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Religious Freedom - Court Cases and Case Studies

Court Cases | Articles

Court Cases

Marbury v. Madison, 1803  “A law repugnant to the Constitution is void.”
With these words, Chief Justice John Marshall established the Supreme Court’s role in the new government. Hereafter, the Court was recognized as having the power to review all acts of Congress where constitutionality was at issue, and judge whether they abide by the Constitution. READ FULL TEXT

Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886)
The Supreme Court invalidated a San Francisco ordinance that prohibited operating a laundry in a wooden building without the permission of the Board of Supervisors because the ordinance was administered in a manner that discriminated against Chinese immigrants. This was the first time that the court struck down a law that was not discriminatory on its face but which was applied in a discriminatory fashion.

Powell v. Alabama (1932)
The Supreme Court overturned the conviction of the Scottsboro Boys, nine African American youths who had been convicted in the rape of two white women in a railroad freight car, on the ground that they had been denied due process because of the hostile community atmosphere in which the case was tried and trial judge’s failure to provide them with a defense attorney. For the first time, the court applies constitutional protections for a fair trial to the states.

Lovell v. Griffin (1938)
The court upheld the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to distribute religious literature without a license.

Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940)
The Court ruled that the statute requiring a license to solicit for religious purposes was a prior restraint that vested the state with excessive power in determining which groups must obtain a license.

Murdock v. Pennsylvania (1943)
the Court found that the Jeanette ordinance requiring solicitors to purchase a license from the borough was an unconstitutional tax on the Jehovah's Witnesses' right to freely exercise their religion.

Rochin v. California (1952)
The court reverses the conviction of a man whose stomach had been forcibly pumped for drugs on the ground that the Constitution’s due process clause bars “conduct that shocks the conscience.”

Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that a state's ban on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy. The case concerned a Connecticut law that criminalized the encouragement or use of birth control. The 1879 law provided that "any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purposes of preventing conception shall be fined not less than forty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days." The law further provided that "any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principle offender."

Estelle Griswold, the executive director of Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and Dr. C. Lee Buxton, doctor and professor at Yale Medical School, were arrested and found guilty as accessories to providing illegal contraception. They were fined $100 each. Griswold and Buxton appealed to the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, claiming that the law violated the U.S. Constitution. The Connecticut court upheld the conviction, and Griswold and Buxton appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reviewed the case in 1965.

The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision written by Justice William O. Douglas, ruled that the law violated the "right to marital privacy" and could not be enforced against married people. Justice Douglas contended that the Bill of Right's specific guarantees have "penumbras," created by "emanations from these guarantees that help give them life and opinion." In other words, the "spirit" of the First Amendment (free speech), Third Amendment (prohibition on the forced quartering of troops), Fourth Amendment (freedom from searches and seizures), Fifth Amendment (freedom from self-incrimination), and Ninth Amendment (other rights), as applied against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, creates a general "right to privacy" that cannot be unduly infringed.

Further, this right to privacy is "fundamental" when it concerns the actions of married couples, because it "is of such a character that it cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of our civil and political institutions." Because a married couple's use of contraception constitutes a "fundamental" right, Connecticut must prove to the Court that its law is "compelling" and "absolutely necessary" to overcome that right (i.e., the "strict scrutiny test"). Because Connecticut failed to prove this, the law was struck down as applied.

Employment v. Smith (Sacramental Peyote Case that led to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993)

US v. Dawn Meeks , et al, No. 94-30076 (Rastafarian Ruling - Right to Religious Use defense)

Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York 397 U.S. 664 (1970)
This decision accepts the premise that religious institutions are beneficial to society and are eligible for the same benefits offered to other such organizations. Once again, the Court allows the government to give special privileges to religion without it being construed as establishing, sponsoring, or supporting religion.

McDaniel v. Paty (1978)
The Court ruled that Tennessee's statute forbidding clergy from holding public office improperly forced citizens to choose between exercising two of their fundamental rights.

Widmar v. Vincent (1981)
Should religious student groups be given the same access to university facilities as secular student groups, or would that mean that the university is exhibiting support and/or encouragement to religious beliefs? According to the Supreme Court, all groups must be treated equally, including religious organizations.

