There has been another freedom of religion case that popped up here in Colorado. It seems that an investigator who did work for the defense team of a murderer has been jailed for contempt as she has been refusing to answer the prosecutors questions about her research.
I am not clear on the entire story (read about it here), but it seems the woman in question (Greta Lindecrantz) performed investigations for the defense team of Robert Ray, a murderer who was sentenced to death for killing two witnesses in another trial. Ray is now appealing that sentence and the prosecution is asking the Mennonite investigator to take the stand on her work during the original trial but she refuses to do so. She feels that her answers could directly lead to the death of another human, Ray, something that her religious convictions will not allow her to take part of. Mennonites (full disclosure, I was raised in the church and all my family are devout though I am not) are famously (they were all conscientious objectors during the Vietnam war) against taking another human life.
The judge has jailed her for two nights on a contempt charge stating that “allowing people to refuse to participate in death penalty cases on religious grounds would disrupt the justice system.”
With the other cases of freedom of religion we have discussed on this board (pharmacists refusing to dispense contraception and county clerks refusing to give marriage licenses) I have been firmly in the camp that thinks people need to do their job and if they have a problem with it they should find another job and not hold the rest of society hostage. This case is different to me in the sense that I am firmly against the death penalty and so can empathize with her stance, but even so I still come out on the same side of religious freedom. She chose to be an investigator in a murder case in a state where the death penalty is a possibility; she needs to do her job. For her to work up to the moment where the penalty is a possibility and then refuse to contribute holds the entire process hostage and should not be allowed. If she can’t see her work through to the end, she needs to find another job or stop working murder cases.
What say you? Does your stance here differ from your stance in the other religious freedom cases we have discussed on this board?
She shouldn’t have been an investigator if her religious beliefs interfered. It’s too late for her to step out now, she has to testify about what she knows or suffer the consequences.
In the case of pharmacists, cake makers, wedding photographers, etc., I am firmly of the belief that they should not be forced to do anything that violates their religious beliefs.
In this particular case, however, I am just as firmly opposed to this woman’s position.
For anybody to call themselves a Christian, and yet to oppose the death penalty, is a contradiction in terms; and, so far as that point is concerned, their religion is NOT Christianity, regardless of how orthodox it may be in other points. Such people openly and blatantly contradict the God that they claim to serve; for God explicitly commanded the death penalty for murder.
“And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” (Genesis 9:5, 6).
This investigator should be forced to testify, no matter how coercive the means might be.
God also commanded that people not kill. The Bible contradicts itself, this is not news.
The entire anabaptist crowd (of which Mennonites are one) are known for enduring jail rather than violating their beliefs. If you can’t get her to budge by sticking her in jail what are you going to do then?
Heh, that’s some mental gymnastics, although if you had dug into Levitical law you’d find better evidence. Still though, Christians who don’t believe in the death penalty largely do so based on Christ’s only interaction with it-the case of the adulteress. He forgave her and told those without sin to cast the first stone. Many denominations take this as an implicit condemning of the death penalty in the Christian era.
I guess I should voice my opinion on this as well. I think that it is possible to be an investigator and not have to ever investigate a death penalty case. I think it’s also possible to enter into an employment contract not realizing that at a certain point it would require you to cross a moral line. I think it’s fine that if you feel a moral line is being crossed in doing your job you can choose not to cross it. I think that the government has some sort of obligation to protect the moral values of its members to the best of its ability. I come down on her side in this case simply because I see nothing stopping either the state or the defense from hiring another investigator to redo the investigation.
What does your characterization of her religious beliefs have to do with the case? Whether or not you consider her a Christian doesn’t have anything to do with whether she holds religious beliefs against the death penalty. If someone has an honestly held religious opposition to the death penalty, should they be compelled by law to assist a death penalty case?
I don’t know the answer, but Flyer’s opinion on whether this person is a Christian is entirely irrelevant.
That being said, she should be treated the same under the law as other religious freedom activists. Courts recently supported the baker who refused to bake cakes for gay weddings, and it would be travesty of justice if the worthiness of her religious freedom hinged on where it falls on the political spectrum.
So if someone signs up for the military, then has a conversion experience, it’s too late to claim conscientious objector status?
