Opinion ID: 867297
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Compelling interest claim

Text: ¶ 13 Hardesty urges that Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 126 S.Ct. 1211, 163 L.Ed.2d 1017 (2006), required the trial court to hold an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the State has a compelling interest and can accomplish its compelling interest by less restrictive means. [7] ¶ 14 Hardesty's reliance on O Centro is misplaced. Although the Court there observed that an exemption may be available under RFRA even though the federal Controlled Substances Act broadly prohibits possession of schedule one substances, id. at 433-35, 126 S.Ct. 1211 (noting peyote exception), the Court did not require an evidentiary hearing in every RFRA case, see id. at 418, 126 S.Ct. 1211. Instead, once the government establishes a compelling interest, courts must see whether the religious use can be exempted. Id. at 436, 126 S.Ct. 1211 (citing Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 125 S.Ct. 2113, 161 L.Ed.2d 1020 (2005)). That is, the government must establish that applying the law in the particular circumstances is the least restrictive means of regulating. ¶ 15 Hardesty next argues that we should apply the modified compelling interest test set forth in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 533, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 124 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993). We disagree. That case, which arose under the First Amendment, not RFRA, involved a statute that singled out and prohibited a disfavored religious practice of a particular religion by imposing a burden only on religiously motivated conduct. Id. at 545-46, 113 S.Ct. 2217. On review, the Court determined that a law targeting religious conduct is the precise evil ... the requirement of general applicability is designed to prevent. Id. at 546, 113 S.Ct. 2217. Such laws are subject to strict scrutiny and survive such searching review only in rare cases. Id. ¶ 16 In contrast to the targeted law at issue in Lukumi Babalu Aye, laws of general applicability are judged under the First Amendment by a lesser standard. In Yoder, the Court acknowledged that religiously based conduct is often subject to regulation by the States in the exercise of their undoubted power to promote the health, safety, and general welfare, or the Federal Government in the exercise of its delegated powers. 406 U.S. at 220, 92 S.Ct. 1526. Because Lukumi Babalu Aye involved a statute that targeted a religious practice, the case does not set the standard applicable to cases such as this one that involve nondiscriminatory laws of general applicability.