Eighth Circuit skeptical of Missouri inmate's religious discrimination claims

ST. LOUIS (CN) — An inmate trying to revive his religious discrimination claims after being denied access to a Bible while being held in a Missouri county jail found a skeptical Eighth Circuit panel on Monday.

Dewey Austin Barnett II is serving a 27-year sentence for first degree assault and armed criminal action, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections website. Barnett claims he is a devout Christian who was denied access to his Bible for a month while held in solitary confinement in the Jefferson County jail in 2021.

Barnett filed a federal lawsuit against the jail and its administrator, Brenda Short, claiming the denial is a violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the Free Exercise Clause (RLUIPA). A federal judge dismissed the case, primarily finding that monetary damages under RLUIPA are not available.

On appeal, Barnett’s attorney Mehwish Shaukat of the D.C. based Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, asserted that damages are available.

“RLUIPA’s plain text authorizes money damages against counties,” Shaukat said, adding that plain language extended to Short.

U.S. Circuit Judge Jane Kelly, a Barack Obama appointee, immediately questioned Shaukat on whether there were significant different statutes in the spending clause regarding the argument. In her reply, Shaukat referenced Sabri , the 2004 U.S. Supreme Court case that held under the necessary and proper clause, a law is not presumed to be unconstitutional if it lacks a clear connection between federal funding and the conduct that it bans.

“It establishes the fact that, basically, Congress has allowed to protect its spending from bad actors and to regulate people like Brenda Short who violate religious liberties instead of protecting them,” Shaukat said.

Defendants’ attorney Blake D. Hill, of Hellmich, Hill & Retter LLC in St. Louis, countered that the Sabri arguments missed the point.

“Where the plaintiff has identified the government’s interest in enhancing and protecting religious freedoms, I think the plaintiff has conflated a congressional interest in influencing policy with Congress undertaking to protect the object of its spending power,” Hill said.

U.S. Circuit Judge James B. Loken, a George H.W. Bush appointee, grilled Shaukat on the nature of her brief submitted to the court.

“Your brief pays no attention to this order on review,” Loken said. “It’s not a dismissal with prejudice. It’s a dismissal without prejudice. Reading your brief treats this like extinguishment of right. Of course, that’s not true at all.”

Shaukat said her client is requesting the right to amend his claims and for the court to find that damages are available under the act.

Hill jumped on that line of questioning, stating that the dismissal can be upheld based on plaintiff’s pleading errors alone.

“The plaintiff in his submitted complaint did not invoke the statute, either by identifying the statute or by alleging any of the facts that would invoke the court’s jurisdiction under that statute, including, for example, that any of the defendants were recipients of federal funding,” Hill said.

In his brief, Barnett says Short scoffed at his request for a Bible, telling him, “Feel free to quote the Constitution all you want.”

“This is precisely the type of mischief the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) was enacted to prevent,” Barnett says in the brief. “Through RLUIPA, Congress broadly prohibited any ‘government,’ including both counties and individuals ‘acting under the color of State law,’ from imposing a substantial burden on ‘any exercise of religion’ for any incarcerated person.”

The defendants, in their brief, argued the case was correctly dismissed because Barnett failed to meet the threshold of the RLUIPA and that Short was entitled to qualified immunity because she is not the final policy maker for the jail.

“The district court was correct in its conclusion that, even if plaintiff had asserted a claim under the RLUIPA, such claim failed because the RLUIPA does not provide for the recovery of monetary damages, and plaintiff’s claims for injunctive relief were moot due to his transfer to another facility,” the defendants claim in the brief.

U.S. Circuit Judge Morris S. Arnold, another George H.W. Bush appointee, rounded out the panel, which took the arguments under advisement. There is no timetable for a ruling.

Follow @joeharris_stl