Source: http://www.thc-ministry.org/UDV2006_02_21SupremeCourtDecision.htm
Timestamp: 2018-01-22 13:17:39
Document Index: 114755333

Matched Legal Cases: ['§2000', '§2000', '§2000', '§2000', '§2000', '§812', '§5', '§2000', '§2000', '§812', '§2000', '§2000', '§822', '§1307', '§1996', '§812', '§812', '§2000', '§2000', 'Art. 22']

It relied on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which prohibits the Federal Government from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion, unless the Government “demonstrates that application of the burden to the person” represents the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling interest. 42 U. S. C.
§2000bb–1(b). The District Court granted the preliminary injunction, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. We granted the Government’s petition for certiorari. Before this Court, the Government’s central submission is that it has a compelling interest in the uniform application of the Controlled Substances Act, such that no exception to the ban on use of the hallucinogen can be made to accommodate the sect’s sincere religious practice. We conclude that the Government has not carried the burden expressly placed on it by Congress in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and affirm the grant of the preliminary injunction. I
In Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990), this Court held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment does not prohibit governments from burdening religious practices through generally applicable laws. In Smith, we rejecteda challenge to an Oregon statute that denied unemployment benefits to drug users, including Native Americans engaged in the sacramental use of peyote. Id., at 890. In so doing, we rejected the interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause announced in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963), and, in accord with earlier cases, see Smith, 494
U.S., at 879–880, 884–885, held that the Constitution does not require judges to engage in a case-by-case assessment of the religious burdens imposed by facially constitutional laws. Id., at 883–890.
Congress responded by enacting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 107 Stat. 1488, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000bb et seq., which adopts a statutory rule comparable to the constitutional rule rejected in Smith. Under RFRA, the Federal Government may not, as a statutory matter, substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, “even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.” §2000bb–1(a). The only exception recognized by the statute requires the Government to satisfy the compelling interest test—to “demonstrat[e] that application of the burden to the per-son—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling government interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” §2000bb–1(b). A person whose religious practices are burdened in violation of RFRA “may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief.” §2000bb–1(c).1
O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal (UDV) is a Christian Spiritist sect based in Brazil, with an American branch of approximately 130 individuals. Central to the UDV’s faith is receiving communion through hoasca1 (pronounced “wass-ca”), a sacramental tea made from two plants unique to the Amazon region. One of the plants, psychotria viridis, contains dimethyltryptamine(DMT), a hallucinogen whose effects are enhanced by alkaloids from the other plant, banisteriopsis caapi. DMT, as well as “any material, compound, mixture, or preparation, which contains any quantity of [DMT],” is listed in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. §812(c),Schedule I(c).
1As originally enacted, RFRA applied to States as well as the Federal Government. In City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507 (1997), we held the application to States to be beyond Congress’ legislative authority under §5 of the 14th Amendment.
At a hearing on the preliminary injunction, the Government conceded that the challenged application of the Controlled Substances Act would substantially burden asincere exercise of religion by the UDV. See O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal v. Ashcroft, 282 F. Supp. 2d 1236, 1252 (NM 2002). The Government argued, however, that this burden did not violate RFRA, because applying the Controlled Substances Act in this case was the least restrictive means of advancing three compelling governmental interests: protecting the health and safety of UDV members, preventing the diversion of hoasca from the church to recreational users, and complying with the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, a treaty signed by the United States and implemented by the Act. Feb. 21, 1971, [1979–1980],32 U. S. T. 543, T. I. A. S. No. 9725. See 282 F. Supp. 2d, at 1252–1253.
The Government begins by invoking the well-established principle that the party seeking pretrial relief bears the burden of demonstrating a likelihood of success on the merits. See, e.g., Mazurek v. Armstrong, 520 U. S. 968, 972 (1997) (per curiam); Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422
U. S. 922, 931 (1975). The Government argues that theDistrict Court lost sight of this principle in issuing the injunction based on a mere tie in the evidentiary record.
