David Firewalker-Fields v. Jack Lee ( 2023 )

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PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 19-7497
DAVID NIGHTHORSE FIREWALKER-FIELDS,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
JACK LEE, Superintendent; MIDDLE RIVER JAIL AUTHORITY,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at
Roanoke. Norman K. Moon, Senior District Court Judge. (7:17-cv-00400-NKM-JCH)
Argued: December 7, 2021 Decided: January 17, 2023
Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge, and Rossie D. ALSTON,
Jr., United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge Richardson
wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge Gregory and Judge Alston joined.
ARGUED: Ignacio Martinez Castellanos, Hannah Comeau, UNIVERSITY OF
VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Julian Friedman
Harf, GUYNN WADDELL CARROLL & LOCKABY, P.C., Salem, Virginia, for
Appellees. ON BRIEF: J. Scott Ballenger, Zev Klein, Third Year Law Student, Joshua
Short, Third Year Law Student, Carly Wasserman, Third Year Law Student, Appellate
Litigation Clinic, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW, Charlottesville,
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Virginia, for Appellant. Emily K. Stubblefield, GUYNN WADDELL CARROLL &
LOCKABY, P.C., Salem, Virginia, for Appellees.
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RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge:
David Nighthorse Firewalker-Fields spent nearly three months in Middle River
Regional Jail. And he alleges that Middle River’s practices during that time substantially
burdened his Islamic faith while unconstitutionally favoring the practice of the Christianity.
He argues that he was kept from engaging in Friday Prayer, and all the while the jail
broadcast non-denominational but distinctly Christian services every Sunday on televisions
throughout the facility. This case deals with the difficulty of analyzing constitutional rights
claims by prisoners, who necessarily surrender some rights during incarceration, and
particularly the difficulty of dealing with religious accommodations in prison. Prisons are
required to provide religious accommodations; the question here is when those
accommodations go too far and when they do not go far enough.
Firewalker-Fields’s claims regarding Friday Prayer implicate the Free Exercise
Clause. Under that clause, prisons can impose burdens on inmates’ religious practice—
even substantial burdens—so long as the prison rules that do so are “reasonably related to
legitimate penological interests.” Middle River had three rules in place that kept
Firewalker-Fields from attending in-person Friday Prayer: no inmate led groups; no
maximum-security prisoners allowed in any in-person groups; and prisoner services and
classes by volunteer or donation only. Those rules are reasonably related to justifiable
prison goals and therefore do not offend the Free Exercise Clause.
Firewalker-Fields’s claims about the Christian broadcasts implicate the
Establishment Clause. What that clause requires has recently been unsettled. The Supreme
Court in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District announced that the Lemon test—the Fourth
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Circuit’s long-used, all-purpose Establishment Clause test—is no longer good law, and that
in its place, courts should use an analysis that focuses on history, tradition, and original
meaning.
While we affirm the district court’s Free Exercise decision, we must remand for
further proceedings on the Establishment Clause to allow the district court to grapple with
the history-and-tradition test in the first instance.
I. Background
A. Facts
This appeal involves the period that David Nighthorse Firewalker-Fields spent in
Middle River Regional Jail before being transferred to long-term imprisonment in the
Virginia Department of Corrections.
Firewalker-Fields arrived at Middle River on a Wednesday. By the next day, before
he had missed Friday Prayer or endured a Sunday service, he already filed an Inmate’s
Grievance: “Why is [Middle River] promoting the Christian Religion while not allowing
myself as a Sunni Muslim to be allowed to have access to Jumuah, the [F]riday prayer
service?” J.A. 11. Firewalker-Fields asked for Friday Services to be put in place and to
receive a § 1983 lawsuit package. About two weeks later, Firewalker got his first response
from the jail: “The program over the TV is a non-denominational program that people can
choose whether or not to watch. You are allowed to have your religious material and
believe as you choose.” J.A. 11.
Firewalker-Fields appealed that denial two days after receiving it, arguing that other
prisons, like the Virginia Department of Corrections, allow inmates to serve as imams for
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Friday Services with a guard present. But the Middle River Administration’s response was
the same: “Mr. Firewalker, you may practice your religion in your housing area. Sunday
service is non-denominational.” J.A. 12.
Having failed to gain anything in the grievance process, Firewalker-Fields put his
§ 1983 lawsuit package to use. Just over three weeks after being placed in the jail,
Firewalker-Fields sued Middle River and Jack Lee, in his capacity as Superintendent. He
alleged: “Middle River Regional Jail Authority and Jack Lee authorize Christian Faith
Classes while not allowing or offering Islamic Faith Classes.” J.A. 8. Firewalker-Fields
asked for damages; he asked to be transferred from the jail to the Department of Corrections
as soon as possible; and finally, he asked for an injunction requiring Middle River to
institute Islamic services.
Two months later, Firewalker-Fields was transferred out of Middle River to
permanent placement in the Virginia Department of Corrections system. But the § 1983
suit continued on. Ultimately, the district court granted summary judgment for Lee and
Middle River. J.A. 74. Firewalker-Fields timely appealed, and we have jurisdiction. 12
U.S.C. § 1291.
B. Religious Accommodation at Middle River
While its population is predominantly Christian, Middle River houses inmates of
many religions. In 2018, a year after Firewalker-Fields left, around 33 religions were
represented at the jail. Inmates of every religion were provided some accommodations.
