Opinion ID: 778298
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Cleric-Congregant Privilege

Text: 56 The cleric-congregant privilege originated in the sui generis Catholic sacrament of Penance. See Lightman v. Flaum, 97 N.Y.2d 128, 134, 736 N.Y.S.2d 300, 303-04, 761 N.E.2d 1027, 1030-31 (2001); Nestle v. Commonwealth, 22 Va.App. 336, 344, 470 S.E.2d 133, 137 (1996) (noting that the privilege had been established by the Roman Catholic Church as early as the Fifth Century). Its origins thus predate the development of the modern Anglo-American law of evidence. But the privilege fell into desuetude after the Reformation, see 8 J.H. Wigmore, Wigmore on Evidence § 2394, at 869 (J.T. McNaughton rev. 1961), and authorities generally agree that it cannot be said to have been recognized as a rule of the common law, either in England or in the United States, id. at 870; see also Lightman, 97 N.Y.2d at 134, 736 N.Y.S.2d at 303, 761 N.E.2d at 1030 (2001) (observing that [t]he clergy-penitent privilege was unknown at common law); Keenan v. Gigante, 47 N.Y.2d 160, 166, 417 N.Y.S.2d 226, 229, 390 N.E.2d 1151, 1154 (1979) (It has been recognized, without serious disagreement, that there existed no common-law priest-penitent privilege.); accord Nestle, 22 Va.App. at 344-45, 470 S.E.2d at 137 (noting that the weight of scholarly authority denies that the cleric-congregant privilege existed at common law at the time of the Founding). 57 Today, however, every state has enacted the cleric-congregant privilege in some form. Ronald J. Colombo, Forgive Us Our Sins: The Inadequacies of the Clergy-Penitent Privilege, 73 N.Y.U. L.Rev. 225, 231 & n. 39 (1998) (collecting statutes). 6 The statutes differ in three principal respects: their definition of clergy, their scope, and the question of to whom the privilege belongs, i.e., who may claim or waive, the privilege — the cleric, the congregant, or both. See id. at 231-32. 58 The emergence of a cleric-congregant privilege in New York antedates its adoption of the privilege by statute in 1828. In People v. Phillips (N.Y.Ct.Gen.Sess.1813), excerpted in Privileged Communications to Clergymen, 1 Cath. Law. 199 (1955) ( Privileged Communications ), 7 a grand jury indicted Daniel Phillips for receiving stolen goods. Phillips, a Roman Catholic, confessed his crime to one Reverend Anthony Kohlmann, whom the State subpoenaed. Id. at 199-200. Kohlmann declined to testify, citing the law of God and his church [that] whatever is declared in confession, can never be discovered, but must remain an eternal secret between God and the penitent soul — of which the confessor cannot, even to save his own life, make any use at all to the penitent's discredit, disadvantage, or any other grievance whatsoever. Id. at 200 (internal quotation marks and citation to the papal decrees omitted). Notwithstanding the general rule, that every man when legally called upon to testify as a witness, must relate all he knows, id. at 201, the court concluded that the mild and just principles of the common law could not be construed to place Kohlmann 59 in such a horrible dilemma, between perjury and false swearing: If he tells the truth he violates his ecclesiastical oath — If he prevaricates, he violates his judicial oath — Whether he lies or whether he testifies he is wicked, and it is impossible for him to act without acting against the laws of rectitude and the light of conscience. 60 Id. at 203. But the New York Court of General Sessions did not rest its decision on the common law. The court reasoned that because of the constitutional magnitude of the issue, it must not be solely decided by the maxims of the common law, but by the principles of our government. Id. at 206. The court therefore went on to observe that: 61 [r]eligion is an affair between God and man, and not between man and man.... Established religions, deriving their authority from man, oppressing other denominations, prescribing creeds of orthodoxy and punishing non-conformity, are repugnant to the first principles of civil and political liberty.... 62 Id. Citing the Free Exercise Clause of the New York State Constitution, the court concluded that permitting Kohlmann to invoke the cleric-congregant privilege was essential to the free exercise of [his] religion. Id. at 207. 63 Four years later, however, in People v. Smith, 2 City Hall Recorder (Rogers) 77 (N.Y.1817), excerpted in Privileged Communications, supra, at 209, the New York Court of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery declined to extend the privilege to a suspected murderer who had confessed his crime to a Protestant minister. Unlike Roman Catholicism, the court reasoned, the defendant's religion did not require confession as a sacrament. Id. at 211. 64 The New York legislature thereafter determined that as a matter of policy, if not constitutional concern, the privilege recognized in Phillips should not be limited to Catholicism. In 1828, it adopted a statute that codified and substantially broadened the Phillips privilege: 65 No minister of the gospel, or priest of any denomination whatsoever, shall be allowed to disclose any confessions made to him in his professional character, in the course of discipline enjoined by the rules or practice of such denomination. 66 Id. at 213 (quoting N.Y.Rev.Stat. 1828, Pt. 3, ch. 7, tit. 3, § 72). Although enacted nearly two centuries ago, salient features of this statute survive in New York's current codification of the cleric-congregant privilege.
