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Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - What happens when religious freedom clashes with personal protections in court?
On May 7, a devout Muslim was called to give testimony in her ex-boyfriend's criminal case. He was charged with assaulting her and with domestic violence. What would have been a tragic but routine moment in the justice system took an unexpected twist when the defense asked the judge to order the victim to remove her niqab, the religious attire that completely veils the face except for the area around the eyes. Some Muslim women wear it in places where they may encounter men who are not members of their family. The defense argued that allowing the victim to testify in her niqab would violate their client's constitutional right to confront their accuser and deny the jury critical demeanor evidence to help them assess her credibility. It was a smart tactic, one used in many different cases, to put the victim in the difficult position of having to choose between her religious convictions and her desire for justice. If she refused to testify, it would have led to a dismissal of the case. While governments often resist claims for religious accommodations, in this case, the prosecution argued that forcing the woman to remove her niqab would violate her right to practice her religion. Today, the banner of religious freedom is being raised all over the country, encouraged by a Supreme Court that has given priority to religious values even when they conflict with other constitutional norms. In each case, religious liberty must be balanced against other values. That means that the front lines in the battle over religion and its place in society will be continually shifting and, however those battles come out, each skirmish will fuel culture wars. That is why the Boston case made headlines. The battle was joined when Boston Municipal Court Judge Kenneth Fiandaca ruled that the alleged victim could only testify if she removed her niqab. His ruling was, however, quickly appealed and reversed by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Traditionally, religious liberty has been seen as a kind of private right. The government should not tell people whether, when or how to worship. The philosopher John Locke, who influenced the Framers, wrote that 'The care of each man's soul' should not be part of the 'mutual compacts' that create a government of free people. No one, Locke added, 'ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth, because of his religion.' In this understanding of religious liberty, people are free to go to the house of worship of their choice, but religion is not to be brought into the workplace or the 'public square.' This conception of freedom of religion requires tolerance. And it minimizes conflict between religion and other values of the kind seen in the Massachusetts case. In our era, another conception of religious liberty has come to prominence. In this view, confining religious practice to the private realm is seen as favoring an impoverished kind of religion. For people who hold this view, religion is seen as an indispensable part of a person's entire life, not just what someone does in their church, synagogue or mosque. This conception has been exemplified in cases such as that of the Colorado baker sanctioned by the state for refusing, on religious grounds, to make a wedding cake that celebrates a same-sex wedding. Another involved a religious order of nuns that did not want to cover contraception in the health insurance they provided for employees of their group homes for children. Inevitably, those practices run up against competing rights-claims. Those conflicts are often framed as involving a choice between different ways of life, religious and secular. Not surprisingly, they become the stuff of intense legal and political debate. For example, speaking to the Federalist Society in November 2020, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a longtime proponent of enhanced freedom of religion, observed that 'religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.' In Alito's view, too many Americans do not cherish that liberty or regard it as 'just an excuse for bigotry.' On the other side, as political scientist Michael Bobic argues, 'When Congress or state governments try to accommodate the sincere religious beliefs of citizens, they risk violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment or the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.' This brings us back to the Massachusetts case. The trial judge's initial ruling was not surprising, but it was wrong. There are many ways to assess witness credibility, and a long line of cases have held that the right to confront one's accuser is, as Justice Serge Georges of the state Supreme Judicial Court explained, 'not absolute.' Courts, he said, 'have recognized limited and exceptional circumstances in which a defendant's rights under the Sixth Amendment … may appropriately yield to competing constitutional interests.' Georges directed the lower court to consider whether the religious convictions of the witness are sincere and prohibit her 'from displaying her face to males.' If so, Georges concluded, the 'right to confrontation … including any 'face to face' component, must yield to the witness's First Amendment rights.' This ruling meant that a Muslim woman could testify in her niqab, rightly vindicating the claims of religious liberty. But, at the end of the day, the jury was not persuaded by her testimony and found the defendant not guilty. Also, we are no closer to healing the deep divides over those claims. Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
19-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
What happens when religious freedom clashes with personal protections in court?
