Today in Supreme Court History: November 4, 1992

11/4/1992: Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah argued.

City of Hialeah, FL

 

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

District of Columbia v. Eslin, 183 U.S. 62 (decided November 4, 1901): judgment by contractor against the District of Columbia's Board of Public Works is uncollectable because brought in court which no longer had jurisdiction, even though judgment and notice of appeal were filed before statute eliminating jurisdiction was enacted (repeal statute had explicitly vacated all existing proceedings) (sounds like a Due Process violation to me)

Stanton v. Sims, 571 U.S. 3 (decided November 4, 2013): police officer enjoyed qualified immunity from §1983 suit brought by woman whose front gate was kicked down while he was in warrantless "hot pursuit" of suspect (this kind of thing actually happened to a friend of mine, in the early 1990's; my research skills, rudimentary at that point, led me to believe that her case fell within a "de minimus" exception, even though to her that ruined front door was pretty expensive)

INS v. Orlando Ventura, 537 U.S. 12 (decided November 4, 2002): Circuit Court can't decide questions de novo (here, Government's "changed conditions" argument that Guatemala was now safer and political asylum no longer merited); should have remanded back to Board of Immigration Appeals

[Commenter_XY]

captcrisis....Thx for posting these daily. I learn something each time.

Boy, I'd like SCOTUS to revisit Stanton v Sims; seems fraught for abuse (hey, I was in hot pursuit so where's my 'Get Out Of Jail Free Card'?). Whatever happened to: Hey, you broke my stuff. Fix it.

[apedad]

How'z this?

https://reason.com/volokh/2019/10/31/federal-court-rules-there-is-no-taking-if-the-police-destroy-an-innocent-persons-house-during-a-law-enforcement-operation/

[Commenter_XY]

Yeah, I remember that post. Didn't like that one, either. 🙁

LEOs can't just break your stuff and walk away, leaving you the bill. That surely cannot be right.

[Mr. Bumble]

Even worse when the break your life re: Steven Hatfill and Richard Jewell.

[Dan Schiavetta]

XY,

Glad to receive your compliment! As of today I’ve been doing this exactly six months and summarizing I suppose about 700 cases.

In a roundabout way the Stanton case reminds me of that opinion we read in Torts class, Cordas v. Peerless Transportation, which certainly got put into the textbook because the judge was a hilariously grandiloquent fan of Shakespeare. In that case, a cabbie’s actions (which injured plaintiffs) were excused because he was threatened at gunpoint. Also I’m reminded of Cardozo’s “danger invites rescue”. A policeman in hot pursuit is entitled to some slack. Of course, the pursuit has to be hot, not lukewarm, and the property damage can’t be gratuitous.

[Mr. Bumble]

Maybe you should approach EV to give this daily item over to you. I'm sure you would find much support for the idea.
(No "headshot" compilations please).

[Dan Schiavetta]

Mr. B.,

Thanks for the compliment.

I'm pretty sure they'd say "no". If they let one commenter in . . . !

[SRG]

Cordas put me in mind of this Bo Diddley song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyi918Fq-B8

[Frank Drackman]

On November 4, 1646, the Massachusetts General Court approved a law requiring all members of the colony to recognize the Bible as the Word of God, under penalty of death.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and on November 1, 2022 a law went into effect banning the disposal of mattresses and other textiles in your garbage.

[Krayt]

The Perfecting of Mankind continues!

[apedad]

Facts of the case

The Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye practiced the Afro-Caribbean-based religion of Santeria. Santeria used animal sacrifice as a form of worship in which an animal's carotid arteries would be cut and, except during healing and death rights, the animal would be eaten. Shortly after the announcement of the establishment of a Santeria church in Hialeah, Florida, the city council adopted several ordinances addressing religious sacrifice. The ordinances prohibited possession of animals for sacrifice or slaughter, with specific exemptions for state-licensed activities.

Question

Did the city of Hialeah's ordinance, prohibiting ritual animal sacrifices, violate the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause?

Conclusion (Unanimous!!!)

Yes. The Court held that the ordinances were neither neutral nor generally applicable. The ordinances had to be justified by a compelling governmental interest and they had to be narrowly tailored to that interest. The core failure of the ordinances were that they applied exclusively to the church. The ordinances singled out the activities of the Santeria faith and suppressed more religious conduct than was necessary to achieve their stated ends. Only conduct tied to religious belief was burdened. The ordinances targeted religious behavior, therefore they failed to survive the rigors of strict scrutiny. (Oyez)

While I'm absolutely no way religious, I still absolutely support folks' right to practice their religion (however silly, futile, simpleton it may be), and I fully agree with this decision.

[Syd Henderson]

I note that the ordinances specifically exempted kosher slaughterhouses, which could have been outlawed as well using the criteria in the ordinances. So they were legally favoring approved religions.

[Hugo S. Cunningham]

IIRC, the Santeria people deliberately choose the city of Hialeah because it already had a (commercial) slaughterhouse, and thus could not exclude them with a general non-discriminatory slaughter ban.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I would formulate a critique of Smith by which instead of looking at a particular statute, we should look to a jurisdiction's law code in general. Law codes are riddled with exemptions, religious or otherwise, which undermine the "neutral laws which everyone else has to obey" argument. Why not overrule Smith altogether and apply the balancing test (compelling interest/least restrictive means) to *all* claims of religious exemption?

The human-sacrifice analogy goes back at least to 1878 and persists to this day, but banning human sacrifice seems to meet the compelling interest/least restrictive means test. So much for that, then.

[Bored Lawyer]

But why should the First Amendment apply that way? Every state and municipality has a whole code of law deadling with myriad issues, most of which have nothing to do with a claim that religious is being targeted.
In the Lukumi case, the claim was the City passed an ordinance meant to target their religion, by outlawing ritual slaughter. The fact that the City also had laws about parking, traffic and garbage collection, all of which were presumably neutral to religion, seems to me irrelevant to that contention. Heck, even a blatant discriminatory law (no Santeria people allowed here) could co-exist with these neutral laws.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I don't practice Santeria, I ain't got no crystal ball....

[Dan Schiavetta]

Maybe I was wrong. As noted, I was new at this.

My main memory of those old "Walt II" days (remember the dedicated machine?) was that one could edit an opinion and print it out like the original. For example I could totally change the holding of Gideon v. Wainwright and make it look convincing. Or to be elegant, just add the word "not" in a couple of places. My proudest achievement, using a macro, was to insert "f**king" before every tenth word of Marshall's more vehement dissents.

[Ridgeway]

Magister Picky would like to point out that "de" takes the ablative, so it is "de minimis" [concerning trifles] not "de minimus."

[Martinned]

Public necessity doesn't explain why the government shouldn't have to pay for the door.

[Seamus]

just summarily dismissing such damage as “de minimus” really strikes me as wrong…

Indeed it is, as the correct Latin expression is "de minimis."

[Dan Schiavetta]

No, I meant to say that maybe my research was wrong.

[defaultdotxbe]

I believe it prohibited possession of any animal with intent to slaughter it, but then exempted pretty much every activity except ritual sacrifice.

[Ridgeway]

I have to believe that in most jurisdictions, there are statutory avenues to pursue restitution for property damage caused by the government. It is just that such damage does not necessarily constitute a 4th Amendment taking.