Miller v. Superintendent, Mass. Corr. Inst.

• Decision Date: 05 April 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-P-988,19-P-988
• Citation: 99 Mass.App.Ct. 395,167 N.E.3d 443
• Parties: David T. MILLER v. SUPERINTENDENT, MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION, SHIRLEY, & others.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

99 Mass.App.Ct. 395

167 N.E.3d 443

David T. MILLER

v.SUPERINTENDENT, MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION, SHIRLEY,¹ & others.²

No. 19-P-988

Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

Argued December 11, 2020.

Decided April 5, 2021.

David T. Miller, pro se.

Joan T. Kennedy, Boston, for the defendants.

Present: Vuono, Milkey, & Ditkoff, JJ.

MILKEY, J.

The plaintiff, David T. Miller, is a practicing Muslim currently incarcerated at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Shirley (MCI-Shirley). At issue here is whether he has a right to possess a religious medallion of particular significance to him. Officials at other State correctional facilities allowed Miller to wear the medallion on a chain around his neck. However, when Miller was transferred to MCI-Shirley in 2015, a Department of Correction (DOC) official confiscated the medallion and chain based on his belief that their market value exceeded the amount allowed by DOC's inmate property policies (a limitation in turn based on general security interests). After DOC denied Miller's requests for the return of his medallion, he brought this action. Among other grounds, Miller invoked the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc - 2000cc-5 (2000), a Federal statute that protects the rights of institutionalized individuals to practice their religions. A Superior Court judge allowed DOC's motion for judgment on the pleadings, and entered judgment dismissing Miller's case. As explained below, the judge failed to conduct the thorough and individualized analysis that the RLUIPA requires. We therefore vacate the judgment in part and remand for further proceedings.

Background. 1. DOC's regulations and policies. DOC's property regulations recognize an inmate's right to possess certain approved religious items. 103 Code Mass. Regs. § 403.10(2)(e) (2017).³ The regulations themselves do not specify what is acceptable, but instead reflect that DOC is to post in inmate libraries "[a] list of approved religious articles." Id. At least some of the items on such lists can be purchased through each correctional facility's (facility or prison) canteen. By regulation, any items "available for purchase at the institutional inmate canteen or through approved vendors" must be purchased through those means.⁴ 103 Code Mass. Regs. § 403.13(4) (2017). "Any items that cannot be purchased via the inmate canteen may enter the institution, but only with the approval of the [s]uperintendent or a designee." 103 Code Mass. Regs. § 403.13(1) (2017).

Prior to 2017, when DOC updated its regulations, an inmate who wished to acquire a religious item that had not been preapproved for sale at the canteen could seek approval to obtain the item by making a request of the superintendent at the prison.⁵ 403 Code Mass. Regs. § 403.10(9) (2001). The superintendent would then refer the request to the religious services review committee, which would make a recommendation to the DOC commissioner. Id.

The November 2016 authorized list of approved religious items that appears in the record included a general listing for religious medals and pendants that are equal to, or less than, fifty dollars in value, one-eighth of an inch in thickness, and one and one-half inches in diameter. The list also included a general listing for religious chains valued at fifty dollars or less, not to exceed twenty inches in length. In addition to these general listings, the list also included listings for two specific Islamic medallion and chain combinations. One was for a "sterling silver Allah Medallion and Chain" (Allah medallion). The other was for an "Islam Star/Crescent Medallion and Chain" (star/crescent medallion). An inmate can purchase either of these two items from the prison's canteen. The regulations expressly allow inmates to seek case-specific exemptions for religious items that do not appear on the approved lists.⁶ See 103 Code Mass. Regs. § 403.10(9) (2001); 103 Code Mass. Regs. § 403.10(2)(e) (2017).

2. Facts.⁷ a. Miller's medallion. The medallion confiscated from Miller is made of an undetermined metal that is silver in color. It is rectangular in shape, and approximately one inch wide and one and three-quarters inches long. Around the border of the medallion there are a number of what DOC's records list as "faux diamonds."

Miller contends that possessing this particular medallion is important to his faith. Inscribed on the medallion's face is a passage from the Quran that was the favorite of his late mother, who raised him as a Muslim. According to Miller, the quoted passage is a "protection verse" that provides a "remembrance of God when it's recited." The medallion once belonged to Miller's older brother and was given to Miller after his father passed away.

