PASADENA, Calif. (CN) — The Ninth Circuit on Friday found that a federal judge didn't check whether prison officials were complying with a consent decree about an inmate's Wiccan religion before he dismissed it.
"We are disappointed by the district court's insouciance in this case. The court committed numerous errors in terminating a consent decree that had been carefully crafted over the course of two decades," Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the majority.
California inmate William Rouser's case began in 1992 when he petitioned the California State Prison at Sacramento to recognize Wicca as a bona fide religion and give its followers the same rights accorded to inmates of other faiths.
Rouser requested to possess Wiccan ritual items like candles and incense, to have access to "A Witches Bible Compleat," to use the prison chapel for Wiccan ceremonies, and to receive the ministry of a Wiccan chaplain.
After the prison denied his requests, Rouser filed a civil rights complaint in district court that eventually led to a comprehensive settlement agreement between the parties describing how the prisons and their staff would accommodate Rouser's religious needs.
After receiving complaints of violations of the agreement over the next 14 years from Rouser, a judge in the Eastern District of California granted a preliminary injunction, finding that prison officials had burdened the inmate's religious exercise.
The parties entered into another settlement agreement a year later, which the district court adopted as a consent decree in 2011. Under the decree, the California Department of Corrections reaffirmed the promises it made in the previous agreement and included additional privileges, such as allowing Rouser to attend weekly "esbats" and permitting him to bypass the first levels of appeal when reporting any noncompliance with the decree.
The case was transferred to the Central District of California. Several months after the decree went into effect, Rouser filed a motion to enforce its terms, claiming that prison officials had violated the agreement in at least five ways.
U.S. District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner found that prison officials had violated the decree by damaging a religious necklace in their custody and by dismissing Rouser's grievances before they reached the warden. Although the district court reminded the prison to adhere to the terms of the decree, it did not order them to replace the necklace or grant any other relief.
Klausner resolved the remainder of Rouser's claims in the prison's favor without an evidentiary hearing or an acknowledgment that the inmate had presented contrary evidence.
Three months later, prison officials moved to vacate the decree on the claim that they had reached substantial compliance. A declaration by Correctional Counselor Nathan Wilcox stating that prison officials had "fully complied" with the decree discussed only some of the decree's terms and said nothing about compliance with other terms, according to the Ninth Circuit.
Wilcox also did not state whether prison officials had remedied the two violations the court found just months earlier.
Klausner refused to grant Rouser an evidentiary hearing and instead issued a three-page minute order in March 2013 dismissing the decree without a hearing or oral argument. Klausner found that prison officials had "demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that they have substantially complied with the terms of the settlement agreement."
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit took Klausner to task Friday for his out-of-hand dismissal of the decades-old case.