A majority of the en banc Court of Appeals rejected this argument, and so do we. Before the District Court, the Government conceded the UDV’s prima facie case under RFRA. See 282 F. Supp. 2d, at 1252 (application of the Controlled Substances Act would (1) substantially burden (2) a sincere (3) religious exercise). The evidence the District Court found to be in equipoise related to two of the compelling interests asserted by the Government, which formed part of the Government’s affirmative defense. See 42 U. S. C. §2000bb–1(b) (“Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the per-son—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling government interest . . .” (emphasis added)); §2000bb–2(3) (“[T]he term ‘demonstrates’ means meets the burdens of going forward with the evidence and of persuasion”). Accordingly, the UDV effectively demonstrated that its sincere exercise of religion was substantially burdened, and the Government failed to demonstrate that the application of the burden tothe UDV would, more likely than not, be justified by the asserted compelling interests. See 389 F. 3d, at 1009 (Seymour, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (�[The] balance is between actual irreparable harm to [the] plaintiff and potential harm to the government which does not even rise to the level of a preponderance of the evidence”).
The Government argues that, although it would bear the burden of demonstrating a compelling interest as part of its affirmative defense at trial on the merits, the UDV should have borne the burden of disproving the asserted compelling interests at the hearing on the preliminary injunction. This argument is foreclosed by our recent decision in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 542
U. S. 656 (2004). In Ashcroft, we affirmed the grant of a preliminary injunction in a case where the Government had failed to show a likelihood of success under the compelling interest test. We reasoned that “[a]s the Government bears the burden of proof on the ultimate question of [the challenged Act’s] constitutionality, respondents [the movants] must be deemed likely to prevail unless the Government has shown that respondents’ proposed less restrictive alternatives are less effective than [enforcing the Act].” Id., at 666. That logic extends to this case; here the Government failed on the first prong of the compelling interest test, and did not reach the least restrictive means prong, but that can make no difference. The point remains that the burdens at the preliminary injunction stage track the burdens at trial.
III The Government’s second line of argument rests on the Controlled Substances Act itself. The Government contends that the Act’s description of Schedule I substances as having “a high potential for abuse,” “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” and “a lack of accepted safety for use . . . under medical supervision,” 21 U. S. C. §812(b)(1), by itself precludes any consideration of individualized exceptions such as that sought by the UDV. The Government goes on to argue that the regulatory regime established by the Act—a “closed” system that prohibits all use of controlled substances except as authorized by the Act itself, see Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U. S. ___, ___ (2005) (slip op., at 10)—“cannot function with its necessary rigor and comprehensiveness if subjected to judicial exemptions.” Brief for Petitioners 18. According to the Government, there would be no way to cabin religious exceptions once recognized, and “the public will misread” such exceptions as signaling that the substance at issue is not harmful after all. Id., at 23. Under the Government’s view, there is no need to assess the particulars of the UDV’s use or weigh the impact of an exemption for that specific use, because the Controlled Substances Act serves a compelling purpose and simply admits of no exceptions.
RFRA, and the strict scrutiny test it adopted, contemplate an inquiry more focused than the Government’s categorical approach. RFRA requires the Government to demonstrate that the compelling interest test is satisfied through application of the challenged law “to the per-son”—the particular claimant whose sincere exercise of religion is being substantially burdened. 42 U. S. C. §2000bb–1(b). RFRA expressly adopted the compelling interest test “as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972).” 42 U. S. C. §2000bb(b)(1). In each of those cases, this Court looked beyond broadly formulated interests justifying the general applicability of government mandates and scrutinized the asserted harm of granting specific exemptions to particular religious claimants. In Yoder, for example, we permitted an exemption for Amish children from a compulsory school attendance law. We recognized that the State had a “paramount” interest in education, but held that “despite its admitted validity in the generality of cases, we must searchingly examine the interests that the State seeks to promote . . . and the impediment to those objectives that would flow from recognizing the claimed Amish exemption.” 406 U. S., at 213, 221 (emphasis added). The Court explained that the State needed “to show with more particularity how its admittedly strong interest . . . would be adversely affected by granting an exemption to the Amish.” Id., at 236 (emphasis added).
