By Deacon Mike Manno
(The Wanderer) – My December column, the last I wrote for
the year before COVID took me out of circulation for about eight weeks, was
about a case in which a juror was removed from deliberations in a criminal case
involving a former congresswoman, Corrine Brown. It seems that the judge removed
the juror for guidance the juror said he was receiving from the Holy Ghost.
As you might recall, during the second day of
deliberations, one of the jurors sent a note to the judge expressing concern
about the comments a fellow juror had made. The complaining juror was called
into chambers and asked for further information. She told the judge that one
juror had made a comment that he was praying for guidance and trusted the Holy
Ghost who, apparently, told the man that the defendant, Corrine Brown, was not
guilty on all of the twenty-two counts in the indictment.
The judge then called the “offending juror” into chambers
and questioned him. The juror told the judge that he had told the other jurors
“in listening to all the information, taking it all down, I listen for the
truth, and I know the truth when the truth is spoken,” and that “I prayed about
this, I have looked at the information, and that I receive information as to
what I was told to do in relation to what I heard here.”
After a long colloquy with the juror, during which the
juror told the judge that he was following the judge’s instructions, and both
jurors had stated that all jurors were engaged in good faith deliberations, the
government moved to strike the juror, which the judge did. He was replaced by
an alternate, jury deliberations continued for another day, when the jury found
the defendant guilty on eighteen counts, and not guilty on four.
Brown appealed the decision asking the court for a new
trial over the issue of the juror’s disqualification. The trial court and a
panel of the Eleventh Circuit rejected the defense argument, but the entire
circuit agreed to hear the appeal en banc, that is, with all the judges of the
circuit court.
On May 6, 2021, the National Day of Prayer, the full court
vacated Brown’s convictions and remanded the case for a new trial, holding that
the removal of the juror was improper and violated the defendant’s right under
the Sixth Amendment to a unanimous jury verdict.
Circuit Chief Justice William Pryor, writing for the
majority, said that a trial judge may remove a juror after deliberations had
begun only upon a finding of “good cause,” which exists when it is found that
the juror refuses to apply the law or to follow the court’s instructions. “So,
for a district judge to find that this standard of proof is satisfied, he must
determine ‘with utmost certainty’ that a juror has refused to base his verdict
on the law as instructed and the evidence admitted at trial.”
He noted that in the juror’s interview with the court, he
never gave any indication that he was refusing to consider the evidence or
follow the law. “The district judge was wrong to conclude that [the juror’s]
statements that he received guidance in response to prayers were categorically
a bridge too far.”
And: “[The juror’s] vernacular that the Holy Spirit ‘told’
him Brown was ‘not guilty on all charges’ was no more disqualifying by itself
than a secular juror’s statement that his conscience or gut ‘told’ him the
same. Of course, neither a religious nor a secular juror may convict or acquit
a defendant using his internal decision-making processes without regard to the
evidence. But [the juror] repeatedly explained that he was, in fact, reviewing
and deliberating over the evidence.”
Former Solicitor General Paul Clement had written in a
brief supporting Brown: “A nation that enshrines religious toleration in its
founding document and invokes the religious beliefs of its citizenry to
reinforce their public oaths cannot dismiss jurors based on the way they express
their religious convictions.”
And Lea Patterson, counsel for First Liberty, released a
statement saying: “We are grateful that the court reaffirmed the strong
standard required to dismiss a deliberating juror. No American should be
disqualified from fulfilling their civic duty as jurors simply because they
believe that God answers prayer.”
A couple of other cases with satisfactory results:
In Indianapolis the archdiocese was being sued by a former
Catholic high school teacher after he was dismissed for entering into a
same-sex union in violation of the terms of his teaching contract and Church
teaching. “If the First Amendment means anything, it means the government can’t
punish the Catholic Church for asking Catholic educators to support Catholic
teaching,” said Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at Becket,
which represented the archdiocese. (See The Wanderer, May 20, 2021, p. 3A.)
The trial court initially ruled that the case against the
archdiocese could move forward, but the archdiocese appealed that ruling,
citing the school’s handbook that requires teachers to “Support the teachings
and traditions of the Roman Catholic Church . . . [and] serve as a role model
for Christ-centered lifestyle,” and incorporates a morals clause which states
that “teachers, as leaders in a ministry of the Catholic Church . . . must be
credible witnesses of the Catholic faith,” and “models of Christian values.”
The Indiana Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial
court with instructions to reconsider. The court then threw out the suit,
vindicating the Church’s constitutional right to set religious standards for
its schools.
In Minnesota the governor, Tim Walz, on May 5 agreed to
settle a suit with two Christian churches — Northland Baptist Church and Living
Word Christian Center — over COVID restrictions. The churches claimed that the
state had placed restrictions on the churches that were more severe than those
imposed on other businesses. When the state filed and lost a motion to dismiss
the suit, it decided to settle and entered into an agreement that future
emergency orders can no longer discriminate against churches on capacity
limits. The churches were represented by the Upper Midwest Law Center which
described the settlement as a “big win.”
In the pending category, the Milwaukee Archdiocese has sued
the state’s Department of Corrections over a policy that prevents clergy from
visiting prisoners. The archdiocese complained that for over a year corrections
employees such as psychologists, social workers, and outside attorneys have
been allowed to visit with prisoners as long as they followed proper health
guidelines. However, those protocols do not apply to clergy.
A conservative legal group, the Wisconsin Institute for Law
and Liberty (WILL), filed the suit. “There is no rational connection between
the DOC’s policy and its interest in combatting COVID-19 given that the DOC
allows social workers and lawyers entrance from outside of facilities, for
example, but not clergy,” WILL wrote to the department.
The state “must act now to restore the rights of
Wisconsin’s inmates to freely exercise their religion,” the letter argued.
This one is just getting started. We’ll watch for
developments.
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com, and listen to him
every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central Time, on Faith On Trial, on
IowaCatholicRadio.com.)
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