All inmates were allowed to pray in their cells; to have some access to soft-cover religious
texts; and to visit once per week with a spiritual advisor with whom they could talk and
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pray. Muslims were given a few additional accommodations, including special mealtimes
during Ramadan and a pork-free diet all year round.
In some respects, Christians had greater opportunity to practice their faith, but this
was primarily due to Middle River’s policy that all religious and non-religious classes were
volunteer or donation only. The jail had volunteers and donations from Christian groups.
So Middle River offered a volunteer-led, non-denominational “faith-based class” for all
inmates, but which used “the Bible [as] the central text.” J.A. 51. But they had never
received Muslim volunteers or donations, so there was no faith class using the Quran as
the central text.
Middle River also played a Christian video on Sundays. That video, donated by a
local Mennonite Christian group, had Christian themes and used the Bible. The service
was broadcast using a closed-circuit television system into every “day room” in the jail,
communal spaces attached to the inmates’ housing units. Middle River’s closed-circuit
TV system only allowed a single video to be played at a time and that video was played on
all the available screens simultaneously.
Firewalker-Fields’s frustrations with these policies are twofold. First, he argues that
he could not avoid the Christian broadcasts. He claims that while the broadcasts played,
he could either go out into the common room and listen to Christian proselytizing or stay
in his housing unit. The prison largely agrees with that characterization: “Inmates that do
not want to watch the services can stay in their housing areas.” J.A. 48. Firewalker-Fields
argues that the experience felt like an ultimatum: “Be Christian or be penalized.” J.A. 68.
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Beyond the Christian video, Firewalker-Fields was also upset by the lack of any
Muslim services or classes. Specifically, Firewalker-Fields wanted to perform Jumuah—
or Friday Prayer—“which [is] a required part of the Islamic faith.” J.A. 9. The jail did not
offer any Islamic services or classes. Again, this was due to the lack of any Muslim
donations or volunteers. And Middle River claims it attempted to remedy the situation by
reaching out to a nearby mosque for help, but those efforts failed.
Even apart from the lack of Muslim volunteers or donations, Middle River indicated
that it could not have logistically accommodated Friday Prayer sessions. Every day from
11 am to 1:30 pm, the jail was on lockdown for lunch and midday count. That tied up all
available officers in various tasks, and Middle River claims that this prevented the jail from
properly supervising a Muslim service on Fridays at noon as requested. And the possibility
of having to provide that kind of get-together for every faith was daunting. 1
These logistical challenges would not be alleviated by permitting inmates to lead
the prayer services. And, more to the point, Middle River policy did not allow inmate-led
groups of any kind—religious or otherwise—because of security concerns about the effects
of forming inmates into affinity groups. The jail was concerned about the “inherent safety
1
Middle River officials also suggested in a declaration for this lawsuit—given a
year after Firewalker-Fields left the jail—that “[e]ven if an imam volunteered to lead
Muslim services or classes at [Middle River], it would not be in the best interests of the
Jail to offer such programming at this time.” J.A. 51. In 2018, there were six Muslims out
of 905 inmates, which is about 0.6% of the prison population. And while a small session
during lockdown for six inmates is one thing, the jail official suggested that they could not
provide a service for every one of the 33 represented religions. The jail, they said, “does
not have enough space, staff, or willing volunteers to support services and classes for every
approved faith group.” J.A. 52.
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risks” of fostering group behavior and “gang mentality.” J.A. 50 (cleaned up). In any
event, Firewalker-Fields would never have been able to attend any in-person classes during
his time at Middle River because he was classified as a maximum-security inmate due to
his criminal history and background, and maximum-security inmates were not allowed to
attend in-person classes.
It was possible for a maximum-security prisoner like Firewalker-Fields to invite an
imam to pray with him during the Friday afternoon “Professional Visiting” time, starting
at 12:30 pm. That would have allowed him to engage in Friday Prayer, if not exactly at
noon. But Firewalker-Fields never put an imam on his visitation list and provided no
evidence that he reached out to an imam.
II. Discussion
Only two of Firewalker-Fields’s original claims remain on appeal, and they are
based on the first two clauses of the Bill of Rights. He argues that Middle River’s policies
violate the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause.
Before proceeding to those claims, a word about what is not at issue here. One of
the initial claims that Firewalker-Fields brought was under the Religious Land Use and
Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (“RLUIPA”), 114 Stat. 803, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc et
seq. But that Act only provides equitable relief to prisoners. See Wall v. Wade, 741 F.3d
492, 496 n.5 (4th Cir. 2014). Because Firewalker-Fields was transferred out of Middle
River to long-term imprisonment in the Virginia Department of Corrections, any injunctive
relief and therefore any claim under RLUIPA is moot. See Rendelman v. Rouse, 569 F.3d
182, 186–87 (4th Cir. 2009); see also Mo., Kan. & Tex. Ry. v. Ferris, 179 U.S. 602, 606
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(1900) (“Moot questions require no answer.”). The district court therefore properly
dismissed the RLUIPA claims against Middle River, and they are not before us. This detail
is important to bear in mind, because while RLUIPA requires a form of strict scrutiny in
the prison context, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(a), the First Amendment provides less robust
protection, see Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89 (1987).
With that caveat in mind, we take the two remaining constitutional claims in turn.
A. Free Exercise
1. Legal Standards
“Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise [of religion].” U.S.