John J. Hurley and South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, v. Irish G.L.I.B. -- No. 94- 749 -- Right to your own Free Expression, i.e. Free Speech (Soapbox Decision)

U. S. v. Rainbow -- U.S. v. Barry Adams, pro se, (Texas, 1988), and U.S. v. Gideon Israel (Arizona, 1986) -- are both positive decisions relating to Religious Use Defense for Individuals' Rights to Gather (sustained by RFRA &93). (SOAPBOX Decision)

Glassroth v. Moore (2002)
Roy Moore installed a huge granite monument to the Ten Commandments in Alabama, saying that their presence would help to remind people that God was sovereign over them and over the laws of the nation. A District Court, however, found that his actions were an obvious violation of the separation of church and state, ordering him to remove the monument.

Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal (2006)
On 21 February 2006 the Supreme Court issued its ruling on the case. The court ruled, unanimously, that the lower courts had not erred in holding that the federal government had failed to prove the "compelling interest" in barring UDV use of hoasca required under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion in the case, the second opinion he authored as a member of the Court. The case was remanded to a lower court for further proceedings.

Raich v. Gonzales, 500 F.3d 850, 865 (9th Cir. 2007):
The Lawrence Court noted that, when the Court had decided Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 106 S. Ct. 2841, 92 L. Ed. 2d 140 (1986), "[twenty-four] States and the District of Columbia had sodomy laws." Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 572. By the time a similar challenge to sodomy laws arose in Lawrence in 2004, only thirteen states had maintained their sodomy laws, and there was a noted "pattern of nonenforcement." Id. at 573. The Court observed that "times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress." Id. at 579.

Though the Lawrence framework might certainly apply to the instant case, the use of medical marijuana has not obtained the degree of recognition today that private sexual conduct had obtained by 2004 in Lawrence.

U.S. v. Ballard  322 U.S. 78 (1944)
This decision prevented juries from considering whether a person's religious beliefs were true. So long as the person accepted them in good faith, it is improper for the state to attempt to determine they are logical.

Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral - 344 U.S. 94 (1952)
The Court was unwilling to allow New York to make decisions affecting the internal operations of a church within its territory. Attempting to do so has an effect on the free exercising of the religious convictions of the church community.

United States v. Seeger - 380 U.S. 163 (1965)
This decision establishes an expansive definition of what constitutes religious-type beliefs. Provided that the belief is not strictly personal and the person claims that the beliefs serve the same function as a traditional religious belief, the state should recognize its validity. As a result, when applying for status as a conscientious objector, believers in nontraditional variances of monotheism are offered the same rights as people of traditional faiths.

Wisconsin v. Yoder - 406 U.S. 208 (1972)
Three Amish families sued the state of Wisconsin over its requirement that children be enrolled in school until the age of sixteen. The parents refused to comply by removing their children from school after they completed the eighth grade and were convicted of violating the law. The families claimed that their rights to freely exercising their religion were not being respected. The Wisconsin Supreme Court found in favor of the Amish parents.

ESA v. Rylander (2001)
A Texas district court ruled that a nontheistic Ethical Culture Society deserved a religious tax exemption. The Court rejected State arguments that religion must be defined by a belief in a "Supreme Being."

Oregon v. Ashcroft, 368 F.3d 1118, 1122 (9th Cir. 2004):

In 1984, Congress amended the CSA to give broader authority to the Attorney General. The Attorney General is now authorized to revoke a physician's prescription privileges upon his determination that the physician has "committed such acts as would render his registration . . . inconsistent with the public interest[.]" 21 U.S.C. § 824(a)(4). When determining which acts are inconsistent with the public interest, the Attorney General must consider the following factors:

(1) The recommendation of the appropriate State licensing board or professional disciplinary authority;

(2) The applicant's expertise in dispensing . . . controlled substances;

(3) The applicant's conviction record under Federal or State laws relating to the manufacture, distribution, or dispensing of controlled substances;

(4) Compliance with applicable State, Federal, or local laws relating to controlled substances;

(5) Such other conduct which may threaten the public health and safety.