On May 7, a devout Muslim was called to give testimony in her ex-boyfriend's criminal case. He was charged with assaulting her and with domestic violence. What would have been a tragic but routine moment in the justice system took an unexpected twist when the defense asked the judge to order the victim to remove her niqab, the religious attire that completely veils the face except for the area around the eyes. Some Muslim women wear it in places where they may encounter men who are not members of their family. The defense argued that allowing the victim to testify in her niqab would violate their client's constitutional right to confront their accuser and deny the jury critical demeanor evidence to help them assess her credibility. It was a smart tactic, one used in many different cases, to put the victim in the difficult position of having to choose between her religious convictions and her desire for justice. If she refused to testify, it would have led to a dismissal of the case. While governments often resist claims for religious accommodations, in this case, the prosecution argued that forcing the woman to remove her niqab would violate her right to practice her religion. Today, the banner of religious freedom is being raised all over the country, encouraged by a Supreme Court that has given priority to religious values even when they conflict with other constitutional norms. In each case, religious liberty must be balanced against other values. That means that the front lines in the battle over religion and its place in society will be continually shifting and, however those battles come out, each skirmish will fuel culture wars. That is why the Boston case made headlines. The battle was joined when Boston Municipal Court Judge Kenneth Fiandaca ruled that the alleged victim could only testify if she removed her niqab. His ruling was, however, quickly appealed and reversed by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Traditionally, religious liberty has been seen as a kind of private right. The government should not tell people whether, when or how to worship. The philosopher John Locke, who influenced the Framers, wrote that 'The care of each man's soul' should not be part of the 'mutual compacts' that create a government of free people. No one, Locke added, 'ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth, because of his religion.' In this understanding of religious liberty, people are free to go to the house of worship of their choice, but religion is not to be brought into the workplace or the 'public square.' This conception of freedom of religion requires tolerance. And it minimizes conflict between religion and other values of the kind seen in the Massachusetts case. In our era, another conception of religious liberty has come to prominence. In this view, confining religious practice to the private realm is seen as favoring an impoverished kind of religion. For people who hold this view, religion is seen as an indispensable part of a person's entire life, not just what someone does in their church, synagogue or mosque. This conception has been exemplified in cases such as that of the Colorado baker sanctioned by the state for refusing, on religious grounds, to make a wedding cake that celebrates a same-sex wedding. Another involved a religious order of nuns that did not want to cover contraception in the health insurance they provided for employees of their group homes for children. Inevitably, those practices run up against competing rights-claims. Those conflicts are often framed as involving a choice between different ways of life, religious and secular. Not surprisingly, they become the stuff of intense legal and political debate. For example, speaking to the Federalist Society in November 2020, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a longtime proponent of enhanced freedom of religion, observed that 'religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.' In Alito's view, too many Americans do not cherish that liberty or regard it as 'just an excuse for bigotry.' On the other side, as political scientist Michael Bobic argues, 'When Congress or state governments try to accommodate the sincere religious beliefs of citizens, they risk violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment or the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.' This brings us back to the Massachusetts case. The trial judge's initial ruling was not surprising, but it was wrong. There are many ways to assess witness credibility, and a long line of cases have held that the right to confront one's accuser is, as Justice Serge Georges of the state Supreme Judicial Court explained, 'not absolute.' Courts, he said, 'have recognized limited and exceptional circumstances in which a defendant's rights under the Sixth Amendment … may appropriately yield to competing constitutional interests.' Georges directed the lower court to consider whether the religious convictions of the witness are sincere and prohibit her 'from displaying her face to males.' If so, Georges concluded, the 'right to confrontation … including any 'face to face' component, must yield to the witness's First Amendment rights.' This ruling meant that a Muslim woman could testify in her niqab, rightly vindicating the claims of religious liberty. But, at the end of the day, the jury was not persuaded by her testimony and found the defendant not guilty. Also, we are no closer to healing the deep divides over those claims. Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.
