That’s just sick. That like choosing to go to jail or put out a camp fire with you face :eek:. great choices.
On a Christian radio station I heard about a criminal case where the accused said they found Jesus and turned their life around, the Judge said if they could recite from memory the 23rd psalm he would dismiss the case, which the accused was able to and the case was dropped, to apparently applause in the court audience.
That story is wretched. I’m sure it isn’t true, because it sounds just like the sort of treacly nonsense that gets put on Christian radio. But that judge, if he existed, should get thrown the fuck out of office.
If I already go to a Baptist church, and I commit a misdemeanor, can I count my attendance as penalty? If not, can I add a Catholic mass to my weekly schedule to count? If I’m convicted of another misdemeanor, can I throw in some Baha’i home meetings to cover that? Or up my masses per week?
It does seem to discriminate in favor of churchgoers, letting them skate on crimes, unless you only impose churchgoing on those who are not already churchgoers (tricky to prove in much of the USA) in which case it discriminates against previous churchgoers. Never mind establishment, this dances on equal protection like a killer harpy.
I don’t know - maybe 3 years of law school with as much of a focus on Constitutional law as possible (and in particular First Amendment, and more particularly Government and Religion). Then 6 years of legal practice, including significant litigation experience in constitutional matters.
What’s your level of expertise here?
As is patently obvious, the government is offering a benefit in exchange for practicing Christianity. That benefit is the removal of a custodial sentence.
Do you not think that the government is prevented from requiring a person to get baptized to avoid a jail sentence? That the government is not permitted to pay people to attend a particular church (either directly, or in the form of higher unemployment benefits)?
This is pretty basic. The government, either through legislation, or through judicial action, may not require certain things as a condition of benefits. A judge may not tell a criminal that if he has the choice between voting Republican or going to jail. Nor may he tell him that he has a choice between practicing Christianity or going to jail.
The AA one gets tough because it is rarely a requirement that someone attends a particular program - just often that the only one available is religiously based (like AA).
I agree it isn’t as clear cut as this law, but I do still find it disturbing.
The mitigating circumstances one first - I don’t have a legal problem, as it is the jury considering whether it has a relevance. I don’t think you can stop the jury considering it, and I don’t think you should stop the accused mentioning it. I do think it is foolish that it is considered without other factors a relevant element, but it clearly is.
The parole situation is tougher. The government is there considering whether a person is fit for release. Of course various factors are going to play in this. Attendance at prison chapel, in and of itself, I don’t see as something that the parole board should constitutionally or rationally be considering. On the other hand, a prison chaplain testifying that the inmate has shown genuine remorse, and is less likely to re-offend is relevant to the determination.
This sort of thing is not new. I live in Texas, and back in my churchgoing days I was solicited for donations to a church retreat. The deal was similar, people convicted of misdemeanors could go on a retreat instead of spending a few days in jail. When I expressed my disbelief to the judge who happened to be in the church choir, she told me “It’s people like you who make this kind of thing hard,” but she didn’t say anything in defense of the programs constitutionality.
I see there being two possible arguments here.
The first is that a religious conversion represents a life-changing experience and as such demonstrates that the prisoner is no longer a criminal.
The problem with this argument is that it could apply equally to any life-changing experience. A person could argue that he should be paroled because he’s switched political parties or become a vegetarian or has renounced Christianity and become an atheist. I don’t think any court is going to recognize the theory that any change represents evidence of rehabiliation.
The second argument is that the life-changing experience must be a positive one - that not all life-changing experiences qualify as a sign of improvement.
If this is the case, then the specific claim being made here is that a Christian is a better person than a non-Christian (or that a believer is a better person than a non-believer). And the government will grant or deny parole based on these views. I don’t see how that can pass a constitutional test - it’s clearly the government giving preferential recognition to a religious belief in how it treats a person.
Apparently the people in that court had never seen Pulp Fiction.
That’s Ezekiel 25:17… or a really modified Hollywood version of it. 
But it shows that being able to quote a psalm doesn’t mean you’re not a criminal.
