Khalil v. Department of Corrections

Ashraf Khalil, a devout Muslim, was continuously ordered by prison officials to shave his beard despite it being integral part of his Muslim faith and suffered retaliation – including solitary confinement – for his refusal. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting alongside Mr. Khalil to ensure people of all faiths are able to exercise their First Amendment right and practice their faith fully while incarcerated.  

Prison officials completely disregarded Mr. Khalil’s First Amendment right to practice his faith by demanding he shave his beard – an integral part of his Muslim faith – and punishing him for refusing by harassing him, giving him false disciplinary tickets, and throwing him into solitary confinement in deplorable conditions.

When Mr. Khalil turned to the federal courts for help, the pro se prisoner form complaint used by the district court for incarcerated people representing themselves without a lawyer required Mr. Khalil to provide information about the efforts he took to exhaust all “available” administrative remedies within the prison as a prerequisite to filing a lawsuit under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). The district court dismissed Mr. Khalil’s complaint not because it lacked merit, but because, in the court’s view, his answers failed to prove that he had exhausted all available administrative remedies.

But in Jones v. Bock, the U.S. Supreme Court held that exhaustion is an affirmative defense that must be raised and proved by defendants, and district courts are not allowed to sidestep the rule announced in Jones by requiring a prisoner to affirmatively raise exhaustion and then turn around and dismiss the complaint based on that information.

The MacArthur Justice Center represents Mr. Khalil on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Fifth Circuit, arguing that the district court erred by blatantly ignoring Jones. The brief also argues that even if the court could consider Mr. Khalil’s answers to the exhaustion questions in his complaint, a failure to exhaust would still not be clear because the court did not consider whether administrative remedies were in fact “available” to Mr. Khalil as required under the plain text of the PLRA.

UPDATE

The Fifth Circuit agreed with MJC, reversing the district court’s decision and remanding Mr. Khalil’s lawsuit for further proceedings. Now able to move forward in the district court, Mr. Khalil is one step closer to vindicating his fundamental right to practice his faith.