122531P.pdf   03/28/2014  Randall Jackson  v.  Jay Nixon
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  12-2531
   U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri - Jefferson City   
   [PUBLISHED] [Kelly, Author, with Wollman and Smith, Circuit Judges] 
   Prisoner case - Prisoner civil rights. In this action, plaintiff, a 
   Missouri prisoner, alleged that being required to attend and complete a 
   nonsecular substance abuse program in order to be eligible for early 
   parole violated the Establishment Clause; the district court erred in 
   dismissing the claim on the ground that Jackson voluntarily withdrew from 
   the program and that such a withdraw was fatal to his claims as it could 
   not be determined, at this stage of the proceedings, whether his 
   withdrawal was voluntary or the result of state-sponsored coercion; to 
   evaluate a prisoner's claim of coercion, the court would conduct a 
   three-step inquiry: has the state acted, does the action amount to 
   coercion, and is the object of the coercion secular or religious; the 
   first and third prongs were present here, and based on the allegations of 
   the complaint, the court finds that plaintiff pled facts sufficient to 
   state a claim that a parole stipulation requiring him to attend and 
   complete a substance abuse program with religious content in order to be 
   eligible for early parole violates the Establishment Clause of the First 
   Amendment; plaintiff's claims against defendants Crawford and Jackson were 
   sufficient to establish their personal involvement in the formation, 
   implementation and enforcement of the policy; his allegations with respect 
   to defendant Burgess were not sufficient; reversed and remanded for 
   further proceedings. Judge Smith, Dissenting.