Opinion ID: 3020327
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Williams’s First Amendment Claim

Text: The Prison Officials argue that the District Court erred when it held that they are not entitled to qualified immunity from Williams’s First Amendment claim.4 The Prison Officials do not challenge the District Court’s ruling with respect to the first prong of the qualified immunity analysis—whether the Prison Officials’ alleged conduct violated Williams’s rights under the First Amendment.5 They do, however, challenge the District Court’s 4 The District Court discussed whether the First Amendment right asserted by Williams was clearly established on two occasions: in its opinion denying the Prison Officials’ motion to dismiss, and in its opinion denying in part the Prison Officials’ motion for summary judgment. The District Court employed approximately the same analysis in each opinion. 5 The Prison Officials state in their brief that they “will accept [the District Court’s] finding [that Williams has established a First Amendment violation] for purposes of this argument.” (Appellants’ Br. at 11.) Counsel for the Prison Officials reaffirmed this position at oral argument. Notwithstanding the Prison Officials’ position, by our decision today we conclude that, viewed 9 ruling as to the second prong of the qualified immunity analysis—whether the Prison Officials’ alleged conduct violated a “clearly established” First Amendment right. Neither the Supreme Court nor the Third Circuit has directly addressed whether requiring a Muslim inmate to handle pork violates his or her First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. As the District Court pointed out, however, “[t]he few courts to consider the precise question have uniformly held that prison officials must respect and accommodate, when practicable, a Muslim inmate’s religious beliefs regarding prohibitions on the handling of pork.” Williams, 359 F. Supp. 2d at 377. Specifically, the Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth Circuits, as well as a district court in the Eighth Circuit, have so held. See Hayes v. Long, 72 F.3d 70, 72-74 (8th Cir. 1995) (denying qualified immunity because Muslim inmates had a clearly established right not to be forced to handle pork); Kenner v. Phelps, 605 F.2d 850, 851 (5th Cir. 1979) (per curiam) (finding that Muslim inmates’ claim that they were forced to handle pork stated a cause of action); Chapman v. Kleindienst, 507 F.2d 1246, 1251-52 (7th Cir. 1974) (finding that Muslim inmate’s claim that he was forced to handle pork made out a prima facie First Amendment claim); Finney v. Hutto, 410 F. Supp. 251, 270 (E.D. Ark. 1976) (enjoining prison officials from exposing Muslim inmates to food contaminated by pork), aff’d on other grounds, 548 F.2d 740 (8th Cir. 1977), aff’d, 437 U.S. 678 (1978). The District Court also observed correctly that “[d]ecisions from the Supreme Court and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirm [the principles that support Williams’s First Amendment claim], albeit in different factual scenarios.” Williams, 359 F. Supp. 2d at 377. For example, in Thomas v. Review Board, 450 U.S. 707, 717-18 (1981), and Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 404-06 (1963), the Supreme Court explained that a burden on religious exercise is “substantial” and, therefore, impermissible when it influences an adherent to act in a way that violates his or in the light most favorable to Williams, the evidence establishes a violation of Williams’s First Amendment rights, thus satisfying the first prong of the qualified immunity analysis. 10 her sincerely held religious beliefs. Moreover, we have examined First Amendment claims based on the failure of prison officials to accommodate inmates’ religion-based dietary restrictions.6 See DeHart v. Horn, 227 F.3d 47, 52 (3d Cir. 2000) (en banc) (holding that an inmate requesting a special diet on the basis of a sincerely held religious belief has “a constitutionally protected interest upon which the prison administration may not unreasonably infringe”); Johnson v. Horn, 150 F.3d 276, 283 (3d Cir. 1998), overruled in part by DeHart, 227 F.3d at 53-57. On appeal, the Prison Officials contend that they are entitled to qualified immunity because, at the time of the incident, Williams did not have a clearly established First Amendment right not to be forced to handle pork. According to the Prison Officials, the right was not clearly established because neither the Third Circuit nor any district courts within the Third Circuit had expressly held that such a right exists, and there was a “split among the other Circuits concerning this issue.” (Appellants’ Br. at 12.) Thus, the Prison Officials assert that, as in Doe v. Delie, 257 F.3d 309 (3d Cir. 2001), “the absence of binding precedent in this circuit, the doubts expressed by the most analogous appellate holding, together with the conflict among a handful of district court opinions, undermines any claim that the right was clearly established.” Id. at 321 (footnote omitted). We do not find the Prison Officials’ arguments persuasive. First, although the Third Circuit has not ruled on the specific right asserted by Williams, we have observed that “[i]f the unlawfulness of the defendant’s conduct would have been apparent to a reasonable official based on the current state of the law, it is not necessary that there be binding precedent from this circuit so advising.” Brown v. Muhlenberg Twp., 269 F.3d 205, 211-12 & n.4 (3d Cir. 2001) (denying qualified immunity despite absence of 6 In addition, as the District Court pointed out, district courts within the Third Circuit have recognized that Muslim inmates are entitled to a pork-free diet. See Muslim v. Frame, 854 F. Supp. 1215, 1224 (E.D. Pa. 1994); Masjid Muhammad-D.C.C. v. Keve, 479 F. Supp. 1311, 1318 (D. Del. 1979). 