Jonathan Sellers v. Kevin Carr, Cindy O’Donnell, Daniel Coate, and Warden Michael Meisner

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment in Jonathan Sellers’s action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The court held that Sellers failed to provide admissible evidence showing that Defendants substantially burdened his religious exercise as a Nation of Gods and Earths adherent. The action was dismissed with prejudice.

Holdings

1. Defendants were entitled to summary judgment because Sellers failed to provide admissible evidence showing that they substantially burdened his religious exercise. Requiring him to submit a DOC-2075 accommodation form and informing him that the chapel lacked NGE materials did not establish a substantial burden, and the undisputed evidence showed that NGE materials were not blanket-banned and that the Department was not required to purchase religious literature.
2. Sellers could not proceed on the asserted Establishment Clause theory because the screening order did not permit that claim, the complaint did not contain discernible allegations supporting it, and Sellers presented no admissible evidence to support it.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Defendants substantially burdened Sellers’s religious exercise in violation of the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause.
2. Whether Defendants substantially burdened Sellers’s religious exercise in violation of RLUIPA.
3. Whether Sellers could proceed at summary judgment on an Establishment Clause theory that prison officials forced NGE adherents to attend Islamic services or favored other religions.

Disposition

dismissed