Boston Globe
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Danny Ryan was the pope of Savin Hill
A week after they buried the pope of Rome, Danny Ryan, the pope of Savin Hill, died after a brief illness in, of all places, Florida. He was 81. After his retirement, he and his wife Dottie spent their winters there, and they moved to Braintree in 2009, but he, and that heart that finally gave out, was never far from Savin Hill. For a quarter-century, Ryan was a court officer at Boston Municipal Court. Being in that courtroom, and in the cells in the bowels of the court, seeing people at the most vulnerable and worst moments of their lives, inspired a compassion for his fellow human beings, whoever they were, wherever they came from. On many occasions, just before he was about to pass sentence, William Tierney, the longtime chief justice at BMC, would look at the defendant standing before him, and Ryan would be at Tierney's side, whispering, 'He's not a bad guy, your honor.' Advertisement It was Ryan's considered opinion that many of the people who ended up standing before Tierney and other judges were there because of substance abuse, be it booze or whatever. And so it became Ryan's mission in life to save as many of them as he could, to nudge them toward their first 12-step meeting, to sponsor as many souls as he could, to keep them in those halls long enough that their heads could clear, that they could see with the same clarity he acquired in 1975, when he got sober. Advertisement Ryan got people jobs, with the city, the state, the corner market, a construction site. He was old school. He had a flip phone. He didn't text. But he did not see the city or Dorchester as some static place. He didn't like the idea of pulling up the ladder from the newest arrivals. He knew that whatever bigoted things people might say about various immigrants today was said about Irish immigrants like his parents more than a century before. When Linda Dorcena Forry, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, ran for state Senate in 2013, Ryan stood outside the Ward 13, Precinct 10 polling place at the Cristo Rey School, campaigning for her. 'Danny was a fierce advocate for people he believed in,' Dorcena Forry told me. 'When he backed you, he was all in. For me, there was no better person to have in your corner on Election Day.' She said the only thing Ryan asked for in return was that politicians use their office to help people who needed it. 'It was never about him,' Dorcena Forry said. 'It was about helping others.' Politicians courted him. 'If you wanted to run for office in Dorchester, if you didn't have Danny's imprimatur, save your money. You're not going to win,' Jim Brett, the former longtime state rep from Dorchester, told me. Over the weekend, as news of Ryan's death spread, Brett bumped into several men who mourned Ryan. 'AA guys, and they all said the same thing: 'He turned my life around. He saved my life.' He was their champion,' Brett said. 'Over the years, all the calls I got from Danny were for someone else. 'Can you help this guy? He's down and out.' He was a one-man employment agency for people who were down and out.' Advertisement Brett said Ryan understood politics better than most politicians, that politics was about helping those who needed it. 'I may have been the rep in Savin Hill,' Brett said, 'but Danny was the pope of Savin Hill.' Ryan was an early mentor and backer of Marty Walsh, the former mayor who grew up in Savin Hill. Walsh said it would be impossible to calculate how many people Ryan steered into recovery or helped get jobs. When Walsh first ran for state rep, Ryan was arrested while campaigning for him, for standing too close to a polling site. Walsh said when a concerned woman neighbor saw Ryan sitting in the back of a police cruiser, she asked how she could help, and Ryan yelled out the window, 'Vote for Marty Walsh!' Bob Scannell, president and chief executive of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dorchester, said Ryan coached kids in various sports and regularly plopped himself down in his office, looking to help someone. 'He'd sit in my office and call whoever was mayor or governor at the time, and they always took his call,' Scannell said. Every Christmas, Ryan showed up at Scannell's office with a list of toys he needed to deliver to poor families all over Dorchester. Mike Joyce, the club's senior vice president of operations, would drive Ryan around, Rudolph leading Santa. Advertisement And that's another thing about Danny Ryan. For all he accomplished in life, for all the lives he changed for the better, for all the miles he covered, he didn't drive. He bummed rides. 'Never applied for a license. Never got one,' Dottie, his wife of 46 years, told me. 'I drove myself to the hospital to have babies.' Those babies, four girls — Melissa, Danielle, Shannon, and Kasey — grew up strong and independent and were Ryan's pride and joy, as was Michael Clooney, a disabled family member who lived with Danny and Dottie for years until he died in 2023. Dottie Ryan has been overwhelmed by the response from people after her husband died. 'I've got over a thousand texts,' she said, 'and they all say the same thing: thank you for sharing him with us.' Father John Unni, the priest who will say Ryan's funeral Mass next week, said Ryan's blunt speaking often masked 'his compassion and understanding for the human condition.' 'Never have I met a man with so much faith, God-given insight, practicality, sense of humor and generous spirit,' Unni said. 'He'd say, 'Padre, it's all God! God's undefeated!' So was Danny Ryan. Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge's swift arrest for illegal's courtroom escape contrasts with Biden DOJ handling of similar case in 2022
