The federal appeals court in San Francisco yesterday upheld a death sentence from a jury that had consulted the Bible’s teachings on capital punishment.
In a second decision on the role of religion in the criminal justice system, the same court ruled Friday that requiring a former prisoner on parole to attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous violated the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.
In the capital case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit split 9 to 6 on the question of whether notes including Bible verses prepared by the jury’s foreman and used during sentencing deliberations required reversal of the death sentence imposed on Stevie L. Fields in 1979.
Mr. Fields, on parole after serving time for manslaughter, committed a series of rapes, kidnappings and robberies, and murdered Rosemary Cobbs, a student librarian at the University of Southern California.
After the jury convicted Mr. Fields and while it was deliberating his sentence, the foreman, Rodney White, conducted outside research, consulting several reference works and preparing a list of pros and cons on the death penalty that he shared with fellow jurors. On the pro side, he quoted passages from the Bible, including this one from Exodus: “He that smiteth a man, so that he dies, shall surely be put to death.”
Judge Pamela Ann Rymer, writing for the majority, said there was no need to decide whether there had been juror misconduct, “because even assuming there was, we are persuaded that White’s notes had no substantial and injurious effect or influence.”
In dissent, Judge Marsha S. Berzon said there was “no doubt that White engaged in unconstitutional misconduct by injecting his overnight biblical research into the deliberations.” Judge Ronald M. Gould, also dissenting, said the majority had endorsed “a theocratic jury room” in which jurors consider “the death penalty in light of Scripture.”
In Friday’s decision, a unanimous three-judge panel of the court ruled that a parole officer in Hawaii who ordered a methamphetamine addict on parole to attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous could be sued by the addict’s estate for violating his constitutional rights.
The case was brought by Ricky K. Inouye, who was released on parole in 2000 after serving time for drug crimes. His parole officer, Mark Nanamori, ordered him to attend A.A. meetings. Mr. Inouye, a Buddhist, refused. Partly as a result, he was returned to prison.
That violated the First Amendment, the panel ruled. “While we in no way denigrate the fine work of A.A./N.A., attendance in their programs may not be coerced by the state,” wrote Judge Berzon, who was also one of the dissenting judges in yesterday’s decision.
Most other courts that have considered the question of whether prisoners and parolees may be compelled to attend A.A. meetings have come to the same conclusion, usually relying on the program’s invocation of a “higher power.”
A member of the staff of Alcoholics Anonymous’s general service office in New York said the organization took no position on the ruling. “We do say in our literature that we are not a religious program, that we’re not religious but spiritual,” the staff member said, declining to give his full name for publication.
Judge Berzon was joined in the decision by Judge David R. Thompson. Judge Richard C. Tallman issued a concurring opinion of his own.