Peoples’ religious views can change. As well, when they start to do a job, they may not see all the implications. As they work in the job, their views on it may change.
She is not being asked to assist a death penalty case. She is being asked to testify in a criminal case. Judges, juries, prosecutors, and investigators I have no problem with having a religious exemption to death penalty cases but not witnesses. Witnesses do not impose punishment, they merely testify to information. The trial needs the information, and there is no other way to get it. She can not be accommodated. She should face whatever the sanction is for contempt of court.
I don’t get her objection, frankly. She was already participating in a murder trial. Is it because research is ok but not testifying? Is it because she’s being asked to be a witness called by the prosecution? Is she afraid that some specific part of her testimony will really help the prosecution? Smells weird.
This is my reading. Firstly, the death penalty is very rare in Colorado. Maybe 1 every 2 years, so she could rightly assume that even in her line of work that she wouldn’t encounter it. There was a trial and she gave evidence assuming that it would be like every other murder trial in Colorado and result in at most life in prison. In this case though, it ended up being the death penalty.
Now though, there is an appeal and she’s aware of the fact that the death penalty is being applied. She doesn’t want anything to do with a death penalty case feeling that her previous testimony resulted in the death penalty inadvertantly, but in this case, the likelihood of the death penalty is much higher given that it was already part of the original sentence and she would be going into it knowing that the death penalty is what is at stake.
It seems to me like a reasonable objection.
Here’s maybe an example. Pretend that you’re a well driller for a gas company. You drill wells and know that there is a chance of something bad happening, but feel reasonably assured for whatever reason even if it’s only self-delusion that the wells you dig are safe. In the course of drilling one of your wells, you discover or at least believe that you are polluting the groundwater for a nearby school. This violates your ethical/religious standards for what is acceptable behaviour. The company you work for says ‘Continue drilling. We don’t think it’s the well that’s doing it and they don’t have a legal way to stop us.’ I would contend that you are morally fine in stopping your work. I would also contend that if the company sued you for breach of contract and loss of income from your work stoppage, it would be immoral for the court to side with the company. I would certainly think that it is an immoral act for you to be jailed for refusing to continue to drill.
Now, I do think that the company can fire you. As in this case, I think that whoever she works for could fire her. I don’t think that she should be imprisoned.
Pretty sure that’s a troll, but it can still be fun to respond to the contention. The fact that I don’t believe any church and certainly not any major church would claim the death penalty is a required tenant of the faith means that the person is so far out of the mainstream as to be living in bonkers land or it was just meant to be a slam at Christianity.
Why not? Isn’t that sort of the point of our judicial system? Individuals can certainly clog up the works. It only takes one guy on a jury to acquit. Besides, if the evidence is so thin that this guy did it that it hinges on a single person’s testimony, I’m inclined to think maybe we shouldn’t kill him.
No, that isn’t the point of our judicial system. It’s adversarial but you are, in most circumstances, required to participate in it. If anyone can just say “sorry, I don’t believe in your laws so I choose to stay home” then it can’t work.
She chose to be an investigator for the defense. That means she chose to work for the side that would have prevented him from being put to death if they had been successful.
Now she’s being asked to testify by the prosecution. There’s nothing I can see in her work as an investigator for the defense that suggests that taking the stand at all was in any way a requirement of her job, and certainly not taking the stand for the people seeking the death penalty.
So the “Do your job” argument is a non-starter. She did her job. Now they want her to do something else entirely. It’s akin to demanding that the Christian cake baker also provide a flower arrangement.
There may be other arguments in favor of holding her in contempt, but this one isn’t convincing.
Jury nullificationists might disagree with that assessment. There is actually quite a bit of disagreement on whether it’s punishable for a judge to ignore precedent or binding law. We also know that certain witnesses are excused for moral reasons (spouses as an example and there’s a debate about parent-children) so why not other types of witnesses?
I dont’ really see it’s related to her job at all. Suppose she had just happened to witness a murder. Let’s make it the murder of 3 small children. Should a person be allowed to refuse to be a witness at a trial because they don’t believe in the death penalty.
Suppose I believe G-d had condemned adultery and that someone should be stoned to death for committing it. If I witness that, can I refuse to testify on the grounds that the person throwing stones was in the right, but our evil justice system will condemn him anyway?