Court Opinion

ID: 9771637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:49:46.519937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:34.331237
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
DAVIDSON, Judge.
In addition to what' we said in our originial opinion in disposing of appellant’s contention that the action of state’s counsel in interrogating the prospective jurors as to membership in the religious sect known as Jehovah’s Witnesses constituted a violation of his constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, the following is noted:
While the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution guaranteeing religious freedom operates only as an inhibition to Congress and not to the state, the weight of authority now appears to be that religious freedom, as there guaranteed, is binding upon the states as coming within the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 67 L. Ed. 1042, 43 S. Ct. 625, 29 A.L.R. 1446.
So then, the Federal question presented is not so much one of a denial of religious freedom as it is whether appellant has been denied due process of law because of his religious affiliation. The state question presented is whether appellant has been denied religious freedom as guaranteed by Art. 1, Sec. 6, of the Constitution of this state.
The religious freedom guaranteed in the constitutional provisions rested in and was aimed at security to every citizen in the right to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience, without prohibition or interference by Congress or the legislatures of the respective states.
It is the act of those legislative bodies that does or does not violate the guarantee of religious freedom.
*343Here, we have no legislative act by or through which it may be said that appellant has been denied religious freedom. Consequently, a violation of the constitutional guarantees of religious freedom is not shown by this record.
In its final analysis, then, appellant’s contention is that he was discriminated against upon and during the trial of this case because of his religious belief and that his resultant conviction violated due process.
The claimed discrimination arose during the selection of the jury.
There is an absence of any evidence showing or tending to show that the jury, or any member thereof, that tried this case was prejudiced against the appellant because of his religious affiliation. Appellant would have us hold, as a matter of law, that the voir dire examination of the jurors had the effect of informing the jury that he was a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the knowledge on the part of the jurors of his alleged membership in such religious group so prejudiced them as to preclude a fair and impartial trial. This we are unwilling to hold.
Moreover, if appellant thought that he had been injured or prejudiced by the action of the state’s counsel in inquiring as to the religious matter, then he should have pursued the matter by examination of the individual veniremen in order to determine if prejudice existed as a fact. This he did not do.
We are unable to agree with the appellant that this record reflects prejudice or discrimination against him by the jury on account of his religious affiliation.
We remain convinced that the motion for new trial was not legally sufficient to present the question of newly discovered evidence.
Believing that a correct conclusion was reached originally, the motion for rehearing is overruled.
Opinion approved by the court.