For religious reasons, Miller refuses to wear either of the two Islamic medallions available through the canteen. The Allah medallion is unacceptable to him precisely because it includes the word "Allah."⁸ The star/crescent medallion is not acceptable to Miller because it represents the Nation of Islam, of which he decidedly is not a member. In addition, neither of the two available options has the special significance that the one passed down through his family has to him. DOC does not dispute the sincerity of Miller's objections to the available alternatives, or of his religious beliefs more generally.

b. DOC's practices at other institutions. Before being transferred to MCI-Shirley, Miller was incarcerated at two other correctional facilities. When he was held at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, Miller was allowed to possess and wear the medallion on a chain around his neck. He similarly was permitted to wear the chain and medallion when he was housed for a period of time at the Old Colony Correctional Center. DOC does not assert, and there is nothing in the record to suggest, that Miller's wearing of the medallion caused tensions with other inmates, or created any other security problems.

c. DOC's confiscation of the medallion. Once Miller was transferred to MCI-Shirley in 2015, a DOC officer there confiscated the medallion and chain as contraband because he believed that their value exceeded fifty dollars.⁹ Another DOC officer told Miller that he could regain the medallion if he had its chain made smaller. According to Miller, in reliance on that representation, he had the chain downsized at a considerable cost to him, but DOC continued to withhold the medallion and chain.

d. Miller's exemption request. In 2016, Miller submitted to DOC a request asking that his medallion and chain be returned to him. DOC's religious services review committee (committee) recommended denial of Miller's request after concluding that the size and value of the items rendered them "contraband" under DOC's policies.¹⁰ In recommending denial of Miller's exemption request, the committee acknowledged and did not question Miller's beliefs. While recommending denial, the committee indicated its willingness to "work with the vendor to provide a reasonable alternative for inmate Miller to purchase." DOC's commissioner accepted the committee's recommendation and denied Miller's request.

e. Miller's grievances. Miller did not accept DOC's offer to "work with the vendor" to try to develop a mutually acceptable alternative.¹¹ Instead, he filed a series of grievances over DOC's continued withholding of his chain and medallion. DOC denied Miller's grievances on the merits on the ground "that the items in question remain not authorized for retention." Miller then filed an administrative appeal of the denial of his last grievance. This, too, was denied.

f. The current action. In June of 2016, Miller filed the current action against various DOC officials (collectively, DOC). As originally framed, his complaint was an appeal from the denial of his grievance brought pursuant to G. L. c. 30A, § 14, and G. L. c. 127, § 38H. A few months later, Miller filed an amended complaint that broadened his claims, e.g., by alleging that DOC's actions violated the RLUIPA and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

For two full years after Miller filed his original complaint, DOC did not file an answer or otherwise respond. In June of 2018, DOC finally filed, as its answer to the original complaint, the eight-page administrative record that had been generated during the grievance process. See Superior Court Standing Order 1-96. DOC never filed an answer to Miller's amended complaint.¹²

Miller filed a "motion for judgment" based on DOC's tardiness and the slim record that DOC had filed. DOC then cross moved for judgment on the pleadings, while simultaneously submitting an additional fifty-four pages of "exhibits" outside of the administrative record it had filed. That material included documentation of Miller's exemption request, an affidavit describing how DOC had handled Miller's request, and photographs of the medallion and chain. In the memorandum it filed in support of its motion, DOC addressed not only Miller's c. 30A appeal of the denial of his grievance, but also those claims raised in his amended complaint, including his RLUIPA claim. DOC specifically argued that where DOC officials "determin[ed] that [Miller's] possession of this religious medallion and chain created compelling security concerns and where the photographs of the contrabanded item bolster[ed] their concerns and a reasonable alternative was offered to the plaintiff, the RLUIPA claim against [DOC] fail[ed]."

The judge allowed DOC's motion and entered judgment in its favor "substantially for the reasons set forth in DOC's memorandum." As to Miller's RLUIPA claim, the judge wrote "that DOC regulations, and the DOC's confiscation of the medallion under those regulations, do not violate" RLUIPA.

Discussion. The procedural posture of this case is complicated by two facts. First, review of Miller's c. 30A claim is limited to the administrative record, while review of his...