Employment Division v. Smith

Overturned by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act 42 USC 21b.

Issue(s) Before the Court:

Petitioner's Claim(s):

Respondent's Claim(s):

Holding(s) and Disposition:

Material Facts:

• Oregon law prohibits the knowing or intentional possession of a "controlled substance" unless the substance has been prescribed by a medical practitioner.
• Respondents Alfred Smith and Galen Black were fired from their jobs with a private drug rehabilitation organization because they ingested peyote for sacramental purposes at a ceremony of the Native American Church ....
• When respondents applied to petitioner Employment Division for unemployment compensation, they were determined to be ineligible for benefits because they had been discharged for work-related "misconduct".
• A full recounting of the facts is available below

Procedural History:

• Trial court found that the appellants were ineligible for [unemployment] benefits because they had been discharged for work-related "misconduct".
• The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed that determination.
• The Oregon Supreme Court reasoned, however, that the criminality of respondents' peyote use was irrelevant to resolution of their constitutional claim ....
• [and so] concluded that respondents were entitled to payment of unemployment benefits.
• We granted certiorari [in 1987]
• Being "uncertain about the legality of the religious use of peyote in Oregon," we vacated the judgment of the Oregon Supreme Court and remanded for further proceedings.
• On remand, the Oregon Supreme Court held that respondents' religiously inspired use of peyote fell within the prohibition of the Oregon statute, ....
• It then considered whether that prohibition was valid under the Free Exercise Clause, and concluded that it was not.
• The court therefore reaffirmed its previous ruling that the State could not deny unemployment benefits to respondents for having engaged in that practice.
• We again granted certiorari. 489 U.S. 1077 (1989).

Rationale

Scalia Majority Opinion (Rehnquist, White, Stevens, Kennedy, O'Connor)

• The free exercise of religion means, first and foremost, the right to believe and profess whatever religious doctrine one desires. [!! subset of Freedom of Speech]
• We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.
• The only decisions in which we have held that the First Amendment bars application of a neutral, generally applicable law to religiously motivated action have involved not the Free Exercise Clause alone, but the Free Exercise Clause in conjunction with other constitutional protections, such as freedom of speech and of the press, see Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. at 304, 310 U. S. 307 ....
• We have never invalidated any governmental action on the basis of the Sherbert test except the denial of unemployment compensation. [the issue in the present instance]
• ... but that unavoidable consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws against the centrality of all religious beliefs.
• The decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is accordingly reversed.
• A full description of the rationale is available below

O'Connor Concurrance in Judgement (Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun parts I, II, and judgement)