Const. amend. I. To make a Free Exercise claim, a prisoner must first show, as a threshold
matter, that a prison practice or regulation violates his Free Exercise rights before showing
that the prison’s policies are not “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.”
Ali v. Dixon, 912 F.2d 86, 89 (4th Cir. 1990) (citing Turner, 482 U.S. at 89).
Under Fourth Circuit precedent, the threshold showing is two-pronged: A prisoner
must show (1) that he holds a sincere religious belief and (2) that his religious practice has
been substantially burdened by the prison policy or practice. Greenhill v. Clarke, 944 F.3d
243, 253 (4th Cir. 2019). A substantial burden either puts pressure on a person to change
his religious beliefs or puts that person to a choice between abandoning his religion or
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following his beliefs and losing some government benefit. Lovelace v. Lee, 472 F.3d 174,
187 (4th Cir. 2006). 2
If that threshold showing is made, the prisoner must then show that the practice or
regulation is not “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” Turner, 482 U.S.
at 89. We look to a four-factor test to determine the reasonableness of a prison regulation:
(1) whether there is a valid, rational connection between the prison regulation and
the legitimate governmental interest put forward to justify it;
(2) whether there are alternative means of exercising the right that remain open to
prison inmates;
(3) the impact accommodation of the asserted constitutional right will have on
guards and other inmates, and on the allocation of prison resources generally; and
(4) whether there are ready alternatives.
Greenhill, 944 F.3d at 253 (cleaned up) (quoting Turner, 482 U.S. at 89–91). Applying
these factors also requires that we give substantial deference to prison officials, especially
2
The Fourth Circuit’s gloss on this threshold showing appears to be out-of-date.
The “substantial burden” language this Court uses calls back to an older Free Exercise test
that was overruled 30 years ago. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682, 694
(2014) (recounting the Court’s rejection of the substantial-burden balancing test in 1990).
Under more recent Free Exercise doctrine, the Supreme Court has made clear that neutral
laws of general application which only incidentally burden religion are not constitutionally
suspect. See Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct. 1868, 1876 (2021).
Yet our Circuit still applies a “substantial burden” threshold test, and while that may
have made sense for a few years in the 1980s, it no longer does. Turner—the case we’re
about to describe having set the rule for constitutional rights in prison—came down in 1987
when the old Free Exercise “substantial burden” test was still in force. The neutral-and-
generally-applicable test was created in 1990 by Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S.
872, 879 (1990). So when courts first started applying Turner in the Free Exercise context,
they rightly would have used the “substantial burden” standard as a threshold test in these
cases—at least for a few years—but it is unclear why we should still be doing so. See
Carter v. Fleming, 879 F.3d 132, 139 (4th Cir. 2018) (citing pre-Smith precedent for the
threshold showing in a prisoner Free Exercise case).
Turner does not set in amber the state of constitutional law in 1987. Instead, it only
applies “when a prison regulation impinges on inmates’ constitutional rights.” O’Lone v.
(Continued)
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when it comes to the third factor, the impact on guards, inmates, and resource allocation.
Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S. 126, 135 (2003). “The difficulties of operating a detention
center must not be underestimated by the courts.” Florence v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders
of Cnty. of Burlington, 566 U.S. 318, 326 (2012). Especially when dealing with jails, which
generally have greater churn than prisons, officials “must have substantial discretion to
devise reasonable solutions to the problems they face.” Id. “The burden is not on the State
to prove the validity of prison regulations but on the prisoner to disprove it.” Jehovah v.
Clarke, 798 F.3d 169, 176 (4th Cir. 2015) (cleaned up) (quoting Overton, 539 U.S. at 132).
2. Analysis
We begin by assuming that Firewalker-Fields has made the threshold showing of a
Free Exercise violation: that he held a sincere religious belief 3 and that Middle River
Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 349 (1987) (citing Turner, 482 U.S. at 89); see Ali, 912
F.2d at 89 (“Before proceeding to the Turner analysis, we must first determine whether the
prison policy impinges on Ali’s free exercise rights.”). So courts should consider whether
there is a first-order rights violation using the current constitutional standards, and then
apply the penological-interest test Turner directs that we consider in the prison setting.
A more accurate application of the Supreme Court precedents in this area would
look to whether the prison policy or regulation was “neutral and generally applicable.”
Fulton, 141 S. Ct. at 1876. When a policy or practice failed at that hurdle, then we would
replace the traditional strict scrutiny test with the Turner analysis. See Ali, 912 F.2d at 89–
91 (“Because the prison policy impinges on Ali’s free exercise rights, it may be upheld
only if it meets the Turner standard.”).
Because we affirm the denial of Firewalker-Fields’s Free Exercise claim, the
threshold standard will not matter in this case. And perhaps even beyond this case, it will
be rare for a prisoner to carry his burden under Turner without showing a substantial burden
on his religious practice.
3
Middle River argued below that there was strong evidence that Firewalker-Fields
did not hold a sincere religious belief. For instance, Firewalker-Fields also asked jail staff
for the address of a Catholic church, some rosary beads, a Catholic bible, and the Catechism
(Continued)
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imposed a substantial burden on his religious practice. Even assuming he has met this
threshold showing, Firewalker-Fields cannot prevail on his Free Exercise claim because he
cannot make out his burden to prove that the prison’s policies were unreasonable under
Turner.
