Garland Adams v. Correctional Emergency Respons ( 2021 )

ALD-092 NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 20-2693
___________
GARLAND ADAMS,
Appellant
v.
CORRECTIONAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM, ("Cert");
JANE AND/ OR JOHN DOE CERT TEAM MEMBER(S);
SUPERINTENDENT TAMMY FURGUSON, ("Furguson"); THOSE WHOSE
INVOLVEMENTS AND/ OR IDENTITIES ARE PRESENTLY NOT KNOWN,
in their individual and official capacities
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil Action No. 2-19-cv-03301)
District Judge: Honorable Mitchell S. Goldberg
____________________________________
Submitted for Possible Dismissal Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) or
Summary Action Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6
February 11, 2021
Before: MCKEE, GREENAWAY, JR., and BIBAS, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed April 26, 2021)
_________
OPINION*
_________
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
PER CURIAM
Appellant Garland Adams, an inmate proceeding pro se and in forma pauperis,
appeals from the District Court’s order dismissing his complaint for failure to state a
claim. For the reasons that follow, we will summarily affirm the District Court’s
judgment.
Adams is currently imprisoned at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institute at
Phoenix (“SCI-Phoenix”). His operative amended complaint asserted claims pursuant to
42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of his First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion
and Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of law, and § 1985 for conspiracy to
interfere with his constitutional rights. He also asserted violations of the Religious Land
Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc. He claimed that
when prison authorities transferred him from SCI-Graterford to SCI-Phoenix, they
confiscated numerous personal items, including “legal mail and trial notes” and a
“religious necklace reflecting his Islamic faith.” Am. Compl. at 3, 7, ECF No. 10.1 In
addition, he claimed that an unknown person among the prison authorities defaced certain
family photographs by scrawling racist epithets on them, for which he provided visual
evidence. See id. at 3, 11. He sought money damages only.
1
As the District Court noted, Adams could not have sustained a due process claim
because Pennsylvania law provides an adequate post-deprivation remedy for his lost
personal property. See Mem. at 7 n.4, ECF No. 11. Moreover, Adams did not include any
state law claims related to the alleged deprivation, nor did he provide a basis for
jurisdiction were his complaint liberally construed to include them. See id.
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Screening Adams’s initial complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), the
District Court found that it failed to state a claim and dismissed it without prejudice.
Adams then filed the operative amended complaint, naming the Correctional Emergency
Response Team (“CERT”), Superintendent Tammy Ferguson, and various John and Jane
Does as defendants. The District Court held that Adams had not sufficiently cured the
defects in his complaint through amendment and dismissed with prejudice, finding that
any further amendment would be futile. Adams timely filed a notice of appeal.2
We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review dismissal pursuant
to § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) under the same de novo standard of review that we apply to our
review of a motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), see
Allah v. Seiverling, 229 F.3d 220, 223 (3d Cir. 2000), and may affirm on any basis
supported by the record, see Brightwell v. Lehman, 637 F.3d 187, 191 (3d Cir. 2011). To
avoid dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), a civil complaint must set out “sufficient factual
matter” to show that its claims are facially plausible. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,
678 (2009). We accept all factual allegations in the complaint as true and construe those
facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, Fleisher v. Standard Ins. Co., 679 F.3d
116, 120 (3d Cir. 2012), and we construe Adams’s pro se complaint liberally, see
Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (per curiam). We may summarily affirm if the
2
Due to delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Adams did not receive the District
Court’s disposition for several months. The District Court granted his motion to reopen
the time to appeal under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(6), see Order, ECF No. 14, and his notice of
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appeal fails to present a substantial question. See Murray v. Bledsoe, 650 F.3d 246, 247
(3d Cir. 2011) (per curiam); 3d Cir. L.A.R. 27.4; I.O.P. 10.6.
Beginning with the claims related to the confiscation of the religious necklace, we
agree with the District Court that Adams’s statutory claim fails. RLUIPA does not permit
actions against state officials in their individual capacities, Sharp v. Johnson, 669 F.3d
144, 153 (3d Cir. 2012), and states have not waived their sovereign immunity from
damages suits under the statute. Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U.S. 277, 293 (2011).
Adams also claimed that the confiscation of his religious necklace violated his
First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court has established a four-factor test for
evaluating prisoners’ free exercise claims. See Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89–90
(1987). “[A] prerequisite to the application of Turner is the assertion of ‘only those
beliefs which are both sincerely held and religious in nature are entitled to constitutional
protection.’ The Constitution does not protect ‘mere assertion[s] of . . . religious
beliefs.’” Williams v. Morton, 343 F.3d 212, 217 (3d Cir. 2003) (alterations in original)
(quoting DeHart v. Horn, 227 F.3d 47, 51 (3d Cir. 2000) (en banc)).