• Although I agree with the result the Court reaches in this case, I cannot join its opinion.
• ... ncompatible with our Nation's fundamental commitment to individual religious liberty.
• [Part I: Justiciability]
• ... the Oregon Supreme Court has plainly ruled that Oregon's prohibition against possession of controlled substances does not contain an exemption for the religious use of peyote.
• ... the question presented and addressed is properly before the Court.
• [Part II: ]
• Indeed, the Court holds that, where the law is a generally applicable criminal prohibition, our usual free exercise jurisprudence does not even apply.
• To reach this sweeping result, however, the Court must ... disregard our consistent application of free exercise doctrine to cases involving generally applicable regulations that burden religious conduct.
• [Part II A: ]
• Because the First Amendment does not distinguish between religious belief and religious conduct, conduct motivated by sincere religious belief, like the belief itself, must therefore be at least presumptively protected by the Free Exercise Clause.
• A person who is barred from engaging in religiously motivated conduct is barred from freely exercising his religion.
• If the First Amendment is to have any vitality, it ought not be construed to cover only the extreme and hypothetical situation in which a State directly targets a religious practice.
• ... in cases such as Cantwell and Yoder, we have in fact interpreted the Free Exercise Clause to forbid application of a generally applicable prohibition to religiously motivated conduct.
• Moreover, in each of the other cases cited by the Court to support its categorical rule, ante at 494 U. S. 879-880, we rejected the particular constitutional claims before us only after carefully weighing the competing interests.
• [Part II B: Rejection of Legislative Limits on Free Exercise]
• ... respondents invoke our traditional compelling interest test to argue that the Free Exercise Clause requires the State to grant them a limited exemption from its general criminal prohibition against the possession of peyote.
• A State that makes criminal an individual's religiously motivated conduct burdens that individual's free exercise of religion in the severest manner possible, for it "results in the choice to the individual of either abandoning his religious principle or facing criminal prosecution."
• ... apply this test in each case to determine whether the burden on the specific plaintiffs before us is constitutionally significant, and whether the particular criminal interest asserted by the State before us is compelling.
• Similarly, the other cases cited by the Court for the proposition that we have rejected application of the Sherbert test outside the unemployment compensation field, ante at 494 U. S. 884, are distinguishable because they arose in the narrow, specialized contexts ....
• A law that makes criminal such an activity therefore triggers constitutional concern -- and heightened judicial scrutiny -- even if it does not target the particular religious conduct at issue.
• Our free speech cases similarly recognize that neutral regulations that affect free speech values are subject to a balancing, rather than categorical, approach.
• ... the First Amendment was enacted precisely to protect the rights of those whose religious practices are not shared by the majority and may be viewed with hostility.
• ... One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections."
• [Part III]
• The Court's holding today not only misreads settled First Amendment precedent; it appears to be unnecessary to this case.
• [Part III A]
• There is no dispute that Oregon's criminal prohibition of peyote places a severe burden on the ability of respondents to freely exercise their religion.
• ... members of the Native American Church must choose between carrying out the ritual embodying their religious beliefs and avoidance of criminal prosecution.
• That choice is, in my view, more than sufficient to trigger First Amendment scrutiny.
• ... respondents do not seriously dispute that Oregon has a compelling interest in prohibiting the possession of peyote by its citizens.
• [Part III B]
• Thus, the critical question in this case is whether exempting respondents from the State's general criminal prohibition "will unduly interfere with fulfillment of the governmental interest."
• Although the question is close, I would conclude that uniform application of Oregon's criminal prohibition is "essential to accomplish," its overriding interest in preventing the physical harm ...
• For these reasons, I believe that granting a selective exemption in this case would seriously impair Oregon's compelling interest in prohibiting possession of peyote by its citizens.
• I would therefore adhere to our established free exercise jurisprudence and hold that the State in this case has a compelling interest in regulating peyote use by its citizens ....
• Accordingly, I concur in the judgment of the Court.

Blackmun dissent (Brennan, Marshall)

• This Court over the years painstakingly has developed a consistent and exacting standard to test the constitutionality of a state statute that burdens the free exercise of religion.
• Such a statute may stand only if the law in general, ... , are justified by a compelling interest that cannot be served by less restrictive means.
• As carefully detailed in Justice O'CONNOR's concurring opinion, ante, the majority is able to arrive at this view only by mischaracterizing this Court's precedents.
• In short, it effectuates a wholesale overturning of settled law concerning the Religion Clauses of our Constitution.
• [Part I]
• ... it is important to articulate in precise terms the state interest involved.
• In this case, the State actually has not evinced any concrete interest in enforcing its drug laws against religious users of peyote.
• The State's asserted interest thus amounts only to the symbolic preservation of an unenforced prohibition.
• [The State] offers, however, no evidence that the religious use of peyote has ever harmed anyone.
• The Native American Church's internal restrictions on, and supervision of, its members' use of peyote substantially obviate the State's health and safety concerns.
• The State also seeks to support its refusal to make an exception for religious use of peyote by invoking its interest in abolishing drug trafficking.
• There is, however, practically no illegal traffic in peyote.
• Finally, the State argues that granting an exception for religious peyote use would erode its interest in the uniform, fair, and certain enforcement of its drug laws.
• The State's apprehension of a flood of other religious claims is purely speculative.
• Almost half the States, and the Federal Government, have maintained an exemption for religious peyote use for many years ....
• ... this obligation [treat all religions equally] is fulfilled by the uniform application of the "compelling interest" test to all free exercise claims, not by reaching uniform results as to all claims.
• [Part III !! (II not indicated on Justia.com)]
• [Part IV]
• For these reasons, I conclude that Oregon's interest in enforcing its drug laws against religious use of peyote is not sufficiently compelling to outweigh respondents' right to the free exercise of their religion.
• The State of Oregon cannot, consistently with the Free Exercise Clause, deny respondents unemployment benefits.