Applying the Turner test requires us to identify the prison rules that led to
Firewalker-Fields’s inability to attend Friday Prayer services during his time at Middle
River. As best we can tell, three rules are relevant. First, the prison did not allow inmate-
led groups of any kind, secular or religious. Second, all classes and services at Middle
River—religious or secular—were volunteer or donation only. And third, maximum-
security inmates were not allowed to attend any classes at the jail. So with no Muslim
volunteers or donations, no ability for any inmate to run a prayer service, and no possibility
of attending any Muslim class as a maximum-security inmate, Firewalker-Fields could not
attend any in-person Friday Prayer service while at the jail.
We take each factor in turn.
Factor One: Rational connection to a legitimate government interest. First, a
prison regulation must have a “valid, rational connection” to the legitimate government
interest that is put forward to justify it. Turner, 482 U.S. at 89. This first factor places a
burden on the prison to put forward the actual interests that support their policies. See
of the Catholic Church. And he asked for the address of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints and of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Because we ultimately side with Middle River, we need not determine whether Firewalker-
Fields held a sincere religious belief. But we note that, even with evidence against him,
Firewalker-Fields’s claim that he was a true believer is likely enough to show a genuine
dispute of that material fact.
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Lovelace, 472 F.3d at 200–01 n.9; Ali, 912 F.2d at 90 (striking down a policy under Turner
because prison officials failed to put forward any penological interests).
Middle River has put forth two justifications for its policies: security and resource-
efficiency. The jail relies mainly on security concerns to defend its rule barring inmate-led
groups. The jail suggests that there are inherent dangers in letting prisoners form affinity
groups, based on concerns about aggressive group behavior. Prisoner and officer safety
are legitimate concerns, see Jehovah, 798 F.3d at 178, and the Supreme Court has credited
an argument just like this one: “You wind up with a leadership role and an organizational
structure that will almost invariably challenge the institutional authority.” O’Lone v. Estate
of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 353 (1987) (cleaned up).
As to Middle River’s participation ban on maximum-security inmates, maximum-
security status is determined at the jail by looking at criminal history and other risk factors
like gang affiliation, history of suicide attempts, and prior drug and alcohol use. The jail
uses objective factors to determine which prisoners are too dangerous to be allowed to
mingle with others during their temporary stay at Middle River. That system is undeniably
related to concerns about security.
Firewalker-Fields argues that prisons might achieve better security outcomes by
being more accommodating of religious practice. It might be true that prisons would be
safer if religious accommodations were granted more freely. Maybe such a policy would
create a happier, more compliant prison population. But in applying these factors, we are
meant to be deferential to the prison’s rationale. We look to see if the policies reasonably
relate to some legitimate goal, not whether we would make the policy choices differently.
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The rules against inmate-led groups and keeping maximum-security prisoners out of group
classes reasonably relate to the concern for security.
To defend its policy requiring all activities to be done by volunteer or donation only,
the jail relies on resource-allocation concerns. Jails like Middle River have a legitimate
interest in the efficient use of resources, and requiring all classes and services for inmates
to be done by volunteer or donation—in other words, for free—reasonably relates to that
legitimate goal.
Factor Two: Alternative means of exercise open to the prisoner. Next, courts
should consider whether “there are alternative means of exercising the right that remain
open to prison inmates.” Turner, 482 U.S. at 90. If a prisoner shows that there is no other
way to exercise the right at all, even that “would not be conclusive,” but “it would be some
evidence that the regulations were unreasonable.” Overton, 539 U.S. at 135.
The level of generality matters. “The pertinent question is not whether the inmates
have been denied specific religious accommodations, but whether, more broadly, the prison
affords the inmates opportunities to exercise their faith.” Baranowski v. Hart, 486 F.3d
112, 121 (5th Cir. 2007) (cleaned up); see also O’Lone, 482 U.S. at 352 (considering
“whether the inmates were deprived of ‘all means of expression’”). So this is not about
whether Firewalker-Fields had the opportunity to engage in Friday Prayer on his terms, but
rather whether he could generally engage in worship.
O’Lone is a helpful comparison. That case also dealt with Friday Prayer; some
Muslim prisoners were assigned to work detail during Friday afternoons and, therefore,
could not stop for prayer as their religion required. O’Lone, 482 U.S. at 346–47. When
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considering this factor, the Court did not look to see whether a prisoner had other ways to
perform Friday Prayer at noon as they pleased but to all the ways the Muslim prisoners
could generally engage in their religious practice. The Supreme Court found that state-
provided imams, communal prayer time, pork-free meals, and Ramadan-specific eating
times were relevant to showing that regulations keeping prisoners from Friday Prayer were
reasonable. Id. at 352. “We think this ability . . . to participate in other religious
observances of their faith supports the conclusion that the restrictions at issue here were
reasonable.” Id.
This case involves similar accommodations. Firewalker-Fields could keep a prayer
rug and a Quran; he could keep a diet consistent with Islamic practice; he could request
Ramadan-specific eating hours; he could pray Friday Prayer by himself in his housing area;
and he could invite an imam to visit him during lockdown on Fridays to engage in prayer—
even if it were at 12:30 and not noon. O’Lone involved more opportunities than were
present here, including state-provided imams and time to “congregate for prayer and
discussion.” See id. But there is little surprise that a permanent prison would have more
accommodation than a short-term jail. See Florence, 566 U.S. at 326. O’Lone shows that
reasonable alternative accommodation of religious practice supports finding a prison
regulation reasonable. And here, alternative means of expression were indeed open.
