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Page Number: 68.0

46 

FULTON v. PHILADELPHIA 

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

free-exercise  right.  Not  only  are  these  decisions  few  in 
number, but they reached mixed results.  In addition, some 
are unreasoned; some provide ambiguous explanations; and 
many  of  the  cases  denying  exemptions  were  based  on 
grounds that do not support Smith. 

The  most  influential  early  case  granting  an  exemption 
was People v. Philips, 1 W. L. J. 109, 112–113 (Gen. Sess., 
N. Y.  1813),  where  the  court  held  that  a  Catholic  priest 
could  not  be  compelled  to  testify  about  a  confession.    The 
priest’s  refusal,  the  court  reasoned,  was  protected  by  the 
state constitutional right to the free exercise of religion and 
did not fall within the exception for “acts of licentiousness” 
and “practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of th[e]
State.”63  This, of course, is exactly the understanding of the
free-exercise  right  that  is  seen  in  the  founding  era  State
Constitutions. 

Although  Philips  was  not officially reported,  knowledge
of the decision appears to have spread widely.  Four years
later,  another  New  York  court  implicitly  reaffirmed  the 
principle Philips recognized but found the decision inappli-
cable because the Protestant minister who was called to tes-
tify did not feel a religious obligation to refuse.  See Smith’s 
Case,  2  N. Y.  City-Hall  Recorder  77,  80,  and  n.  (1817); 
McConnell, Origins 1505–1506; Walsh 40–41.

In 1827, a South Carolina court relied on Philips as sup-
port for its decision to grant an exemption from a state law 
relied  on  to  bar  the  testimony  of  a  witness  who  denied  a 
belief in punishment after death for testifying falsely, and 
the State’s newly constituted high court approved that opin-
ion.  Farnandis v. Henderson, 1 Carolina L. J. 202, 213, 214 
(1827).64
  In Commonwealth v. Cronin, 2 Va. Cir. 488, 498, 500, 505 
—————— 

63 Privileged  Communications  to  Clergymen,  1  Cath.  Law.  199,  207– 

209 (1955). 

64 See also Walsh 41; Campbell, A New Approach 992, n. 99; Lombardi, 

Free Exercise 408, and n. 152.