Case ID: f-appx_616/html/0265-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Terrell D. CURRY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION; et al., Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 13-15314.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted Aug. 25, 2015.
    
    Filed Sept. 4, 2015.
    Terrell Curry, Lancaster, CA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    Thomas S. Patterson, Esquire, Supervisory, California Department of Justice, San Francisco, CA, Kenneth T. Roost, Esquire, AGCA-Office of the California Attorney General, San Francisco, CA, for Defendants-Appellees.
    Before: McKEOWN, CLIFTON, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   MEMORANDUM

California state prisoner Terrell D. Curry appeals pro se from the district court’s summary judgment in his action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUI-PA”) alleging that defendants’ refusal to provide him with a Kemenic religious food diet violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment and RLUIPA. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo, Shakur v. Schriro, 514 F.3d 878, 883 (9th Cir.2008), and we affirm.

The district court properly granted summary judgment on Curry’s RLUIPA claim because defendants met their burden to show that their refusal to provide Curry with a Kemenic food diet, as conceived of and described by Curry, of mostly raw, vegan,- non-genetieally modified and non-irradiated food was the least restrictive means of furthering the prison’s compelling interests in prison security and cost-efficient food service. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-l(a)(l)-(2) (stating that under RLUIPA, “[n]o government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise” of a prisoner unless the government establishes that the burden furthers “a compelling governmental interest” and does so by “the least restrictive means”); Shakur, 514 F.3d at 890 (explaining that a prison cannot meet its burden unless it “demonstrates that it has actually considered and rejected the efficacy of less restrictive measures before adopting the challenged practice” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Coleman v. Quaker Oats Co., 232 F.3d 1271,-1291-92 (9th Cir.2000) (district court did not err in refusing to entertain new theory of liability raised for first time at summary judgment stage).

The district court properly granted summary judgment on Curry’s free exercise claim because Curry failed to raise a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether defendants’ refusal to provide him with a Kemenic food diet, as conceived of and described by Curry, was not reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. See Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987) (holding that a prison regulation that “impinges on inmates’ constitutional rights” is valid “if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests”).

We do not consider issues or arguments not specifically and distinctly raised and argued in the opening brief. See Padgett v. Wright, 587 F.3d 983, 985 n. 2 (9th Cir.2009) (per curiam).

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.