Barbee v. Collier ( 2022 )

Case: 22-70011 Document: 00516542825 Page: 1 Date Filed: 11/11/2022
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
No. 22-70011 November 11, 2022
Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Stephen Dale Barbee,
Plaintiff—Appellee,
versus
Bryan Collier; Bobby Lumpkin; Dennis Crowley,
Defendants—Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Texas
USDC No. 4:21-CV-3077
Before Dennis, Elrod, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
Defendants appeal the district court’s preliminary injunction ordering
Defendants to enact a policy protecting all inmates’ religious rights during
capital punishment executions. This order that Defendants adopt a policy
protecting all inmates’ religious rights during executions was unwarranted
*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
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No. 22-70011
because it is not narrowly drawn to the Plaintiff requesting relief. Therefore,
we VACATE the district court’s preliminary injunction as overbroad.
I.
In 2006, a Texas state jury convicted Plaintiff Stephen Barbee of
capital murder, and the trial court sentenced him to death. See Barbee v.
Texas, No. AP–75,359, 2008 WL 5160202 (Tex. Crim. App. Dec. 10, 2008)
(affirming conviction and sentence), cert. denied, 558 U.S. 856. Both the state
and federal courts denied habeas relief. See Barbee v. Davis, 728 F. App’x 259
(5th Cir. 2018) (affirming denial of habeas relief).
Since April 21, 2021, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
(TDCJ) has had a written policy which allows a spiritual advisor to be present
within the execution chamber during the execution. This policy is silent as to
whether the spiritual advisor may pray or touch the inmate. However, TDCJ
denied such accommodations for several inmates. On September 8, 2021, the
United States Supreme Court granted a petition for writ of certiorari in one
such case, Ramirez v. Collier, to decide whether an inmate is entitled at the
preliminary injunction stage to have a spiritual advisor pray and touch the
inmate under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of
2000 (RLUIPA). Ramirez v. Collier, 142 S. Ct. 50 (2021).
On September 21, 2021, Plaintiff Stephen Barbee filed the instant
litigation against the relevant directors of the TDCJ in the United States
District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Barbee alleged that TDCJ
refused to allow his spiritual advisor to pray and touch him while in the
execution chamber, which Barbee alleged violated the RLUIPA and the First
Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. The district court stayed Barbee’s
execution until TDCJ “allows his chosen spiritual advisor in the execution
chamber, authorizes contact between Barbee and his spiritual advisor, and
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allows his spiritual advisor to pray during the execution.” The district court
then stayed Barbee’s case pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Ramirez.
On March 24, 2022, the Supreme Court decided Ramirez, holding the
inmate in that case was entitled to a preliminary injunction ordering TDCJ to
allow his spiritual advisor to pray and lay hands on him during the execution.
Ramirez v. Collier, 142 S. Ct. 1264 (2022). After Ramirez, TDCJ agreed to
allow Barbee’s spiritual advisor to audibly pray, lay hands on Barbee, and to
hold Barbee’s hand during the execution. The Texas trial court then set
Barbee’s execution as November 16, 2022.
In the instant case, Defendants moved to dismiss Barbee’s case as
moot, attaching an affidavit by Bobby Lumpkin, Director of the Correctional
Institutions Divisions of TDCJ, attesting to his agreement to Barbee’s
requests concerning his spiritual advisor. The district court ordered further
briefing as to whether a preliminary injunction as opposed to dismissal would
be more appropriate. Defendants filed supplemental briefs containing
substantially similar arguments as before, while Barbee urged entry of an
“order forbidding the execution without an official change of policy” in order
to prevent a last-minute change in policy.
The district court denied the Defendants’ motion to dismiss. In the
same order, observing that because “TDCJ is now operating under an
unwritten policy where prison officials may unilaterally decide whether to
allow an inmate’s requested accommodation . . . the accommodation may be
withdrawn at the will or caprice of any prison official at the last moment,”
the district court found a preliminary injunction appropriate. The district
court issued the following preliminary injunction:
Texas [TDCJ] may proceed with the execution of Stephen
Barbee on November 16, 2022, only after it publishes a clear
policy that has been approved by its governing policy body that
(1) protects an inmate’s religious rights in the execution
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chamber and (2) sets out any exceptions to that policy, further
describing with precision what those exceptions are or may be.
Defendants filed an interlocutory appeal of the district court’s order granting
a preliminary injunction.
II.
This court reviews a “district court's grant of a preliminary injunction
. . . for abuse of discretion.” Women’s Med. Cty. of Nw. Hous. v. Bell, 248 F.3d
411, 418-19 (5th Cir. 2001). “Findings of fact are reviewed only for clear
error; legal conclusions are subject to de novo review.” Id. at 419. “Issuance
of an injunction rests primarily in the informed discretion of the district
court. Yet injunctive relief is a drastic remedy, not to be applied as a matter
of course.” Marshall v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 554 F.2d 730, 733 (5th
Cir. 1977) (internal citations omitted).
