Anthony Wright v. Kenneth Lassiter, No. 15-6958 (4th Cir. 2016)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15-6958 ANTHONY WRIGHT, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. KENNETH E. LASSITER; CARLTON B. JOYNER; VAN MCCULLOUGH; BETTY BROWN; R. SPEER; B. VINES; TERRI C. STRATTON, Defendants - Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Dever, III, Chief District Judge. (5:13-ct-03245-D) Submitted: October 29, 2015 Decided: February 17, 2016 Before WILKINSON, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges. Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion. Anthony Wright, Appellant Pro Se. Judith Maria Estevez, Assistant Attorney General, Kimberly D. Grande, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Anthony Wright, a North Carolina inmate, filed a complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2012) and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized § 2000cc-5 (2012) officials Persons (RLUIPA), substantially Act, 42 alleging burdened his U.S.C. that § 2000cc several religious to prison exercise by prohibiting him and other Rastafarian inmates from celebrating certain holy days with a communal feast. The district court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the ground that Wright failed to make a prima facie showing that defendants substantially burdened his religious exercise. We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for further proceedings. RLUIPA analysis proceeds in two steps. First, the inmate “bears the initial policy exacts a burden to substantial demonstrate burden on that the religious prison’s exercise.” Incumaa v. Stirling, 791 F.3d 517, 525 (4th Cir. 2015). “If the inmate clears this hurdle, the burden shifts to the government to prove its policy furthers a compelling governmental interest by the least restrictive means.” Id. The district court reasoned that because the prison allowed Wright other ways of exercising his religious beliefs, including weekly worship and private prayer, the denial of the holy feasts did not “RLUIPA’s amount to a ‘substantial substantial burden’ 2 burden inquiry under asks RLUIPA. whether But the government has substantially burdened religious exercise . . . not whether the RLUIPA claimant is able to engage in other forms of religious exercise.” Holt v. Hobbs, 135 S. Ct. 853, 862 (2015). The district court’s reliance on alternative means of worship was therefore, at least with respect to the RLUIPA claim, in error. We accordingly vacate its judgment. On remand, if the district court concludes that Wright has demonstrated that the prison’s denial of his proposed holy feasts constitutes a substantial burden under RLUIPA, then it should consider whether that burden “is the least restrictive means of furthering [a] compelling governmental interest.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1. This is an exacting standard, Holt, 135 S. Ct. at 864, but it is not applied without some measure of deference. urgency of “Lawmakers supporting discipline, order, RLUIPA safety, were and mindful security of in the penal institutions.” Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 723 (2005). The Act’s standards are therefore to be applied with “due deference to the experience and expertise of prison and jail administrators procedures to in establishing maintain good necessary order, security regulations and and discipline, consistent with consideration of costs and limited resources.” Id. With respect to Wright’s § 1983 First Amendment claim, we note that while “the availability 3 of alternative means of practicing religion is a relevant consideration,” Holt, 135 S. Ct. at 862, it is not the only consideration. Rather it is one of four factors used to evaluate the constitutional reasonableness of prison regulations. Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89-91 (1987). We therefore vacate and remand the district court’s § 1983 grant of claim. summary On judgment remand, the to defendants district court on Wright’s should apply Turner’s four-factor test in the first instance. While we vacate the district court’s judgment with respect to these two issues, we affirm with respect to others. We affirm to the extent that Wright seeks monetary damages from defendants for wrongfully violating RLUIPA, Rendelman v. Rouse, 569 F.3d 182, 189 n.2 (4th Cir. 2009), and to the extent that he seeks monetary damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 from defendants in their official capacities. Cromer v. Brown, 88 F.3d 1315, 1332 (4th Cir. 1996). Wright’s We motions also for affirm an the audit district and for court’s an denial order of removing Defendant Stratton from her position pending resolution of the case. Our opinion does not prohibit the parties from further developing the summary judgment record on remand. We conclude, however, that the court improperly granted summary judgment on the ground that Wright has not made a prima facie showing that the prison substantially burdened 4 his religious exercise. We dispense with contentions are oral argument adequately because presented in the the facts and legal materials before this court and argument would not aid in the decisional process. AFFIRMED IN PART; VACATED IN PART; AND REMANDED 5
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