Opinion ID: 3071807
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Standard on Remand.

Text: Where an inmate’s religious beliefs are sincere and his exercise of those beliefs is burdened, the court must determine whether the plaintiff has established that the burden is substantial. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(a). If it is, the state must “demonstrate[ ] that imposition of the burden . . . (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” Id. There are thus three questions the district court must address on remand: whether the regulation substantially burdens religious conduct, whether the government has a compelling interest in the regulation, and whether the regulation is the least restrictive 8 See United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 86S87 (1944) (“Men may believe what they cannot prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs.”). 15 Case: 09-40400 Document: 00512093372 Page: 16 Date Filed: 12/21/2012 No. 09-40400 means of achieving the interest.
Denying all access to kosher food places a substantial burden on the practice of an inmate’s faith. Baranowski, 486 F.3d at 125. We have not opined, however, on the policy of charging inmates for kosher meals. In addressing substantial burdens on religion under the First Amendment, the Supreme Court has provided useful guideposts for our application of RLUIPA. In Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 404 (1963), the Court held that withholding unemployment benefits from an individual who could not, based on her religious beliefs, work on the Sabbath would constitute a substantial burden on religion. Denying benefits would “force[ ] [the plaintiff] to choose between following the precepts of her religion and forfeiting benefits, on the one hand, and abandoning one of the precepts of her religion in order to accept work, on the other hand.” Id. This type of imposition substantially burdens religion because it would be the same as “a fine imposed against appellant for her Saturday worship.” Id. Similarly, in Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division, 450 U.S. 707, 717S18 (1981), the Court held that conditioning receipt of “an important benefit” upon religiously proscribed conduct, or denying a benefit because of “conduct mandated by religious belief,” would impose a substantial burden on religion. Applying these standards to RLUIPA, we held in Adkins, 393 F.3d at 570, that a government action substantially burdens a religious belief if “it truly pressures the adherent to significantly modify his religious behavior and significantly violate his religious beliefs.” We explained that the effect of a government action or regulation is significant when it either (1) influences the adherent to act in a way that violates his religious beliefs, or (2) forces the adherent to choose between, on the one hand, enjoying some generally available, non-trivial benefit, 16 Case: 09-40400 Document: 00512093372 Page: 17 Date Filed: 12/21/2012 No. 09-40400 and, on the other hand, following his religious beliefs. On the opposite end of the spectrum, however, a government action or regulation does not rise to the level of a substantial burden on religious exercise if it merely prevents the adherent from either enjoying some benefit that is not otherwise generally available or acting in a way that is not otherwise generally allowed. Id. TDCJ argues that what is at stake is not pressure or forbidding religious practice but “underwriting” it. TDCJ cites Cutter, 544 U.S. at 720 n.8, which noted that “RLUIPA does not require a State to pay for an inmate’s devotional accessories.” But for two reasons, Cutter is distinguishable from the case at hand: First, it addressed an Establishment Clause challenge to RLUIPA. The Court was not focused on analyzing the question of a substantial burden. Second, the benefit requested in Cutter was provision of religious items, not food. Like the unemployment payments at issue in Sherbert, food is an “essential” benefit given to every prisoner, regardless of religious belief. Based on Sherbert, Thomas, and Adkins, denial of religiously sufficient food where it is a generally available benefit would constitute a substantial burden on the exercise of religion. TDCJ further cites Patel v. U.S. Bureau of Prisons, 515 F.3d 807, 813 (8th Cir. 2008), as its most persuasive support of the position that there is no substantial burden. Prisoner Patel had requested halal food and was served food that did not comport with his conception of Islamic dietary law. Halal meals that would have satisfied him were available for purchase in the prison commissary. Id. at 816. Patel had offered no evidence that he could not afford to purchase the halal food. The court held that the prison did not have to provide