Rinehart v. Brewer

• Decision Date: 06 June 1973
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 72-135-2,72-154-2.
• Parties: Michael Timm RINEHART, Plaintiff, v. Lou V. BREWER et al., Iowa State Penitentiary, Defendants. Ronald H. BROWN, Plaintiff, v. Lou V. BREWER et al., Iowa State Penitentiary, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Iowa

360 F. Supp. 105

Michael Timm RINEHART, Plaintiff, v. Lou V. BREWER et al., Iowa State Penitentiary, Defendants.

Ronald H. BROWN, Plaintiff, v. Lou V. BREWER et al., Iowa State Penitentiary, Defendants.

Civ. Nos. 72-135-2, 72-154-2.

United States District Court, S. D. Iowa, C. D.

June 6, 1973.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Robert D. Bartels and Mark E. Schantz, Iowa City, Iowa, for plaintiffs.

Lorna L. Williams and Thomas R. Hronek, Asst. Attys. Gen., Des Moines, Iowa, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER.

HANSON, Chief Judge.

These are civil actions brought by two inmates of the Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison, Iowa, against the warden and other prison administrators under 42 U.S.C., Section 1983 for damages and injunctive relief. The dispute grows out of the enforcement of prison hair regulations against the petitioners. Plaintiff Rinehart commenced suit by filing a pro se complaint on June 30, 1972, which was amended on July 20, 1972. His action was subsequently joined with Brown v. Brewer, which involved a similar challenge, and a hearing on the consolidated cause was held by the Court on July 28, 1972. By stipulation of the parties, Brown's cause was submitted on the facts as they relate to Rinehart.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The salient facts in this cause as found by the Court are as follows:

On June 17, 1972, the plaintiff Rinehart was approached by Donald Menke, Captain of the Prison Guards, and informed that his hair was in violation of prison regulations. Regulations in force at that time required that hair be kept above the collar in back and above the ears on the side. No beards were allowed, but mustaches which did not extend beyond the corners of the mouth were permitted under the rule.¹ Rinehart was also told by Captain Menke that he had until June 19 to conform to the rule. On June 19, 1972, upon his continued refusal to cut his hair, Rinehart was placed in administrative segregation by order of Captain Menke. No hearing was granted Rinehart before his segregation and no higher official either reviewed or ratified Captain Menke's order. The prisoner was told at this time that he would be released as soon as he agreed to a haircut and shave.

Rinehart was brought before the Prison Adjustment Committee on July 12, 1972, where he again indicated his reluctance to comply with the hair rule. Neither at the time of his original confrontation with Captain Menke nor at his hearing before the Adjustment Committee did Rinehart cite his religious beliefs as the motivating cause for his refusal to cut his hair. As an explanation for this, he testified that he had been told by Warden Brewer that the Church of the New Song would not be recognized. After his hearing, Rinehart was returned to administrative segregation where he has presumably remained during the disposition of this cause.

Plaintiff Brown's pro se complaint was filed in this Court on July 19, 1972, approximately three weeks after Rinehart's petition. The complaints alleged substantially similar constitutional violations. Both inmates profess to be devout members of the Church of the New Song, a nascent religious order composed largely of inmates in federal and state prisons. They claim that to cut their hair would violate their religious precepts and that to punish them for their refusal deprives them of rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. They further claim that the method of enforcement denied them sundry procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and that the rule in any event must be voided as capricious, arbitrary, and rationally unrelated to any compelling state interest. It is also urged that the administrative segregation involved here constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Finally, plaintiff Rinehart contends that his summary placement in administrative segregation was prompted by his writing letters to the press and the Governor of Iowa critical of the prison administration. In support of this contention Rinehart points to the fact that his hair was in violation of the rule for several months previous to his segregation and that the order to get a haircut was given to him only two or three days after he mailed critical letters to the Governor of Iowa and the news media.