Factor Three: Impact of accommodation on guards, inmates, and resource
allocation. The next consideration is “the impact accommodation of the asserted
constitutional right will have on guards and other inmates, and on the allocation of prison
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resources generally.” Turner, 482 U.S. at 90. Where there will be a “significant ‘ripple
effect’” from a potential accommodation, “courts should be particularly deferential.” Id.First, consider the ban on inmate-led groups. The ripple effect on prison operations
from mail correspondence between prisoners led the Supreme Court in Turner to uphold a
ban: “[C]orrespondence between [prisoners] facilitates the development of informal
organizations that threaten the core functions of prison administration, maintaining safety
and internal security [and such] organizational activities . . . can be exercised only at the
cost of significantly less liberty for everyone else, guards and other prisoners alike.” 482
U.S. at 92. The same argument about downstream consequences is used here by Middle
River to justify its ban on inmate-led groups. See Jones v. N.C. Prisoners’ Lab. Union,
433 U.S. 119, 129 (1977) (“It is clearly not irrational to conclude that . . . concerted group
activity, or solicitation therefor, would pose additional and unwarranted problems and
frictions in the operation of the State's penal institutions.”). And this rationale likewise
supports barring maximum-security prisoners from prison groups and services. Allowing
the most dangerous prisoners to gather poses potentially severe security risks for guards
and other prisoners alike.
As to the volunteer-and-donation rule, the Supreme Court has held that it is
legitimate to worry about potential “drain on scarce . . . resources.” See O’Lone, 482 U.S.
at 353. Guards, inmates, and administrators alike are affected by the proper allocation of
a jail’s limited resources. Requiring the jail to take affirmative steps to find a religious
leader or a recorded prayer service for every religion represented in the prison population
would likely cause resource issues for the budgets of jails and prisons while injecting State
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prison personnel in the selection of appropriate prayers or religious leaders. With due
deference in mind, Middle River’s concern for the effects of accommodation is reasonable.
Factor Four: Whether ready alternatives to the policy exist. Finally, courts should
consider possible alternative policies. Turner, 482 U.S. at 90. Where there is an “absence
of ready alternatives,” that favors finding the policy reasonable. Id. Where there are
“obvious, easy alternatives” available, that may suggest a policy is unreasonable. Id. This
is not a least-restrictive-alternative test; it looks for easy and obvious alternatives that do
not “impos[e] more than a de minimis cost to the valid penological goal.” Overton, 539
U.S. at 136. And it is Firewalker-Fields’s burden to suggest those reasonable alternatives,
not Middle River’s burden to imagine them. See Lane v. Griffin, 834 F.2d 403, 407 n.5
(4th Cir. 1987) (“It is improper to place the burden on a prison official to show that no
reasonable method exists by which religious rights can be accommodated without creating
bona fide security problems.”). So Firewalker-Fields bears the burden to ask for what he
needs.
This is one point in our analysis where the gap between the constitutional standards
under Turner and the statutory standards under RLUIPA is widest. Under the Free Exercise
Clause, a prisoner bears a not insignificant burden to bring forward easy alternatives to the
policy that burdens their religious practice. But in the RLUIPA context, when a prisoner
is asking for an injunction to change burdensome policies, the prison bears the burden to
justify its practices under the unforgiving strict-scrutiny standard. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-
1(a).
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Comparing this case to the Supreme Court’s most recent RLUIPA death-penalty
case—Ramirez v. Collier, 142 S. Ct. 1264 (2022)—illustrates this stark difference. In
Ramirez, Texas tried to enforce a no-touch policy for its planned execution of Ramirez, but
Ramirez argued that it was part of his faith to have his pastor “lay hands on me anytime I
am sick or dying.” Id. at 1274. Texas argued that allowing an untrained, lay person to
touch a prisoner as he went through the lethal injection procedure might lead to accidents
and “preventable suffering.” Id. at 1281. The Court held that there were at least a handful
of less-restrictive alternatives—“touching on a part of the body away from IV lines,”
arranging the pastor to be out of the sight lines of the medical team, restricting the time that
the pastor could touch the prisoner, or even putting the pastor though some medical
training. Id. Texas tried to argue that it was not their burden to come up with creative
solutions but Ramirez’s burden to offer them—just like we have said here—but the Court
disagreed: “That gets things backward. Once a plaintiff has made out his initial case under
RLUIPA, it is the government that must show its policy ‘is the least restrictive means of
furthering [a] compelling governmental interest.’” Id. (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-
1(a)(2)). But Firewalker-Fields’s injunctive relief claims under RLUIPA are moot, so he
has only a damages claim under the First Amendment left, and that makes all the difference
here.
In front of this Court, Firewalker-Fields offers a handful of alternative solutions:
that inmates be allowed to lead prayer groups, that the prison should try harder to get a
volunteer imam to provide services, that Friday Prayer might be broadcast to all the closed-
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circuit televisions like Church services are on Sundays, and that a personal television or
tablet might be provided to inmates during Friday Prayer.