him free halal meals from the commissary and that it was not imposing a substantial burden on his religious exercise. Patel is distinguishable on two grounds. First, the Eighth Circuit appears 17 Case: 09-40400 Document: 00512093372 Page: 18 Date Filed: 12/21/2012 No. 09-40400 to define “substantial burden” differently from how we define it. According to the Eighth Circuit, government action must “significantly inhibit or constrain conduct or expression that manifests some central tenet of a person’s individual religious beliefs; must meaningfully curtail a person’s ability to express adherence to his or her faith; or must deny a person reasonable opportunities to engage in those activities that are fundamental to a person’s religion” in order to constitute a substantial burden. Id. at 813 (quoting Murphy, 372 F.3d at 988). Unlike our definition, embodied in Adkins, the Eighth Circuit’s definition of substantial burden makes no reference to denial of generally available benefits. Second, Patel is distinguishable because both kosher and halal food were already being offered free of charge in the dining hall. Patel requested not only halal food, which was already being served and satisfied all the other Muslims in the prison, but a particularly nuanced version of halal food. Additionally, sixteen of the twenty-one meals Patel received each week in the dining hall met his standards. Where an inmate is denied a generally available benefit because of his religious beliefs, a substantial burden is imposed on him. Every prisoner in TDCJ’s custody receives a nutritionally sufficient diet. Every observant Jewish prisoner at Stringfellow receives a kosher diet free of charge. Only Moussazadeh is denied that benefit, because he is forced to pay for his kosher meals. This practice substantially burdens his ability to exercise his religious beliefs.
A governmental entity can escape the prohibition on substantially burdening religious practice where it establishes that it has a compelling interest in doing so. TDCJ alleges that it has two interests: prison security and costs. This court held in Baranowski, 486 F.3d at 125, that these considerations, in that particular case, constituted a compelling interest. 18 Case: 09-40400 Document: 00512093372 Page: 19 Date Filed: 12/21/2012 No. 09-40400 TDCJ has failed to produce evidence of security concerns related to providing kosher food at Stiles. It offered evidence that the offenders at Stiles have generally been convicted of more violent crimes, but it did not offer any evidence that those more violent offenders would be more likely to cause violence or safety disturbances as a result of some prisoners being served kosher food. TDCJ relied on bare assertions that more violent offenders would present a greater security threat if different meals were served, but this is insufficient to establish a compelling interest related to these facts. On remand, TDCJ may present evidence substantiating its claims of security concerns, if such evidence exists. TDCJ has shown that costs for kosher food would be almost double what they would be for the nonkosher “loaf” that is served to other prisoners at Stiles. Moussazadeh does not deny those extra costs. TDCJ’s argument that it has a compelling interest in minimizing costs by denying Moussazadeh kosher food, however, is dampened by the fact that it has been offering kosher meals to prisoners for more than two years and provides them at no cost to all observant Jewish inmates that accepted a transfer to Stringfellow. Further, the increased cost of providing kosher food to all observant prisoners is minimal¯even if the more expensive prepackaged meals, as distinguished from the kosher-kitchen meals, were provided three times a day to each observant prisoner, the cost would only be about $88,000 per year. To provide those meals to Moussazadeh alone would cost a fraction of this. To put this amount in perspective, the total food budget of TDCJ is $183.5 million. In Beerheide v. Suthers, 286 F.3d 1179, 1191 (10th Cir. 2002), the court held that excluding a $13,000 expenditure from a budget of over $8 million did not constitute a compelling government interest, even under rational-basis review. That minimal cost was, as a percentage of total outlay, roughly three times higher than the expenditure if TDCJ offered the most expensive kosher meal program to all observant prisoners. Although cost reduction, as a general 19 Case: 09-40400 Document: 00512093372 Page: 20 Date Filed: 12/21/2012 No. 09-40400 matter, is unquestionably a compelling interest of TDCJ, we are skeptical that saving less than .005% of the food budget constitutes a compelling interest. We recognize, however, that the inquiry is fact-intensive, and we decline to draw a bright-line rule. See Adkins, 393 F.3d at 571.