67 The statute codifying New York's present version of the cleric-congregant privilege provides: 68 Unless the person confessing or confiding waives the privilege, a clergyman, or other minister of any religion or duly accredited Christian Science practitioner, shall not be allowed [to] disclose a confession or confidence made to him in his professional character as spiritual advisor. 69 N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 4505 (footnote omitted). Three seminal decisions of the New York Court of Appeals elucidate the meaning and scope of § 4505. 70 In Keenan v. Gigante, 47 N.Y.2d 160, 417 N.Y.S.2d 226, 390 N.E.2d 1151 (1979), a State grand jury subpoenaed an ordained Roman Catholic priest and former New York City Councilman to testify about alleged abuses within the New York City Department of Corrections. Id. at 163-64, 417 N.Y.S.2d at 227-29, 390 N.E.2d at 1152-53. The priest refused to testify, claiming both that his conversations were privileged under § 4505 and that to compel him to testify would jeopardize the free exercise of his ministry. Id. at 165, 417 N.Y.S.2d at 229, 390 N.E.2d at 1153. Rejecting both arguments, the Court of Appeals first observed that the New York legislature had enacted an earlier version of § 4505 in respon[se] to the urgent need of people to confide in, without fear of reprisal, those entrusted with the pressing task of offering spiritual guidance so that harmony with one's self and others can be realized. Id. at 166, 417 N.Y.S.2d at 229, 390 N.E.2d at 1154. For this reason, the privilege does not attach to statements merely because they are made to a clergyman; rather, it is only confidential communications made to a clergyman in his spiritual capacity which the law endeavors to protect. Id. The court observed that the communications sought to be privileged had not been made in the context of the cleric-congregant relationship, and therefore, the revelation of such conversations, spoken outside the sphere of confidentiality, cannot be said to fall within the sanctuary of the priest-penitent privilege. Id. at 167, 417 N.Y.S.2d at 230, 390 N.E.2d at 1154. 71 In People v. Carmona, 82 N.Y.2d 603, 606 N.Y.S.2d 879, 627 N.E.2d 959 (1993), the New York Court of Appeals explained § 4505 at greater length in the context of criminal proceedings. Carmona had murdered a woman by strangulation and then fled. He surrendered to the police after consulting two clergymen, both of whom had advised him to do so. See id. at 605-07, 606 N.Y.S.2d at 880-81, 627 N.E.2d at 960-61. The court considered whether Carmona, by confessing his crime to the police, effectively waived his right to invoke the privilege to exclude the testimony of the clergymen to whom he had confessed previously, a question the court answered in the negative. See id. at 608, 606 N.Y.S.2d at 880-81, 627 N.E.2d at 960-61. In the course of its analysis, the Court of Appeals explained: 72 Although often referred to as a priest-penitent privilege, the statutory privilege is not limited to communications with a particular class of clerics or congregants.... 73 [T]he New York statute is intentionally aimed at all religious ministers who perform significant spiritual counselling which may involve disclosure of sensitive matters.... Accordingly, what is more appropriately dubbed the cleric-congregant privilege is applicable to ministers of all religions, most of which have no ritual analogous to that of the Catholic confession.... New York's test for the privilege's applicability distills to a single inquiry: whether the communication in question was made in confidence and for the purpose of obtaining spiritual guidance.... 74 Id. at 608-09, 606 N.Y.S.2d at 882, 627 N.E.2d at 961-62 (citations omitted). Carmona thus made it clear that far from discriminating among religions, the New York legislature intended § 4505 to protect confidential communications between clerics and congregants of all religions, 8 provided that the communication in question qualifies as the kind that the legislature intended, as a matter of policy, to protect: those made in confidence and for the purpose of obtaining spiritual guidance. Id. at 609, 606 N.Y.S.2d at 882, 627 N.E.2d at 962; see also Keenan, 47 N.Y.2d at 166, 417 N.Y.S.2d at 229, 390 N.E.2d at 1154 (explaining § 4505's policy rationale). 75 Most recently, in Lightman v. Flaum, 97 N.Y.2d 128, 736 N.Y.S.2d 300, 761 N.E.2d 1027 (2001), the New York Court of Appeals drew a critical distinction between the cleric-congregant privilege and other evidentiary privileges set forth in Article 45 of the New York Civil Practice Law and Rules. The court noted that [s]tatutes and regulations specifically prohibit the disclosure of confidences and [at times prescribe] sanctions for professional misconduct with regard to, inter alios, attorneys and physicians. Id. at 136, 736 N.Y.S.2d at 305, 761 N.E.2d at 1032. By contrast, clerics are free to engage in religious activities without the State's permission, they are not subject to State-dictated educational prerequisites and, significantly, no comprehensive statutory scheme regulates the clergy-congregant spiritual counseling relationship. Id. 76 Citing the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the United States Constitution, the Court of Appeals emphasized that to hold court on the truth or falsity of religious beliefs, to engage in fact-finding to determine the right interpretation of a religion, would threaten simultaneously [to] establish one religious belief as correct... while interfering with the free exercise of the opposing faction's beliefs. Id. at 137, 736 N.Y.S.2d at 306, 761 N.E.2d at 1033 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Because establishing civil liability based on purported breaches of a § 4505 fiduciary duty would require a trier of fact to determine the true religious rules governing the revelation of communications between clergy and congregants, the court rejected the congregant's claim for damages based on an alleged breach of the fiduciary duty she asserted her rabbis owed her by virtue of § 4505. Id. at 137, 736 N.Y.S.2d at 305-306, 761 N.E.2d at 1032-33.
