Opinion ID: 2558362
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Neutral and Generally-Applicable Governmental Conduct, or Individualized Assessment?

Text: As noted supra, 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. While neutrality and general-applicability are interrelated, and. . . failure to satisfy one requirement is a likely indication that the other has not been satisfied, Hialeah, 508 U.S. at 531, 113 S.Ct. at 2226, 124 L.Ed.2d at 489, each requires its own analysis ultimately. In this regard, Hialeah is instructive. See Midrash Sephardi, Inc. v. Town of Surfside, 366 F.3d 1214, 1232 (11th Cir.2004) ( Hialeah presented an opportunity for the Supreme Court to elaborate upon what was meant by neutrality and general applicability.). Briefly, [i]n Hialeah, the Court reviewed various ordinances of the City of Hialeah that effectively prohibited members of the Santeria religion from sacrificing animals, a traditional practice of Santeria Worship. . . . The Court . . . examined the Hialeah City ordinances and found that they were neither neutral nor of general applicability. Instead, the ordinances were written in such a way as to target only those animal killings that occurred attendant to Santeria religious worship. The Court found additionally that the city had no compelling governmental interest to support the ordinances. State v. Green, 99 P.3d 820, 826 (Utah 2004) (internal citations omitted).
Under Hialeah, a law (or rule) is, by definition, not neutral if the object of the law [or rule] is to infringe upon or restrict practices because of their religious motivation. . . . Hialeah, 508 U.S. at 533, 113 S.Ct. at 2227, 124 L.Ed.2d at 490. The starting point in determining whether the object or purpose of the government action is to suppress religious conduct must begin with its text, for the minimum requirement of neutrality is that a law not discriminate on its face. A law lacks facial neutrality if it refers to a religious practice without a secular meaning discernible from the language or context. Id. In the present case, the trial court's explanation of the denial of Petitioner's motions to postpone is devoid of any language that could be construed as having a purpose or object of denying the motions because of Petitioner's religious convictions. As the trial court stated: [T]he administrative judge will not let me, hold up jurors for an extra two days because of something that was not brought to our attention. And the case has already been rescheduled once, and I simply cannot suspend the trial for those two days. . . . And, you know, our trial calendar is extremely heavy right now. I'm down two judges, and I'm simply not authorized to suspend the trial for two days. The record, therefore, reveals that the denial stemmed (at least in part), not from any religious animus, but rather from the lack of authorization from the administrative judge, apparently because Petitioner was raising an issue that, theretofore, was not brought to the attention of the trial court. Although the trial court's decision was neutral facially, [f]acial neutrality is not determinative, as the Free Exercise Clause protects against governmental hostility which is masked as well as overt. Hialeah, 508 U.S. at 534, 113 S.Ct. at 2227, 124 L.Ed.2d at 491. In Hialeah, the Supreme Court scrutinized the record for evidence of covert discrimination, concluding ultimately the object of the City of Hialeah's ordinances was to infringe upon the Church member's Free Exercise rights, considering that the only conduct subject to the ordinances was the expression of the religious exercise (animal sacrifice) of the Church members. See Hialeah, 508 U.S. at 535, 113 S.Ct. at 2228, 124 L.Ed.2d at 492. The record in the present case is devoid of any evidence from which one could infer reasonably that the trial court was acting in a manner other than a neutral arbiter. The trial court articulated the following reasons for denying the motion to postpone the trial, none of which suggest that the judge's decision would have been any different had Petitioner been Christian, Muslim, or a member of any other religious faith (or an agnostic or atheist): lack of authorization from the administrative judge; busy trial calendar; lack of judges; effect on witnesses, jurors and members of the community; and Petitioner's delay in bringing the problem to the court's attention. Unlike Hialeah, in which the legislative history of the City's ordinances revealed concern that certain religions may propose to engage in [religious] practices which are inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety, Hialeah, 508 U.S. at 526, 113 S.Ct. at 2223, 124 L.Ed.2d at 486, the record here is devoid of even a hint of religious animus. Finally, the Court in Hialeah stated that [i]n determining if the object of a law is a neutral one . . ., we can also find guidance in our equal protection cases. Hialeah, 508 U.S. at 540, 113 S.Ct. at 2230, 124 L.Ed.2d at 495. In undertaking this mode of analysis, the Court noted that [r]elevant evidence includes . . . the historical background of the decision under challenge, the specific series of events leading to the . . . official policy in question, and the legislative or administrative history, including contemporaneous statements made by members of the decisionmaking body. Id. A judicial determination to deny a continuance or a postponement (as opposed to a legislative act), has no legislative history, but the specific series of events leading to the judge's ruling in this case is telling. The relevant facts of the present case are that the parties became aware of the 3 June 2008 trial date on 24 January 2008, yet Petitioner waited until 6 May 2008less than a month prior to the commencement of trialto inform the trial court that neither Petitioner nor his counsel would be present on the two days of trial that fell out on the Shavuot holiday. See PIRKEI AVOTETHICS OF OUR FATHERS § 1:14 (If not now, when?). The trial judge mentioned at the 14 and 22 May 2008 hearings on the matter Petitioner's tardiness. Whether the trial court abused its discretion to rely on this delay is discussed infra; however, it appears clear to me that this justification, alone or in conjunction with the balance of the record, in no way evinces an object on the part of the trial court to infringe upon Petitioner's Free Exercise rights. According to Judge Sykes of the federal Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the point of [ Hialeah ] was that even a facially neutral law of general applicability might be discriminatory in violation of the Free Exercise Clause because of its design, operation . . . or in the manner in which it is enforced. River of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Vill. of Hazel Crest, Ill., 611 F.3d 367, 387 (7th Cir.2010) (Sykes, J., dissenting). Concluding that the record is devoid of any evidence from which one could conclude that the trial court's denial of Petitioner's motions to postpone the trial was either designed to, or operated to, infringe upon Petitioner's Free Exercise rights, I would hold that the judicial determination in the present case was neutral.
