Opinion ID: 2558362
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: A Road Map of the Undulating Free Exercise Highway

Text: Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963), is recognized generally as the case in which the high court first fully articulated its modern free exercise clause jurisprudence. . . . Smith v. Fair Employment & Hous. Comm'n, 12 Cal.4th 1143, 51 Cal.Rptr.2d 700, 913 P.2d 909, 943 (1996); see Sherr v. Northport-East Northport Union Free Sch. Dist., 672 F.Supp. 81, 90 (E.D.N.Y. 1987) (The Supreme Court formulated its modern approach to free exercise claims in its 1963 Sherbert decision.). In Sherbert, a claimant for unemployment benefits was denied benefits after being found ineligible under a South Carolina law requiring that, to be eligible for benefits, a claimant must be able to work and. . . [be] available for work, and that a claimant is ineligible if he has failed, without good cause . . . to accept available suitable work when offered him by the employment office or the employer. . . . Sherbert, 374 U.S. at 400-01, 83 S.Ct. at 1792, 10 L.Ed.2d at 968. South Carolina's Employment Security Commission ruled the claimant ineligible for unemployment benefits, reasoning that, because the claimanta member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Churchwas discharged by her employer for refusing to work on Saturday (her Sabbath), she failed to accept available suitable work when offered [her] by . . . the employer. Sherbert, 374 U.S. at 401, 83 S.Ct. at 1792, 10 L.Ed.2d at 968. The South Carolina Supreme Court rejected the claimant's contention that the statutory provisions impermissibly infringed upon her federal First Amendment rights under the Free Exercise Clause. The Supreme Court's first task became determining whether the disqualification for benefits imposes any burden on the free exercise of appellant's religion. Sherbert, 374 U.S. at 403, 83 S.Ct. at 1793-94, 10 L.Ed.2d at 970. Answering that question in the affirmative, the Court reasoned that the Commission's ruling forces her to choose between following the precepts of her religion and forfeiting benefits, on the one hand, and abandoning one of the precepts of her religion in order to accept work, on the other hand. Sherbert, 374 U.S. at 404, 83 S.Ct. at 1794, 10 L.Ed.2d at 970. After determining that the South Carolina statute infringed substantially on the claimant's Free-Exercise rights, the Court explained that, in order to pass constitutional muster, the State must demonstrate a compelling state interest in enforcing the eligibility provisions of the unemployment benefits statutes. See Sherbert, 374 U.S. at 406-07, 83 S.Ct. at 1795, 10 L.Ed.2d at 972. Ultimately, the Court concluded that the State made no such showing. Id. Thus, it has been observed that Sherbert required a two-step analysis in determining whether or not a statute, as applied to a particular individual, violated the First Amendment. First, the court must determine if the application of the statute constitutes an infringement upon the individual's religious liberty, and second, if an infringement exists, the court must then determine if it is justified by a compelling state interest. State v. Shaver, 294 N.W.2d 883, 890 (N.D. 1980). Sherbert is considered a landmark decision, as it is the first case to assert that laws interfering with religiously motivated conduct must be analyzed under the compelling state interest test. Christopher L. Eisgruber & Lawrence G. Sager, Mediating Institutions: Beyond the Public/Private Distinction, 61 U. CHI. L.REV. 1245, 1277 (1994). Mere interference, however, was not enough (under Sherbert ) to mandate application of the compelling state interest test. Rather, Sherbert became known for creating the substantial burden test. [1] See Employment Division, Dep't of Human Res. of Or. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 894, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 1608, 108 L.Ed.2d 876, 896 (1990) (O'Connor, J., concurring) ([W]e have respected both the First Amendment's express textual mandate and the governmental interest in regulation of conduct by requiring the government to justify any substantial burden on religiously motivated conduct by a compelling state interest. . . .) (emphasis added). That is, under Sherbert to the extent it survives Smith's analysis, discussed infra strict scrutiny is not the pertinent standard of review unless the governmental action in question imposes a substantial burden on the challenger's Free Exercise rights. As stated in Trinity Assembly of God of Baltimore City v. People's Counsel for Baltimore County, 407 Md. 53, 87, 962 A.2d 404, 424 (2008), [t]he substantial burden test (the Sherbert test) remained the law of the land governing claims under the