In Sherbert, the Court upheld a particular claim to a religious exemption from a state law denying unemployment benefits to those who would not work on Saturdays, but explained that it was not announcing a constitutional right to unemployment benefits for “all persons whose religious convictions are the cause of their unemployment.” 374 U. S., at 410 (emphasis added). The Court distinguished the case “in which an employee’s religious convictions serve to make him a nonproductive member of society.” Ibid.; see also Smith, 494 U. S., at 899 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (strict scrutiny “at least requires a case-by-case determination of the question, sensitive to the facts of each particular claim”). Outside the Free Exercise area as well, the Court has noted that “[c]ontext matters” in applying the compelling interest test, Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 327 (2003), and has emphasized that “strict scrutiny does take ‘relevant differences’ into account—indeed, that is its fundamental purpose,” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200, 228 (1995).
Under the more focused inquiry required by RFRA and the compelling interest test, the Government’s mere invocation of the general characteristics of Schedule I substances, as set forth in the Controlled Substances Act, cannot carry the day. It is true, of course, that Schedule I substances such as DMT are exceptionally dangerous. See, e.g., Touby v. United States, 500 U. S. 160, 162 (1991). Nevertheless, there is no indication that Congress, in classifying DMT, considered the harms posed by the particular use at issue here—the circumscribed, sacramental use of hoasca by the UDV. The question of the harms from the sacramental use of hoasca by the UDV was litigated below. Before the District Court found that the Government had not carried its burden of showing a compelling interest in preventing such harms, the court noted that it could not “ignore that the legislative branch of the government elected to place materials containing DMT on Schedule I of the [Act], reflecting findings that substances containing DMT have ‘a high potential for abuse,’ and ‘no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,’ and that ‘[t]here is a lack of accepted safety for use of [DMT] under medical supervision.’ ” 282 F. Supp. 2d, at 1254. But Congress’ determination that DMT should be listed under Schedule I simply does not provide a categorical answer that relieves the Government of the obligation to shoulder its burden under RFRA. This conclusion is reinforced by the Controlled Substances Act itself. The Act contains a provision authorizing the Attorney General to “waive the requirement for registration of certain manufacturers, distributors, or dispensers if he finds it consistent with the public health and safety.” 21 U. S. C. §822(d). The fact that the Act itself contemplates that exempting certain people from its requirements would be “consistent with the public health and safety” indicates that congressional findings with
12 GONZALES v. O CENTRO ESPIRITA BENEFICENTE UNIAO DO VEGETAL Opinion of the Court
respect to Schedule I substances should not carry the determinative weight, for RFRA purposes, that the Government would ascribe to them.
And in fact an exception has been made to the Schedule I ban for religious use. For the past 35 years, there hasbeen a regulatory exemption for use of peyote—a Schedule I substance—by the Native American Church. See 21 CFR §1307.31 (2005). In 1994, Congress extended that exemption to all members of every recognized Indian Tribe. See 42 U. S. C. §1996a(b)(1). Everything the Government says about the DMT in hoasca—that, as a Schedule I substance, Congress has determined that it “has a high potential for abuse,” “has no currently accepted medical use,” and has “a lack of accepted safety for use . . . under medical supervision,” 21 U. S. C. §812(b)(1)—applies in equal measure to the mescaline in peyote, yet both the Executive and Congress itself have decreed an exception from the Controlled Substances Act for Native American religious use of peyote. If such use is permitted in the face of the congressional findings in §812(b)(1) for hundreds of thousands of Native Americans practicing their faith, it is difficult to see how those same findings alone can preclude any consideration of a similar exception for the 130 or so American members of the UDV who want to practice theirs. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 547 (1993) (“It is established in our strict scrutiny jurisprudence that ‘a law cannot be regarded as protecting an interest ‘of the highest order’ . . . when it leaves appreciable damage to that supposedly vital interest unprohibited’ ” (quoting Florida Star v.