One federal district court detailed Hialeah's analysis of the general-applicability prong: Discussing the requirement of general applicability, the Lukumi [C]ourt observed that all laws are selective to some extent, but categories of selection are of paramount concern when a law has the incidental effect of burdening religious practice. The government. . . cannot in a selective manner impose burdens only on conduct motivated by religious belief. The ordinances at issue in Lukumi were so deficient that the court declined to define with precision the standard used to evaluate whether a prohibition is of general application. However, the Lukumi [C]ourt made clear that a law is not generally applicable if it was purportedly adopted to protect certain interests, yet fails to prohibit nonreligious conduct that endangers these interests in a similar or greater degree than [the banned religious conduct] does. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal v. Ashcroft, 282 F.Supp.2d 1236, 1244-45 (D.N.M.2002) (internal citations omitted); see Green, 99 P.3d at 828 (employing a similar analysis). The governmental action at issue here the denial of Petitioner's motions to postpone the trial for the Shavuot holidayhas no categories of selection. Being a judicial determination, the trial court's ruling is made on particular motions, and facts, applicable to two unique parties,; but, there is nothing in any of the judge's rulings that suggests that she selected Petitioner's motions for denial on the grounds that they were based on Petitioner's intent to observe a religious holiday. Further, the judge's rulings do not fail to prohibit nonreligious conduct that endangers the[] interests sought to be protected by the ruling. That is, as mentioned infra, the trial court denied the motions, citing interests of docket efficiency and the effect a delay would have on jurors and witnesses; nowhere in the rulings, however, did the judge suggest that she would have granted the motions to postpone if they were based on nonreligious reasons ( e.g., the Bowl Championship Series title game, [4] the World Series, [5] etc.). To be sure, judges and courts decide cases and controversies. See Thom v. Cook, 113 Md. 85, 88, 77 A. 120, 120 (1910) (quoting Mills v. Green, 159 U.S. 651, 653, 16 S.Ct. 132, 133, 40 L.Ed. 293, 293 (1895)) (The duty of this [C]ourt, as of every other judicial tribunal, is to decide actual controversies. . . .). Accordingly, the judge's ruling on a motion affects generally only the litigants to the particular case. Thus, a judicial ruling does not have the same generally-applicable effect as a legislative act. That said, I believe the judge's denial of Petitioner's motions to postpone the trial was the judicial analog to a generally-applicable legislative act, in that there is no evidence in the record from which one could conclude that the judge's ruling would have been any different if faced with nonreligious justifications for the requested postponement. See State v. Blackmon, 130 Ohio App.3d 142, 719 N.E.2d 970, 975 (1998) (holding that appellant's Free Exercise rights were not violated where there was no evidence that the trial court considered anything other than generally applicable factors in considering a motion for a continuance, including: length of delay requested, inconvenience to litigants and witnesses, whether the moving party contributed to the circumstances for which the request was made, etc.).
