4th Circuit Dismisses RFRA Suit By "Enemy Combatant" Jose Padilla

In Lebron v. Rumsfeld, (4th Cir., Jan. 23, 2012), the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected claims for a declaratory judgment, injunction and nominal damages brought by Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was convicted on terrorism related charges, including providing material support to Al Qaeda. Padilla's lawsuit challenged his previous military detention as an "enemy combatant." One of Padilla's claims was brought under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. He alleged that RFRA authorizes him to sue officials in their individual capacities for damages for burdening his free exercise of religion when they held him in military custody.  The court rejected that claim, saying:

Courts have long been reluctant to interpret statutes in ways that allow litigants to interfere with the mission of our nation’s military.... [W]e have no indication that Congress even considered the prospect of RFRA actions brought by enemy combatants with anything like the care that it has customarily devoted to matters of such surpassing sensitivity. The foregoing discussion underscores what we believe are considerable obstacles to applying RFRA in this context. But we need not go so far as to announce such a proposition in its most absolute terms.... At the very least, the defendants transgressed no clearly established law in this area, and to hold them personally liable in the absence of clear notice that such a prospect was even possible would run counter to the reasons that ... [qualified] immunity exists.

Reuters reports on the decision.