Full Recounting of Facts

• Oregon law prohibits the knowing or intentional possession of a "controlled substance" unless the substance has been prescribed by a medical practitioner.
• Respondents Alfred Smith and Galen Black were fired from their jobs with a private drug rehabilitation organization because they ingested peyote for sacramental purposes at a ceremony of the Native American Church ....
• When respondents applied to petitioner Employment Division for unemployment compensation, they were determined to be ineligible for benefits because they had been discharged for work-related "misconduct".
• A list of the material facts is available above

Majority Full Argument

• [Part I: See Procedural History]
• [Part II]
• Respondents' claim for relief rests on our decisions [citations] in which we held that a State could not condition the availability of unemployment insurance on an individual's willingness to forgo conduct required by his religion.
• [PROVIDED THAT] the conduct at issue in those cases was not prohibited by law.
• Now that the Oregon Supreme Court has confirmed that Oregon does prohibit the religious use of peyote, we proceed to consider whether that prohibition is permissible under the Free Exercise Clause.
• [Part II A: Free Exercise Unsupported by Other Rights Limited to Speech.]
• The free exercise of religion means, first and foremost, the right to believe and profess whatever religious doctrine one desires. [!! subset of Freedom of Speech]
• But the "exercise of religion" often involves not only belief and profession but the performance of (or abstention from) physical acts: ....
• It would be true, we think (though no case of ours has involved the point), that a state would be "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" if it sought to ban such acts or abstentions only when they are engaged in for religious reasons, or only because of the religious belief that they display.
• Respondants ... contend 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, and that is concededly constitutional as applied to those who use the drug for other reasons.
• We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.
• The only decisions in which we have held that the First Amendment bars application of a neutral, generally applicable law to religiously motivated action have involved not the Free Exercise Clause alone, but the Free Exercise Clause in conjunction with other constitutional protections, such as freedom of speech and of the press, see Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. at 304, 310 U. S. 307 ....
• The present case does not present such a hybrid situation, but a free exercise claim unconnected with any communicative activity or parental right [Wisconsin v. Yoder].
• [Part II B: Free Exercise Subject to Legistlative Limitations]
• Respondents argue that, ... , at least the claim for a religious exemption must be evaluated under the balancing test set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963).
• Under the Sherbert test, governmental actions that substantially burden a religious practice must be justified by a compelling governmental interest.
• 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, see United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252 (1982); Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437 (1971).
• 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.
• 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. Bowen v. Roy, supra, 476 U.S. at 476 U. S. 708.
• To make an individual's obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law's coincidence with his religious beliefs, ... contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.
• ... what it [compelling interest test] would produce here -- a private right to ignore generally applicable laws -- is a constitutional anomaly.
• If the "compelling interest" test is to be applied at all, then, it must be applied across the board, to all actions thought to be religiously commanded.
• The First Amendment's protection of religious liberty does not require this.
• Values that are protected against government interference through enshrinement in the Bill of Rights are not thereby banished from the political process. [can be overriden by majority vote?]
• ... [society] can be expected to be solicitous of that value in its legislation as well. It is therefore not surprising that a number of States have made an exception to their drug laws for sacramental peyote use. [legislature decided upon regilious exceptions]
• But to say that a nondiscriminatory religious practice exemption is permitted, or even that it is desirable, is not to say that it is constitutionally required, .... [If not required, is there a right?]
• ... , and that the appropriate occasions for its creation can be discerned by the courts. [the courts? not the legislature?]
• It may fairly be said that leaving accommodation to the political process will place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in; [definition of tyranny of the majority]
• ... but that unavoidable consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws against the centrality of all religious beliefs.
• The decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is accordingly reversed.
• The core of the rationale is available above