B. J. F., 491 U. S. 524, 541–542 (1989) (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment))).
C The well-established peyote exception also fatally undermines the Government’s broader contention that the Controlled Substances Act establishes a closed regulatory system that admits of no exceptions under RFRA. The Government argues that the effectiveness of the Controlled Substances Act will be “necessarily . . . undercut” if the Act is not uniformly applied, without regard to burdens on religious exercise. Brief for Petitioners 18. The
14 GONZALES v. O CENTRO ESPIRITA BENEFICENTE UNIAO DO VEGETAL Opinion of the Court
peyote exception, however, has been in place since the outset of the Controlled Substances Act, and there is no evidence that it has “undercut” the Government’s ability to enforce the ban on peyote use by non-Indians.
We do not doubt that there may be instances in which a need for uniformity precludes the recognition of exceptions to generally applicable laws under RFRA. But it would have been surprising to find that this was such a case, given the longstanding exemption from the Controlled Substances Act for religious use of peyote, and the fact that the very reason Congress enacted RFRA was to respond to a decision denying a claimed right to sacramental use of a controlled substance. See 42 U. S. C. §2000bb(a)(4). And in fact the Government has not offered evidence demonstrating that granting the UDV an exemption would cause the kind of administrative harm recognized as a compelling interest in Lee, Hernandez, and Braunfeld. The Government failed to convince the District Court at the preliminary injunction hearing that health or diversion concerns provide a compelling interest in banning the UDV’s sacramental use of hoasca. It cannot compensate for that failure now with the bold argument that there can be no RFRA exceptions at all to the Controlled Substances Act. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 17 (Deputy Solicitor General statement that exception could not bemade even for “rigorously policed” use of “one drop” of substance “once a year”).
IV Before the District Court, the Government also asserted an interest in compliance with the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, Feb. 21, 1971, [1979–1980], 32 U. S. T. 543, T. I. A. S. No. 9725. The Convention, signed by the United States and implemented by the Controlled Substances Act, calls on signatories to prohibit the use of hallucinogens, including DMT. The Government argues that it has a compelling interest in meeting its international obligations by complying with the Convention. The District Court rejected this interest because it found that the Convention does not cover hoasca. The court relied on the official commentary to the Convention, which notes that “Schedule I [of the Convention] does not list . . . natural hallucinogenic materials,” and that “plants as such are not, and it is submitted are also not likely to be, listed in Schedule I, but only some products obtained from plants.” U. N. Commentary on the Convention on Psychotropic Substances 387, 385 (1976). The court reasoned that hoasca, like the plants from which the tea is made, is sufficiently distinct from DMT itself to fall outside the treaty. See 282 F. Supp. 2d, at 1266–1269.
* * * The Government repeatedly invokes Congress’ findings and purposes underlying the Controlled Substances Act, but Congress had a reason for enacting RFRA, too. Congress recognized that “laws ‘neutral’ toward religion may burden religious exercise as surely as laws intended to interfere with religious exercise,” and legislated “the compelling interest test” as the means for the courts to “strik[e] sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests.” 42 U. S. C. §§2000bb(a)(2), (5). We have no cause to pretend that the task assigned by Congress to the courts under RFRA is an easy one. Indeed, the very sort of difficulties highlighted by the Government here were cited by this Court in deciding that the approach later mandated by Congress under RFRA was not required as a matter of constitutional law under the Free Exercise Clause. See Smith, 494 U. S., at 885–890. But Congress has determined that courts should strike sensible balances, pursuant to a compelling interest test that requires the Government to address the particular practice at issue. Applying that test, we conclude that the courts below did not err in determining that the Government failed to demonstrate, at the preliminary injunction stage, a compelling interest in barring the UDV’s sacramental use of hoasca. 2
In light of the foregoing, we do not reach the UDV’s argument that Art. 22, ¶5, of the Convention should be read to accommodate exceptions under domestic laws such as RFRA.