The State admits most of the facts as outlined above, but denies that the punishment was in any way a retaliation against Rinehart for his critical communications. In reply to the Due Process claims, the State contends that prior hearings were unnecessary and that petitioners received all the process due them under the circumstances. The State furthermore casts doubt upon the sincerity of petitioners' religious beliefs. In any event, the State argues that even if a compelling interest test is used, there are several legitimate state interests supporting the rule, any of which is sufficient to warrant whatever encroachment of First Amendment rights may have occurred.

THE CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT CLAIM

The Court finds that it can readily dispose of petitioners' Eighth Amendment challenge to the hair rule. Petitioners claim that, given the nature of the offense, their indefinite placement into administrative segregation constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment. The Court cannot agree.

This Court is under no illusions concerning the relative gravity and severity of "administrative segregation," which is but a palliative euphemism for what is more commonly known as isolation. Under present practices at Fort Madison Penitentiary, administrative segregation involves an almost total loss of privileges. An inmate in administrative segregation is kept physically isolated from all other prisoners in a single cell and may no longer attend his work or classes. Thus his wages and course credits are lost. He receives no exercise and is only allowed to leave the cell once or twice a week for a shower. In addition to these losses, the practical effect of administrative segregation may be to increase the actual time an inmate spends in prison, since time spent in segregation may not count in a prisoner's "good time" service. Apparently, however, this is not so for Rinehart, since he is serving a life sentence.

It may readily be admitted that such punishment is, at the least, unpleasant for the inmate. It seems equally true that the "sensory deprivation" and mental anguish suffered by an inmate in administrative segregation may in some cases be as painful as more traditional forms of physical punishment.² Yet given the long history and widespread use of the practice, the Court cannot say that it is a cruel or unusual punishment as those words have been defined, albeit with some imprecision, by the Supreme Court. Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 30 S.Ct. 544, 54 L. Ed. 793 (1917); Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 78 S.Ct. 590, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958); Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962).

The accepted test under these cases is whether the discipline is of such a nature that it would shock the general conscience, Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571 (8th Cir. 1968), or violate universally-held precepts of fairness. Robinson v. California, supra. It has been held that segregation per se is not a cruel or unusual punishment, Burns v. Swenson, 430 F.2d 771 (8th Cir. 1970), and that long or indefinite segregation may be justified in some instances. Winsby v. Walsh, 321 F.Supp. 523 (C.D.Cal.1971). Of course, it is nonetheless true that a punishment normally acceptable may become "cruel and unusual" if it is disproportionate in relation to the offense. Weems v. United States, supra.

This Court is not convinced that most people would find the punishment administered here shocking or abhorrent to their consciences. Despite reservations the Court may have concerning the ultimate efficacy or propriety of isolation in most cases, it cannot be said with a high degree of certainty that such measures are never useful or even necessary for the proper control of a prison population. Their abolition must await the development of satisfactory alternatives for prison discipline and advanced societal standards of decency. It is not the proper function of this Court to choose for prison administrators the best methods for rule enforcement. Once the constitutionality of a practice is established, the inquiry ends.

The Court therefore holds that the present practice of administrative segregation at the Fort Madison Penitentiary, where not grossly disproportionate to the nature of the offense, does not constitute a cruel or unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. The Court further holds that under these facts, the indefinite segregation of petitioners was not overly disproportionate to the alleged offense so as to offend the Eighth Amendment.

CONSTITUTIONAL VALIDITY OF THE HAIR RULE

Plaintiffs have raised a wide variety of constitutional objections to the hair rule. It is alleged that the rule on its face is unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is further alleged that the rule as applied works an unconstitutional infringement upon Rinehart's right to observe his religious beliefs under the First Amendment. Finally, it is urged that there is a constitutional right to govern personal appearance which is abrogated by the hair rule.

Analysis of these specific claims may most properly begin with an examination of the scope of constitutional rights in general in a prison context. It is beyond dispute that the supervision of state prisons is a legitimate and important state function and that state prison authorities are vested with a wide degree of discretion and control in the day-to-day operations of their facilities. Wright v. McMann, 257 F.Supp. 739 (D.C.N.Y.1966); Burns v. Swenson, 430 F.2d 771 (8th Cir. 1970), cert. den. 404 U.S. 1062, 92...