Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-123_g3bi.pdf
Page Number: 71.0

Cite as:  593 U. S. ____ (2021) 

49 

ALITO, J., concurring in judgment
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 

the  latter  according  to  his  religion”  (emphasis  deleted)); 
Commonwealth  v.  Wolf,  3  Serg.  &  Rawle  47,  50,  51  (Pa.
1817) (“[T]he Jewish Talmud . . . asserts no such doctrine” 
and  the  objection  was  made  “out  of  mere  caprice”).    That 
reasoning is contrary to a principle that Smith reaffirmed: 
“Repeatedly  and  in  many  different  contexts,  we  have
warned that courts must not presume to determine . . . the 
plausibility of a religious claim.”  494 U. S., at 887. 

A  third  Sunday  closing  law  decision  appears  to  rest  at 
least in part on a similar ground.  See Specht v. Common-
wealth, 8 Pa. 312 (1848).  The court observed that the mer-
chant’s conscience rights might have been violated if his re-
ligion  actually  required  him  to  work  on  Sunday,  but  the 
court  concluded  that  the  commandment  to  keep  holy  the 
Sabbath had never been understood to impose “an impera-
tive obligation to fill up each day of the other six with some
worldly employment.”  Id., at 326. 

Other cases cited as denying exemptions were decided on
nebulous grounds.  In Stansbury v. Marks, 2 Dall. 213 (Pa.
1793), a decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the 
case report in its entirety states: “In this cause (which was
tried on Saturday,  the 5th of April) the defendant offered
Jonas  Phillips,  a  Jew,  as  a  witness;  but  he  refused  to  be
sworn, because it was his Sabbath.  The Court, therefore, 
fined him £10; but the defendant, afterwards, waving the
benefit of his testimony, he was discharged from the fine.” 
(Emphasis deleted.)  What can be deduced from this cryptic 
summary?    Was  the  issue  mooted  when  the  defendant 
waived the benefit of Phillips’s testimony?  Who can tell? 

In Commonwealth v. Drake, 15 Mass. 161 (1818), the Su-
preme Judicial Court of Massachusetts summarily affirmed
the  conviction  of  a  criminal  defendant  who  was  convicted 
after  the  trial  court  admitted  the  testimony  of  his  fellow 
church members before whom he had confessed.  The State 
argued that the defendant had voluntarily confessed, that 
his confession was not required by any “ecclesiastical rule,”