Assuming, arguendo, that TDCJ establishes a compelling interest in security and cost minimization, its chosen means of achieving that interest must be the least restrictive of Moussazadeh’s right to exercise his religious beliefs “among available, effective alternatives.” Ashcroft v. Am. Civil Liberties Union, 542 U.S. 656, 666 (2004) (applying the least restrictive means test in the speech context). “Requiring a State to demonstrate . . . that it has adopted the least restrictive means of achieving [a compelling] interest is the most demanding test known to constitutional law.” City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 534 (1997). TDCJ argues that it has chosen the least restrictive means by allowing Moussazadeh to purchase kosher meals at the Stiles commissary. It relies on Baranowski to suggest that complete denial of kosher food is among the least restrictive means for achieving its goal of minimizing costs and preventing security risks and that therefore its chosen method is even less restrictive. This, however, improperly broadens Baranowski. We there held that, “[b]ased on the record before us, . . . [TDCJ’s] policy [of denying inmates kosher food] is related to maintaining good order and controlling costs and, as such, involves compelling governmental interests.” Baranowski, 486 F.3d at 125 (emphasis added). We did not hold in Baranowski that there cannot be a less restrictive means of achieving the interests of security and cost reduction, but only that on the record in that case, there was not. We note that, on a subject that demands a fact-intensive inquiry, the record in Baranowski was thin¯the plaintiff was pro se and presented no evidence to rebut any of TDCJ’s claims regarding the cost 20 Case: 09-40400 Document: 00512093372 Page: 21 Date Filed: 12/21/2012 No. 09-40400 of a kosher food program. Our holding in that case does not foreclose a finding that TDCJ’s current program is not the least restrictive means available. Circumstances since Baranowski was decided have changed, as TDCJ and the district court pointed out in their discussion of administrative exhaustion. TDCJ has now offered kosher meals in the dining hall at Stringfellow for years and has offered kosher meals for purchase. To the extent that TDCJ claimed that its least-restrictive means of achieving cost reduction was completely denying prisoners kosher food, that is no longer so. Baranowski therefore is instructive but not dispositive. There thus remains the factual question whether there is a less restrictive means of minimizing costs and maintaining security other than forcing Moussazadeh to pay for all his kosher meals. He has suggested four alternatives less restrictive than forcing him to pay for every meal he eats, which he has stated he cannot afford. Less restrictive means include supplementing the regular diet with prepackaged kosher meals; establishing another kosher kitchen; shipping food to Stiles from Stringfellow’s kosher kitchen; and providing prepackaged kosher meals through the commissary for free. On remand, the district court must determine whether any “alternative, available” means would allow TDCJ to achieve any established compelling interest while being less restrictive of Moussazadeh’s ability to exercise his religion. If a less restrictive alternative is available, RLUIPA commands that TDCJ adopt it. For the foregoing reasons, the summary judgment is REVERSED, and this matter is REMANDED for further proceedings. We do not suggest how the district court should proceed or what decisions should be reached in light of the guidance set forth in this opinion. If the court decides, as to any issue, that there are no genuine disputes of material fact, summary judgment may be appropriate. If there are fact issues, the case may be ready for trial on issues other than exhaustion and sincerity, which are now decided as matters of law. 21 Case: 09-40400 Document: 00512093372 Page: 22 Date Filed: 12/21/2012 No. 09-40400 We do not mean to hamper the court in any way in its resolution of any questions still needing to be resolved.9 9 Moussazadeh’s request for reassignment to a different district judge on remand is DENIED. Reassignment is an “extraordinary” remedy that is “rarely invoked.” Johnson v. Sawyer, 120 F.3d 1307, 1333 (5th Cir. 1997). The district judge has handled this matter capa- bly and without bias, and we are confident she will continue to do so. 22 Case: 09-40400 Document: 00512093372 Page: 23 Date Filed: 12/21/2012 No. 09-40400