Legal News

Bible-Study Group in the Jury Room? A Federal Court Mulls it Over

By Nathan Koppel

Mea culpa: we missed this federal court ruling out of San Diego last week that deals with the topic of religion in the courtroom. But it’s interesting enough to give some attention to now.

The backstory: Two court reporters, Mindy Barlow and Dalia Smith, sued the San Diego Superior Court after it blocked them from holding weekly Bible study meetings in a jury room over the lunch hour. From 2000 to 2006, twelve court employees regularly attended the study group, which, according to the opinion, covered topics including “healthy living, lifestyle choices, and physical, mental and spiritual health from a biblical perspective.”

Last year, a court administrator nixed the study group, citing the separation of church and state and saying that it was a prohibited non-business use of court facilities. The plaintiffs, asserting a host of constitutional violations, say that Weight Watchers and Boy Scout groups were allowed to meet freely in the court.

The San Diego federal court denied in part a motion to dismiss the religious discrimination suit, holding that there needs to be additional discovery into whether the Bible study group was treated differently than other groups and whether the court had really tried to restrict other non-business uses of its facilities.

To our mind, this case presents one of the livelier religion-in-the-courtroom battles since Roy Moore (pictured) was in office. Remember him? The Alabama judge in 2003 placed a large Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of the state courthouse. A federal judge ordered him to remove it, but Moore refused, causing him to be removed from office by a judicial ethics panel. More recently, Moore unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for the governorship of Alabama in 2006, but got thwacked by incumbent Bob Riley in the primary.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 04, 2008 (boomark / email).