Free Exercise Clause until 1990, when the Supreme Court decided Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. at 872, 110 S.Ct. at 1608, 108 L.Ed.2d at 896. In Smith, two individuals were fired from their jobs because they used peyotein violation of Oregon penal statutesat a ceremony in the Native American Church, of which they were members. Smith, 494 U.S. at 874, 110 S.Ct. at 1597, 108 L.Ed.2d at 883. Upon termination, the individuals applied for unemployment benefits, which were denied ultimately by the Oregon Employment Division because the claimants were ineligible, having been terminated for work-related misconduct. Smith, 494 U.S. at 874, 110 S.Ct. at 1598, 108 L.Ed.2d at 883. The question before the Supreme Court was whether the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment permits the State of Oregon to include religiously inspired peyote use within the reach of its general criminal prohibition on use of that drug, and thus permits the State to deny unemployment benefits to persons dismissed from their jobs because of such religiously inspired use. Smith, 494 U.S. at 874, 110 S.Ct. at 1597, 108 L.Ed.2d at 882. Rejecting the claimants' argument that their religious motivation for using peyote places them beyond the reach of a criminal law that is not specifically directed at their religious practice, the Supreme Court, speaking through Justice Scalia, held that if prohibiting the exercise of religion . . . is not the object of the [governmental action] but merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision, the First Amendment has not been offended. Smith, 494 U.S. at 878, 110 S.Ct. at 1600, 108 L.Ed.2d at 878. Further, in holding that Sherbert's substantial burden test need not be applied, the Court distinguished Sherbert, stating that Sherbert dealt with unemployment compensation cases, which, with their accompanying eligibility criteria and good cause exception, create[] a mechanism for individualized exemptions that invite consideration of the particular circumstances behind an applicant's unemployment. . . . Smith, 494 U.S. at 884, 110 S.Ct. at 1603, 108 L.Ed.2d at 884. Thus, Smith stands for the proposition that generally applicable, religion-neutral laws that have the effect of burdening a particular religious practice need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest, Smith, 494 U.S. at 886 n. 3, 110 S.Ct. at 1604 n. 3, 108 L.Ed.2d at 890 n. 3, even if the effect of the governmental action is to substantially burden the challenger's religious practice. See Neutral Rules of General Applicability: Incidental Burdens on Religion, Speech, and Property, 115 HARV. L.REV. 1713, 1721 (2001) ( Smith . . . held that the state has no duty to exempt people whose religions are substantially burdened as a result of a neutral and generally applicable law.). Because Smith held Sherbert's substantial burden test inapplicable to cases involving neutral laws of general applicability, our first task in the present case unquestionably is to determine whether the trial court's decision to deny Petitioner's requests for a postponement due to a religious conflict results from application of a neutral law of general applicability, or an analog theretoa task that I undertake infra. Assuming arguendo (for a moment) that the trial court's decision does not fit there, the next inquiry is whether application of Sherbert's substantial burden test is appropriate, and if so, whether the test necessitates the standard of review in the present case to be strict scrutiny. [2] Answering this second group of questions requires a closer examination of the effect of Smith on Sherbert, an analysis over which much ink has been spilled already. One school of thought holds that Smith limited Sherbert only to those cases involving individualized exemptions vis á vis a system of unemployment benefits. Language from Smith supports arguably this narrow reading, see Smith, 494 U.S. at 883, 110 S.Ct. at 1602, 108 L.Ed.2d at 888 (We have never invalidated any governmental action on the basis of the Sherbert test except the denial of unemployment compensation. Although we have sometimes purported to apply the Sherbert test in contexts other than that, we have always found the test satisfied. In recent years we have abstained from applying the Sherbert test (outside the unemployment compensation field) at all.) (internal citations omitted). See also Gary S. v. Manchester Sch. Dist., 374 F.3d 15, 18 (1st Cir.2004) (The Smith majority expressly limited . . . Sherbert to the unemployment compensation field.); Miller v. Drennon, 1991 WL 325291, at , 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20382, at  (D.S.C. 20 June 1991) (According to Smith, Sherbert and its progeny are limited to the denial of unemployment