Before testing these solutions, we need to consider if Firewalker-Fields waived
these arguments by not raising them to the district court or to the prison. In his Complaint,
Firewalker-Fields did not raise specific solutions; he simply asked for “Middle River to
institute Islamic Prayer services on Fridays.” J.A. 18. The only suggestion that Firewalker-
Fields made to the prison or to the district court before this appeal was to allow an inmate
to lead a Friday Prayer service with a staff member present. He points out that the Virginia
Department of Corrections allows meetings of that kind, and that he would have been
willing to serve as a leader himself. But that is no alternative because it does not alleviate
the concern with inmate-led groups which we have already discussed. Until appellate
counsel got involved, the district court was right to say that an obvious, easy alternative
was “not readily apparent, and Firewalker-Fields [had] not suggested one.” J.A. 68.
Because he pitched none of these creative solutions to the prison at the time, he cannot use
them after the fact to prove that the prison’s rules were not reasonable.
But even if we looked past this pleading failure, none of the solutions offered in the
appellate briefing are easy, obvious, and low-cost. Providing a Muslim Friday Prayer
broadcast over the closed-circuit TV might be done if it were donated like the Christian
broadcast. But without a donation, the process would require selecting the right video to
serve the Muslim prison population. Once the prison began selecting videos rather than
taking donations, it would need to select appropriate videos for every religion. Placing the
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choice of appropriate prayers into the hands of the warden raises substantial administrative
difficulty.
Providing Firewalker-Fields with an individual tablet or television for viewing
Friday prayer might not have involved a huge expenditure of resources, but in the
aggregate, scheduling a system for the whole prison to lend out tablets aligned with each
prisoner’s desired prayer time would no doubt add at least some administrative burden.
And without donations, Middle River would still be left with a system requiring the warden
to decide what religious programing to offer. As to trying to get volunteers or donations,
that suggestion does not provide an “easy and obvious” solution. Middle River already
tried that strategy, and it failed.
In the end, this fourth factor is about easy alternatives, not finding the least
restrictive means. Overton, 539 U.S. at 136. “The Constitution does not mandate a lowest
common denominator security standard, whereby a practice permitted at one penal
institution must be permitted at all institutions.” Turner, 482 U.S. at 95 n.* (cleaned up).
Even if we look past the fact that Firewalker-Fields did not offer most of these alternatives
during the 83 days when he was in the jail, none of these solutions are so easy and so
obvious that they suggest Middle River’s policies were not reasonably related to legitimate
penological interests.
In summary, each of Middle River’s policies is reasonably related to the legitimate
penological purposes of security and resource-allocation; despite the jail’s policies,
Firewalker-Fields still had other ways to practice his religion, even if they were not perfect;
Firewalker-Fields’s preferred solutions would have impaired the jail’s safety and its
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efficient operation; and Firewalker-Fields failed to propose easy and obvious alternative
policies that would have solved those issues while allowing more room for his religious
practice. Taken together, this shows that each challenged policy is reasonably related to
legitimate penological goals and are justifiable under Turner. 4
Before concluding our Free Exercise analysis, there is a stray statement in the record
that needs exploring and which might be read to undermine our reasoning. More than a
year after Firewalker-Fields left Middle River, the jail’s Program Director stated in a
declaration for this litigation that “[e]ven if an imam volunteered to lead Muslim services
or classes at [Middle River], it would not be in the best interests of the Jail to offer such
programming at this time.” J.A. 51. His concern was that providing such programming
would be too much for Middle River to accommodate in the aggregate. At that time, the
4
Even if we had found that some of these rules were not justifiable under Turner,
Firewalker-Fields would have had at least one more significant hurdle to overcome before
getting to a jury. There is a potential causation problem with Firewalker-Fields’s claim
that Middle River burdened his religious practice. Section 1983 incorporates common-law
causation principles. Wright v. Lassiter, 921 F.3d 413, 419 (4th Cir. 2019) (citing Evans
v. Chalmers, 703 F.3d 636, 647 (4th Cir. 2012)). And under those principles, a plaintiff’s
burden, for instance, cannot be “self-imposed.” Id. at 419 (quoting Andon, LLC v. City of
Newport News, 813 F.3d 510, 515 (4th Cir. 2016)). Further, the “subsequent acts of
independent decision-makers” can sometimes “break the causal chain between a
defendant[‘s] misconduct and a plaintiff’s [claim].” Evans, 703 F.3d at 647. Other courts
have held that “a lack of outside clergy, volunteer visitors, [or] practicing co-religionists”
can sometimes break the casual chain between a prison regulation and a substantial burden
on religious practice. See, e.g., Bader v. Wrenn, 675 F.3d 95, 98–99 (1st Cir. 2012). For
example, a prison cannot be said to have “imposed” a burden on a desire for a religious
community when the intervening factual cause of the burden was that no other prisoners
wanted to join in that community. Wright, 921 F.3d at 419. This case may well fit that
mold, especially considering that Firewalker-Fields was barred from attending group
events as a maximum-security inmate, that there is no evidence that other Muslim inmates
would have joined Firewalker-Fields in prayer, and that no outside donations or volunteers
existed.
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Muslim population was less than 1% of the general prison population. If the few Muslim
prisoners got an in-person class, all the other 33 religious groups would expect and perhaps
be owed the same, and the Program Director worried about the jail’s subsequent ability to
handle the administrative burden. That suggestion is troubling. It sounds like “the classic
rejoinder of bureaucrats throughout history: If I make an exception for you, I'll have to
make one for everybody, so no exceptions.” Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente
Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 436 (2006).
