Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-123_g3bi.pdf
Page Number: 69

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

47 

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

(1855),  a  Virginia  court  followed  Philips  and  held  that  a 
priest’s free-exercise right required an exemption from the
general common law rule compelling a witness to “disclose
all he may know” when giving testimony. 

On the other side of the ledger, the most prominent oppo-
nent of exemptions was John Bannister Gibson of the Penn-
sylvania Supreme Court.  Today, Gibson is best known for 
his dissent in Eakin v. Raub, 12 Serg. & Rawle 330, 355–
356 (1825), which challenged John Marshall’s argument for 
judicial  review  in  Marbury  v.  Madison,  1  Cranch  137 
(1803).  See  McConnell,  Origins  1507.  Three  years  after 
Eakin,  Gibson’s  dissent  in  Commonwealth  v.  Lesher,  17 
Serg. & Rawle 155 (Pa. 1828), advanced a related argument 
against  decisions  granting  religious  exemptions.    Gibson 
agreed that the state constitutional provision protecting re-
ligious liberty conferred the right to do or forbear from do-
ing any act “not prejudicial to the public weal,” but he ar-
gued  that  judges  had  no  authority  to  override  legislative 
judgments  about  what  the  public  weal  required.  Id.,  at 
160–161 (emphasis deleted).

Three years later, he made a similar argument in dicta in 
Philips’s Executors v. Gratz, 2 Pen. & W. 412, 412–413 (Pa. 
1831),  where  a  Jewish  plaintiff  had  taken  a  non-suit 
(agreed to a dismissal) in a civil case scheduled for trial on
a  Saturday.    Gibson’s  opinion  for  the  Court  set  aside  the
non-suit on other grounds but rejected the plaintiff ’s reli-
gious objection to trial on Saturday.  Id., at 416–417.  He 
proclaimed that a citizen’s obligation to the State must al-
ways take precedence over any religious obligation, and he 
expressly  registered  disagreement  with  the  New  York 
court’s decision in Philips.  Id., at 417. 

In  South  Carolina,  an  exemption  claim  was  denied  in 
State v. Willson, 13 S. C. L. 393, 394–397 (1823), where the
court refused to exempt a member of the Covenanters reli-
gious  movement  from  jury  service.   Because  Covenanters 
opposed the Constitution on religious grounds, they refused