77 Guided by the foregoing decisions, it is clear that to determine whether § 4505 applies, four issues are implicated: the definition of a clergyman, or other minister of any religion, the scope of § 4505's protection, the ownership of the privilege, and the effect of the privilege when asserted. On the facts of this case, however, we need inquire as to only one: the scope of the privilege. 9 78 To fall within § 4505's protection, a communication must be made in confidence and for the purpose of obtaining spiritual guidance. Carmona, 82 N.Y.2d at 609, 606 N.Y.S.2d at 882, 627 N.E.2d at 962; see also Keenan, 47 N.Y.2d at 166, 417 N.Y.S.2d at 229, 390 N.E.2d at 1154; People v. Drelich, 123 A.D.2d 441, 442-43, 506 N.Y.S.2d 746, 748 (2d Dep't 1986); People v. Reyes, 144 Misc.2d 805, 807, 545 N.Y.S.2d 653, 654 (Sup.Ct. Queens County 1989). Section 4505 does not operate to enshroud conversations with wholly secular purposes solely because one of the parties to the conversation happens to be a religious minister. Carmona, 82 N.Y.2d at 609, 606 N.Y.S.2d at 882, 627 N.E.2d at 962; see also In re Fuhrer, 100 Misc.2d 315, 320, 419 N.Y.S.2d 426, 430-31 (Sup.Ct. Richmond County 1979) (discussing the scope of the privilege). 79 Thus, in Keenan, the Court of Appeals refused to apply the privilege where the questions which appellant [an ordained Catholic priest] was directed to answer [in a grand jury hearing] did not jeopardize the atmosphere of confidence and trust which allegedly enveloped the relationship between appellant and [the congregant]. 47 N.Y.2d at 167, 417 N.Y.S.2d at 229-30, 390 N.E.2d at 1154. Compelling disclosure as to these matters would not do violence to the social policies underlying the priest-penitent privilege.... Id. at 167, 417 N.Y.S.2d at 230, 390 N.E.2d at 1154. Similarly, in Fuhrer, Supreme Court, Richmond County, held the privilege inapposite where [n]one of the questions propounded to the Witness appear to involve `spiritual' matters ... [or] communications made for the purpose of seeking religious counsel, advice, solace, absolution or ministration. 100 Misc.2d at 321, 419 N.Y.S.2d at 431 (internal punctuation omitted). And in United States v. Wells, 446 F.2d 2 (2d Cir.1971), we held that a defendant's letter to a priest requesting that the priest contact a federal agent fell outside the scope of the privilege, noting that [t]he letter contains no hint that its contents were to be kept secret, or that its purpose was to obtain religious or other counsel, advice, solace, absolution or ministration, id. at 4. 80 This principle, New York case law makes clear, applies to all religions without distinction. See People v. Drelich, 123 A.D.2d 441, 443, 506 N.Y.S.2d 746, 748 (2d Dep't 1986) (finding communications made to a rabbi for the secular purpose of seeking assistance in the retention of counsel outside § 4505's scope); People v. Schultz, 161 A.D.2d 970, 971, 557 N.Y.S.2d 543, 545 (3d Dep't 1990) (allowing no privilege where defendant sought a priest for the purpose of contacting an attorney, not to seek religious counsel, advice, solace, absolution or ministration); People v. Johnson, 115 A.D.2d 973, 497 N.Y.S.2d 539, 539-40 (4th Dep't 1985) (finding communications made by a Muslim to fellow members of his mosque not privileged because it was not the defendant who initiated the conversations for the purpose of seeking spiritual guidance but rather members of the mosque who testified that they were motivated by fear that defendant might be dangerous). 10