While troubling, this statement does not make out a genuine issue of fact on any
issue material to the outcome of this case. The statement is pure counterfactual. The
Program Director said it probably wouldn’t be in the jail’s interest to pursue a particular
solution to a problem that had never come up. The statement was not describing any
existing policy or practice. And it cannot seriously be read as evidence of animus during
Firewalker-Fields’s 83 days at Middle River, cf. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. C.R.
Comm’n, 138 S. Ct. 1719, 1729–31 (2018), or as evidence that there was an off-the-books,
de-facto policy to deny minority-religions certain benefits. In the world where that stray,
counterfactual comment was instead an actual contemporaneous policy, we would have to
run that rule through the analysis above. As it is, the statement does not change the
outcome here.
Firewalker-Fields cannot make out a Free Exercise violation on this record, and the
district court was right to grant summary judgment to Middle River on this claim.
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B. Establishment Clause
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” U.S. Const.
amend. I. That sentence may seem simple enough, but to put it bluntly, Establishment
Clause jurisprudence has been “in shambles” for a long time. See Utah Highway Patrol
Ass’n v. Am. Atheists, Inc., 565 U.S. 994, 994 (2011) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial
of certiorari). Our Circuit has called the area “often-dreaded and certainly murky.”
Koenick v. Felton, 190 F.3d 259, 263 (4th Cir. 1999). But a recent Supreme Court decision
has provided some clarity. Given this development, we will send the Establishment Clause
claim back to the district court to take the first pass at addressing the new framework.
The Fourth Circuit has long used the three-pronged Lemon test, taken from Lemon
v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612–13 (1971), as a one-size-fits-all Establishment Clause test.
See Wood v. Arnold, 915 F.3d 308, 313–14 (4th Cir. 2019). But no more. In Kennedy v.
Bremerton School District, 142 S. Ct. 2507 (2022), the Supreme Court upended that
approach. In discussing a school district’s interests in avoiding Establishment Clause
violations, the Court said that Lemon and its offshoots had been “long ago abandoned.” Id.
at 2427 (2022) (citing Am. Legion v. Am. Humanists Ass’n, 139 S. Ct. 2067, 2080–81
(2019) and Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565, 575–77 (2014)). 5
With Lemon finally dead, the question is what comes next. Kennedy gives the
answer: “In place of Lemon and the endorsement test, this Court has instructed that the
5
The Court in Kennedy did not explicitly say that it was overruling Lemon. And
the cases that it claimed had previously “abandoned” Lemon—Town of Greece and
American Legion—did not explicitly say this either. But it is now clear that Lemon and its
ilk are not good law.
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Establishment Clause must be interpreted by ‘reference to historical practices and
understandings.’” Kennedy, 142 S. Ct. at 2428 (quoting Town of Greece, 572 U.S. at 576).
From now on, historical practice and understanding “must” play a central role in teasing
out what counts as an establishment of religion.
But what does that historical analysis look like? Kennedy itself provides some
guidance. The Court cited a group of other cases that have dealt with the Establishment
Clause in historical terms, and suggested that their approach should inform Establishment
Clause analyses going forward. See Kennedy, 142 S. Ct. at 2428 (citing Town of Greece,
572 U.S. at 577 (legislative prayer); Am. Legion, 139 S. Ct. at 2087 (religious monuments);
Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 490 (1961) (religious oaths); McGowan v. Maryland,
366 U.S. 420, 437–440 (1961) (Sunday closing laws); Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U.S. 664,
680 (1970) (tax exemptions)). 6
In supplemental briefing, Firewalker-Fields marshals an array of historical sources
to meet his burden under Kennedy to establish an Establishment Clause violation. See
6
Take Town of Greece as an example. The Court began by defining a category of
activity that was historically understood as acceptable under Establishment Clause
principles: “legislative prayer.” 572 U.S. at 575–77. Then the Court moved on “to
determine whether the prayer practice in the town of Greece fits within the tradition long
followed in Congress and the state legislatures,” by resolving arguments about whether the
challenged practice fell outside the tradition or fit within that tradition. Id. at 577; see also
Walz, 397 U.S. at 680. Identify the relevant tradition, then determine whether the
challenged practice is in or out.
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Suppl. Appellant Br. at 4–6. 7 But many questions remain. 8 So we decline the invitation
to be a court of “first view” and not “a court of review.” Lovelace v. Lee, 472 F.3d 174,
203 (4th Cir. 2006). The district court should have the initial responsibility of working
through Firewalker-Fields’s Establishment Clause challenge under Kennedy.
C. Pledger v. Lynch and Rule 56(d)
One final argument must be addressed. Beyond his substantive disagreements,
Firewalker-Fields argues that summary judgment was procedurally inappropriate under
Pledger v. Lynch, 5 F.4th 511 (4th Cir. 2021), because Firewalker-Fields was a pro se
plaintiff and was not given a meaningful opportunity for discovery. In Pledger, this Court
7
Kennedy makes clear that, under the Establishment Clause, historical analysis is
“the rule rather than some exception.” 142 S. Ct. at 2428 (cleaned up). See also Town of
Greece, 572 U.S. at 575–77. So, in Establishment Clause cases, the plaintiff has the burden
of proving a set of facts that would have historically been understood as an establishment
of religion. That requires proving both a set of facts, like in all litigation, and proving that
those facts align with a historically disfavored establishmentarian practice. See Bruen, 142
S. Ct. at 2130 n.6. This is in contrast to those constitutional provisions where the Supreme
Court has directed that historical tradition defines an exception, rather than the rule. See
id. at 2134–35. There, the burden falls on the defendant to establish the exception. See id.
at 2127.
