Court Opinion

ID: 9474053
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:46:40.079975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:52.674915
License: Public Domain

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The Court’s opinion has performed a significant service in harmonizing and clarifying our cases dealing with the assertion of First Amendment rights by prison inmates. I have no quarrel with the legal framework set out in the opinion, or with its discussion of the proper scope of review in appeals of this kind. My disagreement comes, instead, with the application of this analytical framework to the particular facts of the case before us.
The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the District Court, with which I am in substantial agreement. I would add only a few observations. The Court criticizes the District Court for stating that the Warden’s concerns for institutional security were “founded only on fear and apprehension.” Ante at 344. The Court also disagrees with the District Court’s assessment that there was “no credible evidence on the record” to support a need for the regulation in question. I believe that this Court owes more deference to the assessment of the facts and circumstances, including the demeanor of witnesses, by the trier of fact. Having read the transcript of the trial, I believe there were ample grounds for the District Court’s skepticism.
The only witness testifying for the defendants below was the defendant Donald Wyrick, Warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary. Several portions of Warden Wy-rick’s testimony appear to be flippant, or, at least, insufficiently aware of the seriousness of claims of First Amendment rights. He began testifying, for example, by stating that if he had thought of it he would have come to court with a false beard, just to see if the judge could have recognized him. Tr. 51. He also stated that he couldn’t even recognize his own brother “if he has got á full beard and long hair,” Tr. 87, and that, if the plaintiff’s claim should be upheld, “Pretty soon, everyone has got beards. I would probably grow one, too, you know.” Tr. 82. In addition, the Warden’s reference to one of the predecessors of the present Muslim Chaplain (one of plaintiff’s witnesses) as “the other little fellow,” Tr. 86, could have led the trier of fact to take less than seriously the Warden’s protestations that he had properly weighed the religious interests involved against the need for institutional security. The Warden seems to have doubted, in fact, the sincerity of the plaintiff’s religious commitment, a fact that the State does not now dispute and that this Court’s opinion takes as a given. Tr. 82. The Warden also stated that he did not believe that only one per cent, of the inmates in the federal prison system had chosen to wear beards after that practice had been made permissible. Tr. 77. Again, the state does not contest this fact, and this Court’s opinion assumes it to be true. The Warden’s attitude is based upon a clear misapprehension of the facts, the kind of misapprehension that would completely justify labeling his response as “exaggerated.”
The Court mentions the District Court’s reference to the Warden’s belief that 75 per cent, of the inmates would grow beards if permitted to do so. This Court explains, ante at 345, that the Warden’s estimate assumed a situation in which all inmates, not just those with sincerely held religious beliefs, would be allowed to grow beards. I disagree with this reading of the record. The following question and answer appear on page 57 of the transcript:
Q. Do you have any idea of how many of these other inmates would want to grow beards and claim some religion?
A. I think probably 75 percent of the inmates in there would at least initially until they got tired of it.
*349The purport of this testimony is quite clear. The Warden was saying that 75 per cent, of the inmates would claim some kind of religious scruple in order to get permission to wear a beard. The adjective “exaggerated” seems made for this kind of statement. There is absolutely no evidence to support such a claim, either in the present record or in the experience of other prison systems where beards have been permitted. It seems to me that the District Court was well within its rights in regarding this kind of reaction as “exaggerated.” The same thing is true of the Warden’s claim that the prison system would have to take 10,000 photographs a week if the rule were to be as the plaintiff requested. This is obviously a gross overstatement. There were, at the time of trial, about 2,150 inmates in the Missouri State Penitentiary. Each inmate would have to have his picture taken five times a week if the Warden’s characterization were correct. This kind of “unnecessarily expansive statement,” ante at 346, seems to me precisely the kind of thing that one would look for in determining whether a response by prison officials to legitimate security considerations is “exaggerated.”
Finally, I am concerned with the heavy emphasis placed by the Warden and by this Court on the relevance of cost considerations. I can see the argument that allowing prisoners to grow beards might help some prisoners, either those committing assaults within the prison or those planning to escape, get away. It seems just as clear, though, that these problems could be met by improved training of staff, increased numbers of staff, or a combination.The federal government, of course, has a great deal more money than the State of Missouri, but the same is presumably not true of at least some of the 20-odd states that permit inmates to grow beards. Therefore, the cost of accommodating the prison system to a religious exemption from the no-beard rule seems to be less than prohibitive. In addition, constitutional rights should not be granted or denied primarily on the basis of monetary costs to the government. I am not prepared to say that the cost of a certain accommodation between security and religious belief is an irrelevant consideration, but I do believe that it should not be given dispositive weight. Otherwise, First Amendment rights become ephemeral. I am reminded of this Court’s pioneering opinion in Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571 (8th Cir.1968), in which we held the use of the strap as a disciplinary measure in the Arkansas State Penitentiary violative of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The State had urged, in support of its practice, that it could not afford to provide other means of prisoner regulation. This Court, speaking through Judge (now Mr. Justice) Blackmun made the following reply:
Humane considerations and constitutional requirements are not, in this day, to be measured or limited by dollar considerations ____
404 F.2d at 580.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent. I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.