Family Law

Religion Issue Motivates Judges to Write Their Opinions

The link below will send you to the list of Court of Appeals cases for October 1, 2008. The fourth case down is Hicks v. Cook which was an appeal of a custody determination in favor of a father. Mother appealed citing that the trial court judge ruled against her because of her professed religion preference (Wicca). She said this violated her constitutional freedom of religion rights.

The appellate opinion goes to great lengths to explain that the trial court’s decision was based on ALL of the factors in the case - despite the fact that the trial judge made clear his concerns over the Wicca faith (One comment from the trial court judge went like this - “One final concern is her testimony regarding the WICCA religion, movement, cult or whatever that may be.”)

What is perhaps most interesting is that there were 3 concurring opinions and 1 dissenting opinion provided in addition to the majority opinion. Obviously the judges felt motivated to write about this case.

Here’s the link…
http://courts.arkansas.gov/court_opinions/coa/2008b/20081001/20081001.htm
(remember to choose the 4th case down, Hicks v. Cook)

Full post as published by Kevin Hickey Law Blog on October 23, 2008 (boomark / email).