8
Open questions abound. What kinds of evidence are relevant? See, e.g.,
McGowan, 366 U.S. at 431–443; see also Am. Legion, 139 S. Ct. at 2085. What kinds of
evidence are the most useful? Marsh, 463 U.S. at 787–88; Walz, 397 U.S. at 677. Which
periods of history are relevant—the era of the Bill of Rights, 1791, or the era of the
incorporation of the Bill of Rights, 1868—and which period is most important? Compare
Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2137–38, with id. at 2162–63 (Barrett, J., concurring); see also Espinoza
v. Montana Dep’t of Revenue, 140 S.Ct. 2246, 2259 (2020). This last question might matter
a great deal in the Establishment Clause context given the evidence that the understanding
of that principle changed significantly between 1791 and 1868. See Kurt T. Lash, The
Second Adoption of the Establishment Clause, 27 Ariz. St. L.J. 1085, 1153–54 (1995);
Steven G. Calabresi & Sarah E. Agudo, Individual Rights under State Constitutions When
the Fourteenth Amendment Was Ratified in 1868, 87 Tex. L. Rev. 7, 32 (2008). We could
go on.
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held that it was an abuse of discretion to grant summary judgment to a defendant when the
plaintiff could not “present facts essential to justify his opposition” because he had not
been given a reasonable opportunity to gather those essential facts. Id. at 526 (cleaned up)
(quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(d)). Rule 56(d) relief should be liberally granted, particularly
when a pro se plaintiff seeks evidence that is “exclusively in the control of the opposing
party.” Id. The Pledger court held that it is appropriate to excuse “technical
noncompliance” with Rule 56(d), especially with pro se plaintiffs where the district court
is put on “fair notice of a potential dispute as to the sufficiency of the summary judgment
record.” Id. at 526.
Here, the district court did deny a motion to take depositions and then granted
summary judgment against Firewalker-Fields anyway, but this is not a situation where
broad Rule 56(d) relief would have been appropriate. Firewalker-Fields asked to depose
several witnesses “to establish Plaintiff’s sincerity of beliefs, and to provide expert
testimony as to the requirement of Friday Congressional Prayer.” Firewalker-Fields v.
Lee, No. 7:17-cv-00400-NKM-JCH, Mot. to Take Deps. 1, ECF No. 69 (W.D. Va. Aug.
29, 2019). The district court properly considered the possibility of treating this as a Rule
56(d) motion. J.A. 73. While the district court noted that this request for discovery was
both untimely and failed to meet the technical requirements of Rule 56(d), 9 the district
Pledger also involved a court’s failure to provide the plaintiff appropriate notices
9
as required by Roseboro v. Garrison, 528 F.3d 309 (4th Cir. 1975). Pledger, 5 F.4th at
525. That is not true here. The district court gave two clear Roseboro notices to
Firewalker-Fields. Firewalker-Fields v. Lee, No. 7:17-cv-00400-NKM-JCH, Roseboro
Notice, ECF No. 36 (W.D. Va. Dec. 19, 2017); Firewalker-Fields v. Lee, No. 7:17-cv-
(Continued)
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court’s primary reason for denying the motion was that the subject of the discovery requests
would have been irrelevant to the reasons for summary judgment. J.A. 73–74.
The requested depositions would have focused on the sincere religious belief and
substantial burden pieces of Firewalker-Fields’s Free Exercise claim. 10 But the district
court agreed with Firewalker-Fields on the substantial-burden issue and declined to decide
the sincerity issue, instead holding for Middle River on the Turner analysis that we have
affirmed above. Firewalker-Fields’s failure to carry his burden under Turner would not
have changed with his requested discovery. Evidence that Firewalker-Fields proposed easy
and obvious alternative policies was not “exclusively in the control of the opposing party,”
Pledger, 5 F.4th at 526, because Firewalker-Fields could have simply submitted an
affidavit saying he made such proposals (if he really had). As for the Establishment Clause
claim, Firewalker-Fields never put the court on notice that there was any possible dispute
about the sufficiency of the evidence for that claim. Because discovery would not have
aided in developing essential facts, Pledger does not change the outcome here.
* * *
Middle River’s policies do not violate the Free Exercise Clause. Each of the rules
and regulations that combined to keep Firewalker-Fields from engaging in communal
00400-NKM-JCH, Roseboro Notice, ECF No. 58 (W.D. Va. Dec. 12, 2018). The later of
those two notices informed Firewalker-Fields that counter-affidavits or additional evidence
needed to be submitted within 21 days. Firewalker-Fields submitted his motion for
depositions more than eight months later in August 2019. Firewalker-Fields v. Lee, No.
7:17-cv-00400-NKM-JCH, Mot. to Take Deps., ECF No. 69 (W.D. Va. Aug. 29, 2019).
10
There is no reason to consider Pledger’s impact on the remanded Establishment
Clause claim.
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Friday Prayer during his brief stay was reasonably related to a legitimate penological
interest and therefore acceptable under Turner. Whether the challenged practices violate
the Establishment Clause is a question best left to the district court to resolve in the first
instance, with the benefit of intervening legal developments. So the district court is
AFFIRMED IN PART,
VACATED IN PART,
AND REMANDED.
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