Benning v. AmideoRalph Benning is an inmate at the Georgia State Prison in Hancock, although at the time his lawsuit began he was incarcerated at Reidsville. Jewish by birth, he was raised in a Christian household, but elected to return to the Jewish faith while in prison. Correctional officials refused to provide him with kosher food, wear a yarmulke, or accommodate his religious practices in other ways. On December 18, 2002, proceeding pro se and in forma pauperis, Benning filed a RLUIPA lawsuit against Georgia Department of Corrections General Counsel William F. Amideo and 37 other state officials, including Governor Roy Barnes, and the state of Georgia and the Georgia Department of Corrections. (Individual defendants were later dismissed) On January 30, 2003, the State moved to dismiss the complaint on grounds that RLUIPA is unconstitutional. On March 21, 2003 Benning filed an objection with the court, complaining that Magistrate Judge James E. Graham had failed to notify the U.S. Attorney General that a federal statute's constitutionality was being challenged. A week later, Judge Graham issued an order certifying to the Attorney General that RLUIPA's constitutionality had been called into question. The Justice Department intervened and filed a memorandum in support of the law's constitutioanlity on June 3, 2003. On September 11, 2003, Magistrate Judge Graham issued a Report and Recommendation that Benning's complaint be dismissed and that RLUIPA should be declared unconstitutional. Adopting virtually the same reasoning as that used by the District Court in Madison v. Riter (now overruled), Judge Graham wrote, "While Congress may have had a valid, secular purpose in passing the RLUIPA, the effect of this Act is that the Government has sent a message that it endorses religion. Additionally, if prison officials are to follow this Act, an excessive entanglement between the religious practices of inmates and prison officials' judgment will occur. As a result § 2000cc-1 of the RLUIPA is unconstitutional." On October 31, 2003, The Becket Fund filed a motion to intervene (PDF format, 18K) on behalf of itself and Juaquin Terrero, another Georgia prisoner with a RLUIPA lawsuit pending before Magistrate Judge Graham. In an accompanying amicus curiae brief (PDF format, 100K), The Becket Fund noted that Judge Graham's decision "proposes to strike down a federal statute without even mentioning, let alone attempting to distinguish, the vast weight of authority that has rejected similar assertions that RLUIPA is unconstitutional." The unmentioned cases included Charles v. Verhagen, Mayweathers v. Newland, Williams v. Bitner, Sanabria v. Brown, Gordon v. Pepe, Johnson v. Martin, Gerhardt v. Lazaroff, Taylor v. Cockrell and Love v. Evans. The Becket Fund brief pointed out that "The core argument of the Report (and the two rogue opinions on which it relies) is that the Establishment Clause forbids legislative accommodations of religious exercise if they accommodate only religious exercise. But this argument is premised on a radical view of the Establishment Clause held by only one sitting Justice of the Supreme Court . . . this same, hyper-separationist argument has been rejected in every single case in which it was raised against RFRA, RLUIPA's broader predecessor, both before and after RFRA was struck down as applied to the states on other grounds in Boerne." On January 8, 2004, U.S. District Judge Avant Edenfield issued a terse one page order in which he rejected the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation, and denied Georgia's motion to dismiss. Judge Edenfield noted the Fourth Circuit's recent decision in Madison, and adopted its reasoning instead. "The Court has duly considered all of the relevant cases and finds Madison the better reasoned opinion. Given the comprehensive discussion contained therein, it is not necessary to discuss it in any detail here." He certified the case for immediate interlocutory appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, stayed all discovery pending appeal, and declared the case administratively closed, subject to a reopen motion by any party with standing. On January 14, 2004, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty became the attorney of record for Ralph Benning, for the purpose of representing him in the case before the Eleventh Circuit, and if necessary, before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Eleventh Circuit granted the state's motion for interlocutory appeal on March 10, 2004, and granted Benning's motion for an expedited schedule on March 19. On April 29, 2004, The Becket Fund filed a Brief of Plaintiff-Appellee (PDF format, 327K), arguing that Georgia "urges this Court to strike down an Act of Congress, RLUIPA Section 3, without even attempting to distinguish the weight of authority rejecting similar challenges. Likewise, Georgia ignores that courts have uniformly rejected its arguments as against Section 2 of RLUIPA, the analogous land-use provision." "RLUIPA Section 3 meets all of the conditions that the Supreme Court has identified for Congress to exercise its Spending Power," the brief noted, adding that "there is an unmistakable relationship between federal funding of correctional institutes to assist in the rehabilitation of prisoners, and RLUIPA's conditions designed to protect prisoners' religious exercise, which may have rehabilitative benefits." "If Georgia would rather not comply with RLUIPA's unambiguous conditions imposed on the use of federal prison funds, it has been free since the passage of that Act—and remains free to this day—simply to decline that funding," The Becket Fund brief states. "Georgia is not free, however, to have its cake and eat it too, to accept federal funds while disregarding the federal conditions associated with them. To allow Georgia that additional latitude would be to allow a State to dictate to Congress how federal funds shall be used. . ." The U.S. Justice Department has entered the case as an Intervenor-Appellee, also defending the constitutionality of RLUIPA. (Benning v. Amideo, et al., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, appeal Nos. 04-11044-C and 04-10979C; U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, Case No. CV602-139) Articles & News Items
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