Freedom of Religion Requires Death Penalty Trial Changes Library: LIF-SOC Keywords: DEATH COURT RELIGION LAW FIRST AMENDMENT CONSTITUTION Description: Many courts that try death penalty cases allow religion to be used in ways that violate the First Amendment, say two Cornell Law School professors. They applied the First Amendment's religion clauses to common uses of religion in death penalty trials and and say important changes are needed in the way such trials are run.
FOR RELEASE: Oct. 22, 2001
Contact: Linda Myers Office: 607-255-9735 E-Mail: lbm3 at cornell.edu
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Many courts that try death penalty cases allow religion to be used in ways that violate the First Amendment, say two Cornell University Law School professors.
Gary Simson and Stephen Garvey look at common uses of religion in death penalty trials and apply the First Amendment's Religion Clauses, which prohibit any legislation or other governmental action "respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." They find that important changes are needed in the way such trials are run.
Litigators and scholars have sometimes questioned the uses of religion in death penalty trials, they note. "Remarkably, however, the questions have almost always been framed and answered with little or no attention to the two clauses of the Constitution that speak directly and broadly to issues of religion: the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment." They present their analysis in "Knockin' on Heaven's Door: Rethinking the Role of Religion in Death Penalty Cases," which was published in the July 2001 issue of the Cornell Law Review.
Just as the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause has been held to prohibit litigants from relying on racial stereotypes in jury selection, so, argue the authors, should the First Amendment be held to bar them from relying on religious stereotypes in that process.
By the same token, quotations from the Bible or other references to religion to sway the jury during closing argument almost always should be found to overstep the Establishment Clause's prohibition on government endorsement of religion, say Simson and Garvey. People are government actors when serving as jurors, the scholars observe. For them to engage in group prayer in the jury room or invoke religion in debating among themselves is therefore no less a constitutional violation than if they were full-time employees of the state.
Courts also generally should reject prosecution efforts to introduce evidence at the sentencing stage that highlights the victim's religiosity. "Ultimately, if the message of the Religion Clauses is heard," the authors state in conclusion, "religion will play a much less significant role in death penalty cases than it plays today. One of the great lessons of the Religion Clauses is that the individual liberty at the heart of the clauses is often best served by government noninvolvement in matters of religion."
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