Notwithstanding my view that the judge's rulings on Petitioner's motions to postpone the trial constitute a judicial analog to a neutral and generally-applicable legislative act, I must undertake another inquiry, namely, whether the judge's determination constitutes an individualized assessment, sufficient to trigger a Sherbert analysis. See Kissinger v. Bd. of Trustees of Ohio State Univ., 5 F.3d 177, 179 (6th Cir.1993) (employing a three-part analysis: whether the governmental action was generally applicable, was not aimed at particular religious practices, and did not contain a system of particularized exemptions). But see First Covenant Church v. City of Seattle, 120 Wash.2d 203, 840 P.2d 174, 181 (1992) (appearing to conflate the individual assessment analysis with the neutral/generally-applicable analysis). Smith said, vis-á-vis individualized exemptions/assessments, that: The Sherbert test, it must be recalled, was developed in a context that lent itself to individualized governmental assessment of the reasons for the relevant conduct. As a plurality of the Court noted in [ Bowen v. ] Roy [476 U.S. 693, 106 S.Ct. 2147, 90 L.Ed.2d 735 (1986)], a distinctive feature of the unemployment compensation programs is that their eligibility criteria invite consideration of the particular circumstances behind an applicant's unemployment: The statutory conditions . . . provided that a person was not eligible for unemployment compensation benefits if, without good cause, he had quit work or refused available work. The good cause standard created a mechanism for individualized exemptions. As the plurality pointed out in Roy, our decisions in the unemployment cases stand for the proposition that where the State has in place a system of individual exemptions, it may not refuse to extend that system to cases of religious hardship without compelling reason. Smith, 494 U.S. at 884, 110 S.Ct. at 1603, 108 L.Ed.2d at 884 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). To be sure, and as mentioned supra, because trial courts deal with discrete controversies between the parties before them, each ruling or determination in the case is somewhat individualized. The rub, though, is whether a judicial ruling is cut from the same cloth as the individualized exemptions with which the Supreme Court in Sherbert and its progeny dealt. In formulating an answer to this question, I proceed along the following path: The determination of whether the Sherbert exception [ i.e. application of Sherbert ] is triggered proceeds in two steps. The first focuses on whether a law contains a mechanism similar to the good cause criterion that is open to unfettered discretionary interpretation. If such a mechanism exists, the second step requires courts to determine whether it is enforced in a discriminatory manner. Absent evidence of discrimination in the actual enforcement of the [governmental action], . . . Sherbert . . . is not triggered, and there is no need to apply the compelling state interest test. Carol M. Kaplan, The Devil Is in the Details: Neutral, Generally Applicable Laws and Exceptions from Smith, 75 N.Y.U. L.REV. 1045, 1081 (2000). First, although there is no requirement in civil cases in the posture of the present case that a judge find expressly good cause before granting a motion to postpone a trial, [6] a trial court's decision to grant or deny a motion to postpone or continue a trial is within the sound discretion of the trial court, and, accordingly, the decision is subject to a great degree of deference on appellate review. See Schroder v. State, 206 Md. 261, 265, 111 A.2d 587, 589 (1955) (It has long been a well settled rule in this State that the granting or refusing of a continuance is within the sound discretion of the trial court and will not be set aside on appeal unless the exercise of that discretion has been arbitrary.). Although the abuse of discretion standard does not leave judges with unfettered discretionary interpretation, appellate review of this type of judicial determination is highly deferential and gives judges a substantial degree of discretion in granting such motions. Whether the abuse of discretion standard of review that insulates, to a degree, a trial court's decision to grant or deny a motion to postpone or continue a trial is akin to the good cause standard with which Sherbert and the other unemployment compensation cases deal, absent from the record here is any evidence that this ruling specifically, rulings from this particular judge, or rulings from this particular court, were in any way discriminatory. Absent such evidence, I conclude Sherbert to be inapposite and inapplicable to the present factual situation. [7] One final observation on this point is in order. I do not believe that the legislative ills that strict scrutiny protects against in the Free Exercise sphere are applicable with equal force to the judicial branch. See GORDON S. WOOD, THE CREATION OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, 1776-1787 609 (1969) (concluding that separation of powers was intended to ensure the protection of individual rights against all governmental encroachments, particularly by the legislature, the body which Whigs ha[d] traditionally cherished as the people's exclusive repository of their public liberty) (emphasis added). That is, a concern of any democratic society is that an oppressive or tyrannical electorate will emerge and elect similarly minded legislative representatives, who, in turn, will enact laws that will oppress certain disfavored groups. See Riley v. St. Luke's Episcopal Hosp., 196 F.3d 514 (5th Cir. 1999) (Stewart, J., dissenting), rev'd, 252 F.3d 749 (5th Cir.2001) (The branch thought to constitute the greatest danger . . . was the legislative; during the operation of the Articles of Confederation, the legislature, in the view of many of the Framers, intruded impermissibly into the sphere of liberty and private property.). To protect against laws whose object is to restrict religious practice, strict scrutiny in the Free Exercise realm acts as a judicial check against this legislative possibility, placing the burden on the government to prove that the legislative enactment is tailored narrowly to further a compelling governmental interest. If the government fails to shoulder this burden with respect to laws that place a substantial burden on one's Free Exercise rights, it is the courts' duty to invalidate such a law or action. The judiciary, then, [i]n our system of checks and balances . . . by its very nature, is and is supposed to be the anti-democratic branch. Porter v. State, 47 Md.App. 96, 109, 421 A.2d 985, 992 (1980) (Moylan, J., concurring). Or, stated differently, the judiciary was envisioned as the branch of government that would curb a legislature's attempts to oppress the minority (or, in this case, oppress one's religious beliefs and/or practices), and not the branch that, itself, would engage in the oppressing. The possibility of a tyranny of the majority in legislative enactmentsperhaps best exemplified in Hialeah does not exist to the same degree in isolated judicial rulings or determinations. Of course, it is possible for a judge to decide the outcome of a case or of a motion based on religious animus; strict scrutiny, however, does not apply inevitably to all judicial determinations invoking the word religion. The abuse of discretion standard provides adequately a proper check against such a possibility.