 3 of RLUIPA). This court then reinstated Madison's case to the active docket and allowed the parties and the United States, as intervener, to file supplemental briefs on the remaining constitutional arguments.⁶

II. DISCUSSION

In their most recent brief, defendants raise four challenges to RLUIPA: (A) Congress may not use the Spending Clause of Article I to regulate the religious accommodation policies of state prisons; (B) Congress may not interfere with the state's sovereign authority to make religious policy; (C) Congress may not use its Article I powers to circumvent the constitutional holding of the Supreme Court in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 890, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990); and (D) Congress may not use the Commerce Clause of Article I to regulate the religious accommodation policies of state prisons.⁷ None of these issues has yet been decided by the Supreme Court or the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

A. RLUIPA is a valid exercise of Congress' spending power.

The Spending Clause cedes to Congress the authority "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 may employ the spending power "to further broad policy objectives by conditioning receipt of federal mon[ies]" on the recipient's compliance with federal directives. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 206-07, 107 S.Ct. 2793, 97 L.Ed.2d 171 (1987). The Supreme Court in Dole identified four limitations on the exercise of the spending power to condition federal grants: (1) Congress must use its spending power to further "the general welfare"; (2) Congress must state all conditions on the receipt of federal funds "unambiguously" so as to "enabl[e] the States to exercise their choice knowingly, cognizant of the consequences of their participation"; (3) conditions attached to federal grants must be related "to the federal interest in particular national projects or programs"; and (4) conditions on federal funding must not violate any other constitutional provision. Cutter III, 423 F.3d at 585 (quoting Dole, 483 U.S. at 207-208, 107 S.Ct. 2793). The Dole court then identified a fifth concern, that federal financial inducements must not be "so coercive as to pass the point at which pressure turns into compulsion." 483 U.S. at 211, 107 S.Ct. 2793 (internal quotations omitted). This court concludes that RLUIPA rests comfortably within the Dole restrictions defining proper federal funding conditions.

1. RLUIPA promotes the general welfare.

Defendants do not argue that RLUIPA fails to promote the general welfare. In determining whether RLUIPA satisfies this requirement, the court must "defer substantially to the judgment of Congress." Dole, 483 U.S. at 207, 107 S.Ct. 2793. Congress enacted RLUIPA to ensure that state and local governments would not interfere unnecessarily with prisoners' right to practice their religious beliefs. See 146 Cong. Rec. S7774-75 (daily ed. July 27, 2000) (Joint statement of Sen. Hatch and Sen. Kennedy); 146 Con. Rec. E1563-64 (daily ed. Sept. 22, 2000) (statement of Rep. Canady); Religious Liberty Protection Act of 1999 Report, H.R. Rep. 106-219, 106th Cong. 1st Sess. (July 1, 1999) at 9-10. RLUIPA, like other statutory prohibitions of discrimination on the bases of race, gender, and disability in federally funded programs, protects an important civil right against erosion. Specifically, it ensures that substantial burdens are not imposed on religious exercise "by simple want of careful, rational reflection or from some instinctive mechanism to guard against people" whose religious exercises "appear to be different." Bd. of Trustees v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356, 374-75, 121 S.Ct. 955, 148 L.Ed.2d 866 (2001) (Kennedy, J., concurring) (other citations omitted). Other courts have held that RLUIPA promotes the general welfare in satisfaction of the first Dole restriction. See Cutter III, 423 F.3d at 585 (citing Charles, 348 F.3d at 607) (RLUIPA furthers general welfare by attempting to protect prisoners' religious rights and to promote rehabilitation); Mayweathers, 314 F.3d at 1067 (RLUIPA furthers general welfare because it is designed to "guard against unfair bias and infringement on fundamental freedoms"). Substantially deferring to Congress' legislative judgment and adopting the arguments cited, this court holds that RLUIPA...