There is no doubt that Barbee is entitled to have his spiritual advisor
pray and touch him in the execution room under Ramirez, as the
circumstances are nearly identical. See 142 S. Ct. at 1275-82. However, that
is not what the district court ordered; it went beyond the circumstances of
Barbee’s case and ordered the Defendants to enact a written policy on
religious accommodation that would apply to all executions. The proper
scope of the injunction is the relevant issue here.
“A district court abuses its discretion if it issues an injunction that ‘is
not narrowly tailored to remedy the specific action which gives rise to the
order as determined by the substantive law at issue.’” O’Donnell v. Harris
Cnty., 892 F.3d 147, 163 (5th Cir. 2018) (quoting Scott v. Schedler, 826 F.3d
207, 211 (5th Cir. 2016)), overruled on other grounds by Daves v. Dallas Cnty.,
22 F.4th 522 (5th Cir. 2022). The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA)
further limits what scope is appropriate in this case. See, e.g., Native Am.
Council of Tribes v. Weber, 750 F.3d 742, 753 (8th Cir. 2014) (applying the
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PLRA to an injunction under the RLUIPA affecting a prison’s policies on
tobacco use). The PLRA provides: “In any civil action with respect to prison
conditions, . . . [p]reliminary injunctive relief must be narrowly drawn,
extend no further than necessary to correct the harm the court finds requires
preliminary relief, and be the least intrusive means necessary to correct that
harm.” 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(2).
We have held that “[t]he PLRA limits relief to the particular plaintiffs
before the court.” Ball v. LeBlanc, 792 F.3d 584, 599 (5th Cir. 2015). For
example, in Ball v. LeBlanc, we vacated an injunction which ordered the
implementation of air conditioning in the entire death row unit to abate an
Eighth Amendment violation of excessive heat. Id. at 598-600. We concluded
the district court “erred because it awarded relief facility-wide, instead of
limiting such relief to [the particular plaintiffs] Ball, Code, and Magee.” Id.
at 598. We noted that “[t]his is not a class action; Ball, Code, and Magee are
the only plaintiffs before the court. As a result, any relief must apply only to
them, if possible.” Id. at 599.
Although not citing the PLRA, we have also vacated an injunction
similar to the one in this case which mandated a prison reduce a policy to
writing. Gates v. Cook, 376 F.3d 323, 338-39 (5th Cir. 2004). In Gates v. Cook,
the district court ordered the state department of corrections to “reduce a
general preventive maintenance schedule and program to writing” in order
to abate conditions in death row found to be unconstitutional under the
Eighth Amendment. Id. at 338. We vacated the injunction because “[w]hile
federal courts can certainly enter injunctions to prevent Eighth Amendment
violations, they are not to micromanage state prisons.” Id. at 339 (citing Bell
v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 562 (1979)). The district court had already “entered
injunctions to directly remedy each of the complained-of conditions that rise
to the level of an Eighth Amendment violation,” and the plaintiff “cited no
case that supports the proposition that the trial court can further affect the
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internal operations of [the department of corrections] by requiring it to
produce a writing preventive maintenance program to which it will adhere.”
Id. We reasoned that “[t]he additional requirement of a written preventive
maintenance program, while desirable, [was] not independently supported by
additional conditions that constitute an Eighth Amendment violation, and it
[could] []not stand.” Id.This approach is consistent with the Supreme Court’s instructions in
Ramirez, 142 S. Ct. 1264. As explained, in Ramirez, the Supreme Court
addressed a nearly identical claim under the RLUIPA to have a pastor pray
and lay hands on the inmate during the execution and held that, under the
circumstances, such claims warranted preliminary injunctive relief. Id. at
1284. The district court in this case focused on the Supreme Court’s
statement in Ramirez that “[i]f States adopt clear rules in advance, it should
be the rare case that requires last-minute resort to the federal courts.” Id. at
1283. However, this statement was not a requirement on states but a
recommendation on how to achieve “timely resolution of [RLUIPA] claims”
within the prison grievance system and thus avoid last-minute federal court
litigation. Id. On the other hand, when cases do reach the federal courts and
“relief is appropriate under RLUIPA, the proper remedy is an injunction
ordering the accommodation.” Id.
Turning to the circumstances of this case, the district ordered the
Defendants to “publish a clear policy that has been approved by its governing
policy body that (1) protects an inmate’s religious rights in the execution
chamber and (2) sets out any exceptions to that policy, further describing
with precision what those exceptions are or may be.” However, this “facility-
wide relief” is improper under the PLRA because it goes beyond relief for
Barbee himself. See Ball, 792 F.3d at 598-99. Barbee did not bring a class
action; he sought only individual injunctive relief in his complaint.
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While a written policy may be desirable, see Gates, 376 F.3d at 339;
Ramirez, 142 S. Ct. at 1283, the available remedy for Barbee’s RLUIPA
violation “is an injunction ordering the accommodation,” see Ramirez, 142 S.
Ct. at 1283. As it stands, the preliminary injunction ordering the Defendants
to enact a written policy on religious accommodation that would apply to all
executions is overbroad and must be vacated. The district court may instead
consider what relief specific to Barbee is consistent with Ramirez and is
appropriate in this case.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we VACATE the district court’s
preliminary injunction as overbroad and REMAND for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion. The mandate shall issue forthwith.
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