21 U.S.C. § 823(f). Although this provision gives the Attorney General new discretion over the registration of health care practitioners, Congress explained that "the amendment would continue to give deference to the opinions of State licencing authorities, since their recommendations are the first of the factors to be considered[.]" S. Rep. No. 98-225, at 267 (1984), reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3182, 3449.

Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York - 397 U.S. 664 (1970)
This decision accepts the premise that religious institutions are beneficial to society and are eligible for the same benefits offered to other such organizations. Once again, the Court allows the government to give special privileges to religion without it being construed as establishing, sponsoring, or supporting religion.

Larson v. Valente - 456 U.S. 228 (1982)
This decision prevents states from passing laws that might favor certain types of religions (in this case, those who receive a majority of their contributions from members). The state would have to exempt all religions from registering with the Department of Commerce in order to not violate the Lemon test.

Board of Edcucation of Kiryas Joel Village School v. Grumet - 512 U.S. 687 (1994)
The Court prevented governments from using the religious affiliation of a group of people as a central consideration in reaching decisions. Doing so violates the neutrality requirement to which the government must abide.

United States v. Warner, 595 F.Supp. 595 (D. North Dakota 1984 )  -  Sacramental use of peyote upheld.

Warner v. Graham, 675 F.Supp 1171 (D. North Dakota 1987 )   -  Sacramental use of peyote upheld.

Warner v. Graham, 845 F.2d 179 (8th Cir. 1988 )  -   Sacramental use of peyote upheld.

Native American Church  v. United States, 468 F.Supp. 1247 (1979)   -  Sacramental use of peyote upheld.

U.S. v Robert Boyll, 774 F.Supp. 133 (1991) - Non-Indian member of Native American church was indicted for importing peyote through mail and possessing it with intent to distribute. He moved to dismiss. The District Court, Burciaga, Chief Judge, held that: (1) permitting Indians' nondrug use of peyote in bona fide religious
ceremonies of Native American church, but prohibiting such use by non-Indians, would violate free exercise and equal protection clauses; (2) compelling interest test applied to free exercise challenge to prosecution of non-Indian member, and (3) prosecution would violate free exercise clause. Motions granted.

State of Utah v. James Warren Flaming Eagle Mooney (2005) - Reverses the decision of the district court. Holding that the federal Religious Peyote Exemption found at 21 C.F.R. § 1307.31 has been incorporated into the Utah Controlled Substances Act. Although the statutory language governing incorporation is ambiguous, we interpret the Act in a manner that avoids a conflict with federal law and does not risk depriving the Mooneys of their constitutional rights to due process.
 

Articles

http://www.nytimes.com - Leave Medical Marijuana Group Alone, Judge Tells Government - Article Published April 22nd 2004

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/rational/judge.html - An overview of a lecture given by Chief Justice Juan R. Torruella, First Circuit, Court of Appeals. Lecture given at Colby College, Waterville, Maine April 25, 1996.

Federal Judge Allows Marijuana Reform Ads - "This victory is just one of many recent legal victories for the drug policy reform movement," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "From overturning federal infringements on free speech to declaring DEA raids on medical marijuana patients unconstitutional, courts are realizing that the war on drugs is really a war on the Bill of Rights and they're striking down the excesses of the drug war left and right." About.com

Judge Bans Prosecution of Doctors who Prescribe Marijuana - On Friday, Sept. 8, 2000, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup in San Francisco issued a permanent injunction banning the federal government from taking any action, including investigation, leading to the revocation of a physician's license "merely because the doctor recommends medical marijuana to a patient based on a sincere medical judgment." About.com

Spiritual Highs and Legal Blows - “What it’s about is that the United States has always had a unique relationship to Indian tribes because of the history of the United States.…That’s what courts for decades used to say: Hey, the Native American Church gets to do this because, essentially, we’ve stripped them of everything else about their Native Americanness, and we’re not going to take this religion away from them.” In other words: Sorry about the genocide; have some peyote.