benefits. . . .); S. Ridge Baptist Church v. Indus. Comm'n of Oh., 911 F.2d 1203, 1213 (1990) (Boggs, J., concurring) ([T]he Supreme Court now appears to have confined the applicability of those words to the rather limited field of unemployment compensation. . . .); see also Sara Witt, Modifying the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act to Create a Constitutional Statutory Protection for Religious Landowners, 59 CASE. W. RES. L.REV. 767, 771 (2009) (Some suggest that the Sherbert exception is further limited to unemployment compensation cases alone.). The other main school of thoughtand the one that has garnered the most supportis that Smith limited application of Sherbert's substantial burden test to all individualized exemptions, and not only to those involving unemployment benefits. Language in Smith hints at this conclusion, see Smith, 494 U.S. at 884, 110 S.Ct. at 1603, 108 L.Ed.2d at 889 (Even if we were inclined to breathe into Sherbert some life beyond the unemployment compensation field. . . .), and language from published opinions embraces this view. See, e.g., In re Hofer, 329 Mont. 368, 124 P.3d 1098, 1110 n. 2 (2005) (Despite its expressed reluctance, the Supreme Court in fact has applied the Sherbert test outside the unemployment benefits context.). This view is best exemplified, perhaps, by the Supreme Court's decision in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 124 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993), in which the Court applied strict scrutiny to certain municipal ordinances it held to be non-neutral and not generally applicable, but did not involve unemployment benefits. Specifically, Hialeah dealt with the Santerian religion, which practices animal sacrifice as a principle form of devotion, a branch church of which leased land in the city of Hialeah to establish itself there. Hialeah, 508 U.S. at 524-26, 113 S.Ct. at 2222-23, 124 L.Ed.2d at 484-86. Expressing concern over the religious practices' effect on public morals and safety, the City passed various enactments which declared the City's commitment to proscribing animal sacrifices. Hialeah, 508 U.S. at 526, 113 S.Ct. at 2223, 124 L.Ed.2d at 486. After holding the ordinances to be neither neutral nor generally-applicable, the Supreme Court applied strict scrutiny (á la Sherbert ) to strike down the ordinances. [3] Hialeah, 508 U.S. at 546, 113 S.Ct. at 2233, 124 L.Ed.2d at 498-98. Thus, the Supreme Court has applied Sherbert to scenarios other than those involving unemployment benefits. In subscribing to the latter understanding of Smith's effect on Sherbert, I do not write on a clean slate. In Trinity Assembly of God of Baltimore City, Inc. v. People's Counsel for Baltimore County, 407 Md. 53, 87 n. 13, 962 A.2d 404, 424 n. 13 (2008), discussed more fully infra, I wrote for a unanimous Court (albeit as dicta) that  Smith left open the possibility that the substantial burden test still applies to Free Exercise Clause challenges where the government made an individualized assessment. We did not see Sherbert in Trinity as limited merely to unemployment compensation scenarios, but rather, to all individualized assessment situations. Therefore, assuming, arguendo, that the trial court's denial in the present case of Petitioner's motion to postpone the trial for the two-days of Shavuot was not the result of a neutral and generally-applicable government action, my reading of Smith and its progeny requires a Sherbert -type, substantial burden, analysis. If I determine that a substantial burden analysis is required, this Court's opinion in Trinity, supra , becomes relevant more so. To summarize the road map I believe should be followed in determining the appropriate standard of review to be applied in the present case: (1) determine whether the trial court's denial of Petitioner's motions to postpone the trial for the Shavuot holiday was the result of a neutral, generally applicable governmental action such that application of Sherbert is inapposite (stated differently), determine whether the trial court's denial of the motions was an individualized assessment which necessitates application of Sherbert's substantial burden test; (2) assuming the denial is not a neutral and generally applicable governmental action, apply Sherbert's substantial burden testwith Trinity's glossto determine whether strict scrutiny or abuse of discretion is the pertinent standard of review; and (3) assuming abuse of discretion is the appropriate standard of review, decide whether the trial court abused its discretion in denying Petitioner's motions to postpone the trial for the Shavuot holiday. As will be explained more fully infra, one of the outcomes, I believe, is that application of strict scrutiny is inapposite to the present case.