The Sermon In The Pen.

MayorBob.

Posted to Legal on Sat Feb 10, 2007 at 08:43:35 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Every American citizen has the right to practice his or her religion - it says so in the US Constitution.  But, does practicing one's religion extend to allowing violent offenders behind bars to serve as quasi prison chaplains?  Does commenting or expounding on the gospel to prisoners behind bars constitute having a special "position of authority" in prison?  These questions are playing themselves out in a courtroom in federal court as an appeals court panel decides whether a convicted murderer has the right to preach to his fellow sinners behind bars.

Back in 1995 Wesley Spratt did a bad thing - he killed a parking lot attendant in Providence, Rhode Island.  The state convicted him and he was sentenced to life in the maximum security prison in Cranston.  He has since lost an appeal of that conviction (pdf doc).  Sometime in 1996, he experienced what he refers to as a "calling" from God.  Thus it was that Spratt began participating in Christian religious services at Cranston.  At the behest of a visiting minister, Spratt began "expounding on the gospel" to his fellow inmates.  This ended in 2003, when a new warden showed up and ordered him not to preach.

Spratt retained counsel and took the matter to federal court where a judge ruled the need to maintain a safe prison outweighed Spratt's right to deliver sermons.  Spratt's attorney, Lynette Labinger, kicked it up to 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.  Labinger told the judge that Spratt's First Amendment rights were being abused by prison authorities.  She said that Spratt's preaching was always done under supervision without inciting any inmates: "He did it weekly, he did it openly, he did it incident-free."  The state branch of the ACLU filed a brief to the court (pdf doc) in support of Spratt's appeal.  The ACLU argued that the prison's actions were violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.  This law requires the government to demonstrate a "compelling interest in infringing on an inmate's religious practice."  It also directs that prisons "must use the least restrictive means possible if it prohibits a prisoner's religious observances."

Labinger argued that prisons appoint inmates to positions of authority, citing cases of serving as librarians or working the food line.  An attorney from Rhode Island's Department of Corrections argued that those types of positions "don't involve an inmate standing before a group of inmates and expounding upon Scripture or any other work."