And Other Cases Of Note . . . The Holy Ghost Is Allowed In Courtrooms

By DEACON MIKE MANNO

My December column, the last I wrote for the year before COVID took me out of circulation for about eight weeks, was about a case in which a juror was removed from deliberations in a criminal case involving a former congresswoman, Corrine Brown. It seems that the judge removed the juror for guidance the juror said he was receiving from the Holy Ghost.
As you might recall, during the second day of deliberations, one of the jurors sent a note to the judge expressing concern about the comments a fellow juror had made. The complaining juror was called into chambers and asked for further information. She told the judge that one juror had made a comment that he was praying for guidance and trusted the Holy Ghost who, apparently, told the man that the defendant, Corrine Brown, was not guilty on all of the twenty-two counts in the indictment.
The judge then called the “offending juror” into chambers and questioned him. The juror told the judge that he had told the other jurors “in listening to all the information, taking it all down, I listen for the truth, and I know the truth when the truth is spoken,” and that “I prayed about this, I have looked at the information, and that I receive information as to what I was told to do in relation to what I heard here.”
After a long colloquy with the juror, during which the juror told the judge that he was following the judge’s instructions, and both jurors had stated that all jurors were engaged in good faith deliberations, the government moved to strike the juror, which the judge did. He was replaced by an alternate, jury deliberations continued for another day, when the jury found the defendant guilty on eighteen counts, and not guilty on four.
Brown appealed the decision asking the court for a new trial over the issue of the juror’s disqualification. The trial court and a panel of the Eleventh Circuit rejected the defense argument, but the entire circuit agreed to hear the appeal en banc, that is, with all the judges of the circuit court.
On May 6, 2021, the National Day of Prayer, the full court vacated Brown’s convictions and remanded the case for a new trial, holding that the removal of the juror was improper and violated the defendant’s right under the Sixth Amendment to a unanimous jury verdict.
Circuit Chief Justice William Pryor, writing for the majority, said that a trial judge may remove a juror after deliberations had begun only upon a finding of “good cause,” which exists when it is found that the juror refuses to apply the law or to follow the court’s instructions. “So, for a district judge to find that this standard of proof is satisfied, he must determine ‘with utmost certainty’ that a juror has refused to base his verdict on the law as instructed and the evidence admitted at trial.”
He noted that in the juror’s interview with the court, he never gave any indication that he was refusing to consider the evidence or follow the law. “The district judge was wrong to conclude that [the juror’s] statements that he received guidance in response to prayers were categorically a bridge too far.”
And: “[The juror’s] vernacular that the Holy Spirit ‘told’ him Brown was ‘not guilty on all charges’ was no more disqualifying by itself than a secular juror’s statement that his conscience or gut ‘told’ him the same. Of course, neither a religious nor a secular juror may convict or acquit a defendant using his internal decision-making processes without regard to the evidence. But [the juror] repeatedly explained that he was, in fact, reviewing and deliberating over the evidence.”
Former Solicitor General Paul Clement had written in a brief supporting Brown: “A nation that enshrines religious toleration in its founding document and invokes the religious beliefs of its citizenry to reinforce their public oaths cannot dismiss jurors based on the way they express their religious convictions.”
And Lea Patterson, counsel for First Liberty, released a statement saying: “We are grateful that the court reaffirmed the strong standard required to dismiss a deliberating juror. No American should be disqualified from fulfilling their civic duty as jurors simply because they believe that God answers prayer.”
A couple of other cases with satisfactory results:
In Indianapolis the archdiocese was being sued by a former Catholic high school teacher after he was dismissed for entering into a same-sex union in violation of the terms of his teaching contract and Church teaching. “If the First Amendment means anything, it means the government can’t punish the Catholic Church for asking Catholic educators to support Catholic teaching,” said Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, which represented the archdiocese. (See The Wanderer, May 20, 2021, p. 3A.)
The trial court initially ruled that the case against the archdiocese could move forward, but the archdiocese appealed that ruling, citing the school’s handbook that requires teachers to “Support the teachings and traditions of the Roman Catholic Church . . . [and] serve as a role model for Christ-centered lifestyle,” and incorporates a morals clause which states that “teachers, as leaders in a ministry of the Catholic Church . . . must be credible witnesses of the Catholic faith,” and “models of Christian values.”
The Indiana Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial court with instructions to reconsider. The court then threw out the suit, vindicating the Church’s constitutional right to set religious standards for its schools.
In Minnesota the governor, Tim Walz, on May 5 agreed to settle a suit with two Christian churches — Northland Baptist Church and Living Word Christian Center — over COVID restrictions. The churches claimed that the state had placed restrictions on the churches that were more severe than those imposed on other businesses. When the state filed and lost a motion to dismiss the suit, it decided to settle and entered into an agreement that future emergency orders can no longer discriminate against churches on capacity limits. The churches were represented by the Upper Midwest Law Center which described the settlement as a “big win.”
In the pending category, the Milwaukee Archdiocese has sued the state’s Department of Corrections over a policy that prevents clergy from visiting prisoners. The archdiocese complained that for over a year corrections employees such as psychologists, social workers, and outside attorneys have been allowed to visit with prisoners as long as they followed proper health guidelines. However, those protocols do not apply to clergy.
A conservative legal group, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), filed the suit. “There is no rational connection between the DOC’s policy and its interest in combatting COVID-19 given that the DOC allows social workers and lawyers entrance from outside of facilities, for example, but not clergy,” WILL wrote to the department. The state “must act now to restore the rights of Wisconsin’s inmates to freely exercise their religion,” the letter argued.
This one is just getting started. We’ll watch for developments.
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com, and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central Time, on Faith On Trial, on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)