Ah, I get it.
And the judge said “Next!” The defendant moved forward.
“Crime?”
“Burglary, Your Honor.”
“Sentence, twenty five years. Religion?”
“Catholic, Your Honor”
“How many kids you got?”
“Three, Your Honor.”
“Three more, and I cut your sentence in half. Next! Crime?”
“Shot a man in Reno, 'cause he pissed me off.”
“Sentence, fifty years. Religion?”
“Twenty three years at a hard-scrabble Baptist Church in West Texas”
“Turn him loose. Next! Crime?”
“Lurking with intent to loom, Your Honor.”
“Ninety days. Religion?”
“Unitarian, Your Honor. Can I have some time off as well?”
“I’m not sure. Next…”
Not to throw a wet blanket on my own argument, but Jules did go straight … to wander the earth … as a result of knowing that psalm.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Everybody knows someone who has some sort of community service as some pennance for fucking up. You know the drill:
“Where’s Bobby this weekend?”
“He’s picking up trash in the median because of his DUI.”
Is Bobby bettering himself by dressing in an orange bib and collecting McDonald’s wrappers? Or is he coming back to his buddies when he’s done, cracking a beer and bitching about having to do it.
Now, does anybody really think this is going to lead to some Lifetime Channel Movie of the Week, where Bobby finds Jesus, devotes his life to helping the less fortunate and adopting a poor Algerian kid with a cleft pallette or something? No! He’s going to come back to his buddies, crack a beer and piss and moan about having to waste a Sunday away from football pre-game shows because of his goddamned DUI!
But that’s neither here nor there either.
Where does an agent of the government get off saying, ‘turn your life around by finding Christ’? He’s got no business prescribing that.
Way to mix up correlation and causation.
Few criminals go to church in the first place, therefore and ipso facto, an average sample of church-goers won’t include many criminals or at least fewer than an average sample of the population as a whole. That much is a given.
To go from there to “church makes people less likely to commit crimes” is a gross failure in logic. One I would surmise the OP’s judge is also making.
That reminds me of an old joke that if it was true that “Guilty Feet Got No Rhythm” then trials would be a lot easier. “Dance!”
IIRC, people punished like that are statistically less likely to re-offend than someone sent to jail. And at worst, he’s paid back to society somewhat by doing unpleasant but necessary scutwork.
As opposed to sending him to church, which is a blatant attempt at conversion and isn’t likely to do anything morally but make him worse. It certainly isn’t likely to improve their attitude towards the law; after all, the whole idea is defiance of the law by the local authorities themselves. “Screw the Constitution; we’re gonna force people to go to church!” The simple existence of the program is a demonstration that religion doesn’t make people obedient to the law.
Exempt Purposes - Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3)
(bolding mine)
Note that religion is exempted simply as religion, and also advancement of religion is considered a charitable cause. This is federal law. There are many more state and local laws that give special privileges to churches.
BZZZZTTT Already shot down, repeatedly.
Well, duh. Why in the name of sanity would you give criminals the option of not being punished when they get caught committing crimes?
It can be argued that it’s not individual rights the judge is infringing, but rather that he’s abdicating his responsibility to punish criminals. It’s his job to impose penalties on the convicted, and I’m unclear that being “sentenced” to weekly church comprises an actual penalty (as opposed to, say, a minor nuisance). It doesn’t have a fraction of the magnitude as another traditional alternative sentence - go to jail or join the military.
Does it work, though? I’m mildly curious if there are any statistics on the recidivism rates of forced churchgoers or, as they used to call them, “heretics.”
It’s not his job. Imposing penalties is sometimes part of a judge’s job. Achieving justice as it best serves the common good, within the confines of the law, is the job of a judge. And according to the Constitution, being ‘sentenced to church’ is not supposed to be allowed even in the pursuit of justice and serving the common good. The government can’t be determining what is or is not a church without establishing a religion. The only way around this would be allowing convicts to attend the church service of their choice, and their choice would tend to be the services of their own private religion, or non-religion if they are atheists.