11 Third Circuit precedent establishing the right asserted by plaintiff); see also Kopec v. Tate, 361 F.3d 772, 777-78 & n.6 (3d Cir. 2004) (finding right clearly established even though neither the Supreme Court nor the Third Circuit had ruled on the issue); Delie, 257 F.3d at 321 & n.11 (granting qualified immunity but observing that “[t]he absence of circuit precedent does not mean an official will always retain the immunity defense”). To that end, we routinely consider decisions by other Courts of Appeals as part of our “clearly established” analysis when we have not yet addressed the right asserted by the plaintiff. See, e.g., Kopec, 361 F.3d at 778; Atkinson v. Taylor, 316 F.3d 257, 263 (3d Cir. 2003); Brown, 269 F.3d at 211-12 n.4; cf. Johnson, 150 F.3d at 286 (choosing not to resolve the “difficult question” of whether and to what extent decisions from sister circuits may be considered in the qualified immunity analysis).7 Furthermore, the Prison Officials’ characterization of other Courts of Appeals’ rulings on this issue as “split” at the time of the incident is not accurate. As noted above, as of 2001, the only three Courts of Appeals to have considered the right asserted by Williams in a precedential opinion had held that prison officials violate Muslim inmates’ First Amendment rights when they force the inmates to handle pork. See Hayes, 72 F.3d at 72-74; Kenner, 605 F.2d at 851; Chapman, 507 F.2d at 1251-52. In support of their contention that the circuits were divided, the Prison Officials point to the Sixth Circuit’s rejection of a somewhat similar claim in Robinson v. Jordan, 900 F.2d 260 (table), 1990 WL 47551 (6th Cir. 1990) (unpublished opinion). But Robinson is an unpublished opinion that has little or no precedential value in the Sixth Circuit. 7 In addition, although the Delie majority stated that district court opinions cannot establish the law of the circuit, it conceded that such opinions nonetheless may be relevant to the “clearly established” determination. See Delie, 257 F.3d at 321 & n.10 (“district court opinions do play a role in the qualified immunity analysis”); but cf. Brown, 269 F.3d at 212 n.4 (observing that Delie “holds only that conflicting and materially distinguishable district court decisions did not render a right clearly established in the Third Circuit”). 12 See 6th Cir. R. 28(g). As a result, Robinson does not preclude a finding that the right asserted by Williams was clearly established.8 The Prison Officials also call our attention to two cases that the District Court did not reference in its analysis, neither of which is availing. In Grant v. Matthews, No. 89-3194, 1992 WL 160926 (D. Kan. June 12, 1992), a district court dismissed a § 1983 suit by a Rastafarian inmate who was disciplined after refusing to serve soup containing meat (even though he was supplied with plastic gloves), based on qualified immunity. Grant is of no help to the Prison Officials, however, because the district court there conducted its “clearly established” inquiry prior to, and without the benefit of, the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Hayes, which found that a right identical to the one asserted by Williams was clearly established. The Prison Officials also cite the Tenth Circuit’s decision in Searles v. Dechant, 393 F.3d 1126 (10th Cir. 2004), in which a Jewish inmate claimed that prison officials violated his First Amendment right to free exercise when they ordered him to work in a non-kosher kitchen. The Tenth Circuit dismissed most of the appeal as untimely, but in affirming the denial of the plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration, the court held that, under its “extremely limited standard of review,” it could not conclude that the district court improperly dismissed the plaintiff’s First Amendment claim on summary judgment. Id. at 1132. Searles does not influence our analysis, however, because it was decided three years after the incident involving Williams. See Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 200 n.4 (2004) (per curiam) (noting that 8 Even if our sister circuits had in fact split on the issue, we would not necessarily be prevented from finding that the right was clearly established. See Pro v. Donatucci, 81 F.3d 1283, 1292 (3d Cir. 1996) (finding that split between the Fifth and Fourth Circuits at the time of the defendant’s actions did not preclude a finding that the right was clearly established); Bieregu v. Reno, 59 F.3d 1445, 1458-59 (3d Cir. 1995) (finding a right to be clearly established despite a circuit split, as long as “no gaping divide has emerged in the jurisprudence such that defendants could reasonably expect this circuit to rule” to the contrary), abrogated on other grounds by Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343 (1996). 13 the parties had pointed the Court to “a number of . . . cases . . . that postdate the conduct in question” and that “[t]hese decisions, of course, could not have given fair notice to [the state official] and are of no use in the clearly established inquiry”). Lastly, the Prison Officials maintain that the fact that Williams was offered gloves to wear while preparing the pork rations weighs against a finding that they violated a clearly established First Amendment right. We disagree. Williams claims that his religious beliefs prohibit him from handling pork regardless of whether he wears gloves, and the Prison Officials do not dispute the sincerity of his beliefs. Thus, the offer of gloves did not diminish any impingement on Williams’s rights under the First Amendment. In sum, we hold that the Prison Officials are not entitled to qualified immunity from Williams’s First Amendment claim. Although we had not yet addressed the issue raised here at the time of the incident, the Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth Circuits had addressed First Amendment claims similar to Williams’s and held that prison officials must respect and accommodate, when practicable, a Muslim inmate’s religious beliefs regarding prohibitions on the handling of pork. Moreover, decisions from the Supreme Court and this Court support the principles underlying the right asserted by Williams. We therefore conclude that the state of the law at the time the violation occurred gave the Prison Officials “fair warning” that their alleged treatment of Williams was unconstitutional. Hope, 536 U.S. at 741. Accordingly, we will affirm the District Court’s denial of qualified immunity with respect to Williams’s First Amendment claim.