Here, the District Court employed a threshold inquiry: “whether the prison’s
conduct has substantially burdened the practice of the inmate-plaintiff’s religion.” Mem.
at 5, ECF No. 11 (quotation and citation omitted). This threshold inquiry applies to
claims under RLUIPA, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(a); Washington v. Klem, 497 F.3d 272,
appeal was timely thereafter.
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277–78 (3d Cir. 2007), but we have called into doubt whether it applies to a claim under
the First Amendment, see Williams, 343 F.3d at 217. RLUIPA offers greater protections
for prisoner’s religious exercise than the First Amendment. See Holt v. Hobbs, 574 U.S.
352, 358 (2015). Thus, a claim that cannot satisfy RLUIPA’s threshold merits inquiry
necessarily fails as to the First Amendment. Cf. Koger v. Mohr, 964 F.3d 532, 543 (6th
Cir. 2020) (holding a failure to show substantial burden under RLUIPA precluded any
genuine dispute of material fact on a free-exercise claim).
Here, though, the District Court did not reach the merits of the RLUIPA claim,
instead dismissing it for the reasons discussed above, and applied the “substantially
burden” threshold inquiry directly to Adams’s First Amendment claim. Nonetheless, if
this constituted error, it was harmless. See Sharp, 669 F.3d at 158 (applying harmless
error analysis in a free-exercise context). The complaint stated only that the missing
necklace reflected Adams’s religious faith, with no description of how losing it affected
his religious practice. Regardless of whether this pleading would meet RLUIPA’s
threshold inquiry, it does not satisfy our prerequisite for consideration of the Turner
factors: the claim fails for amounting to nothing more than a “mere assertion of a
religious belief.” DeHart, 227 F.3d at 51. As such, we will affirm the dismissal of
Adams’s First Amendment claim.
The District Court also considered whether listing legal documents among the
property confiscated meant that Adams intended to assert a First Amendment claim for
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denial of access to the courts. See Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 346 (1996). The District
Court properly held that such a claim would fail because Adams did not allege any
“actual injury” or impairment of his legal rights due to the absence of the materials. See
ECF No. 11 at 4 n.2 (quoting Monroe v. Beard, 536 F.3d 198, 205 (3d Cir. 2008)).
The remainder of Adams’s complaint centered on the photographs he alleged were
defaced by the CERT team that moved his belongings, which the District Court properly
construed as an equal protection claim. “To prevail on an equal protection claim, a
plaintiff must present evidence that s/he has been treated differently from persons who
are similarly situated.” Williams, 343 F.3d at 221. The photographs attached to the
amended complaint are undoubtedly defaced with racist epithets and imagery. Yet we
agree with the District Court that though the actions Adams alleges are odious, he has not
stated a claim for an equal protection violation. Rather than allege he was treated
differently from others similarly situated, Adams asserted that CERT “mistreat[ed]” and
“abuse[d]” other prisoners’ property during the mass transfer from SCI-Graterford to
SCI-Phoenix. See Am. Compl. at 4. Moreover, the District Court explained the specific
defects in Adams’s initial complaint in dismissal, see ECF No. 6 at 8–9, and he was
unable to cure them through amendment.
Adams also claimed the defendants conspired to deprive him of his civil rights, in
violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985. See Brown v. Philip Morris Inc., 250 F.3d 789, 805 (3d
Cir. 2001) (elaborating four-part test for § 1985 claims). Despite the racially charged
6
words and images on the photographs, Adams has not sufficiently pleaded facts and
circumstances to support the elements of the conspiracy. In his complaint and the
appended affidavit, Adams alleged agreement among defendants to deprive him of
property, but as discussed above, there was no underlying constitutional violation or
deprivation of civil rights. Neither does the complaint sufficiently allege any agreement
to deface his photographs. As such, we will affirm the dismissal of his § 1985 claim.
Finally, we conclude that the District Court did not err by declining to give Adams
an opportunity to amend the complaint a second time to better support his claims. As the
District Court explained, the flaws in Adams’s complaint rendered any further attempt at
amendment futile. See Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 245 (3d Cir. 2008).
For the foregoing reasons, Adams’s appeal fails to present any substantial
question, and we will summarily affirm the District Court’s order dismissing this action.
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