A Massachusetts judge who allegedly let a twice-deported illegal immigrant evade ICE capture in 2018 is now facing the prospect of removal from the bench six years after federal charges were first filed against her and three years after those charges were dropped by the Biden administration. By contrast, the Trump administration swiftly arrested a judge in Wisconsin for committing a similar offense just a week after the incident. Judge Shelley Joseph of the Boston Municipal Court is facing charges of "willful judicial misconduct" for allowing illegal immigrant Jose Medina-Perez to slip out a side door to avoid ICE in April 2018, according to the Boston Herald. She was originally charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice in 2018 by Trump-appointed then-U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling. However, in 2022, the Biden Department of Justice agreed to drop the charges against Joseph after she agreed to refer herself to the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct. That state commission did not file charges for disciplinary action against Joseph until late in 2024, with her hearing date set for June 9. Vance Reveals 'Empowering' Aspects Of Trump's Leadership That Enables 'Trust' And Squashes 'Turf Battles' Joseph's case stands in stark contrast with the swift actions of the Trump administration to punish Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan, who is also alleged to have facilitated a courtroom escape for an illegal immigrant. Read On The Fox News App According to charges filed in the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, Dugan allowed illegal immigrant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz to exit her court via a restricted door after federal agents arrived to arrest him on April 18. Dugan demanded that the federal officers proceed to the chief judge's office and, after his hearing ended, escorted Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a restricted jury door, bypassing the public area where agents were waiting in order to help him avoid arrest, per the complaint. Just a week after this incident, Dugan was arrested by the FBI and charged with federal charges of felony obstruction of a federal agency and concealing a person to help them avoid arrest, which is a misdemeanor. New Resistance Battling Trump's Second Term Through Onslaught Of Lawsuits Taking Aim At Eos Dugan is currently prohibited from exercising her judicial powers and will remain barred pending further order by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Attorney General Pam Bondi blasted Dugan's actions on Fox's "America Reports." "We could not believe that a judge really did that," Bondi said. "You cannot obstruct a criminal case. And really, shame on her. It was a domestic violence case of all cases, and she's protecting a criminal defendant over victims of crime." Bondi said Flores-Ruiz beat up two people, "a guy and a girl." "[He] beat the guy, hit the guy 30 times, knocked him to the ground, choked him, beat up a woman so badly; they both had to go to the hospital," she said. Fox News Digital's Greg Wehner contributed to this report. Original article source: Judge's swift arrest for illegal's courtroom escape contrasts with Biden DOJ handling of similar case in 2022
Fox News
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Judge's swift arrest for illegal's courtroom escape contrasts with Biden DOJ handling of similar case in 2022
A Massachusetts judge who allegedly let a twice-deported illegal immigrant evade ICE capture in 2018 is now facing the prospect of removal from the bench six years after federal charges were first filed against her and three years after those charges were dropped by the Biden administration. By contrast, the Trump administration swiftly arrested a judge in Wisconsin for committing a similar offense just a week after the incident. Judge Shelley Joseph of the Boston Municipal Court is facing charges of "willful judicial misconduct" for allowing illegal immigrant Jose Medina-Perez to slip out a side door to avoid ICE in April 2018, according to the Boston Herald. She was originally charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice in 2018 by Trump-appointed then-U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling. However, in 2022, the Biden Department of Justice agreed to drop the charges against Joseph after she agreed to refer herself to the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct. That state commission did not file charges for disciplinary action against Joseph until late in 2024, with her hearing date set for June 9. Joseph's case stands in stark contrast with the swift actions of the Trump administration to punish Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan, who is also alleged to have facilitated a courtroom escape for an illegal immigrant. According to charges filed in the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, Dugan allowed illegal immigrant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz to exit her court via a restricted door after federal agents arrived to arrest him on April 18. Dugan demanded that the federal officers proceed to the chief judge's office and, after his hearing ended, escorted Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a restricted jury door, bypassing the public area where agents were waiting in order to help him avoid arrest, per the complaint. Just a week after this incident, Dugan was arrested by the FBI and charged with federal charges of felony obstruction of a federal agency and concealing a person to help them avoid arrest, which is a misdemeanor. Dugan is currently prohibited from exercising her judicial powers and will remain barred pending further order by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Attorney General Pam Bondi blasted Dugan's actions on Fox's "America Reports." "We could not believe that a judge really did that," Bondi said. "You cannot obstruct a criminal case. And really, shame on her. It was a domestic violence case of all cases, and she's protecting a criminal defendant over victims of crime." Bondi said Flores-Ruiz beat up two people, "a guy and a girl." "[He] beat the guy, hit the guy 30 times, knocked him to the ground, choked him, beat up a woman so badly; they both had to go to the hospital," she said.
