The Fundies Are Right
John at Americablog has a post that perfectly illustrates the maxim that politics makes strange bedfellows :
Joe’s firm is working on a case where they represent a city employee who claims he was fired from his job because a supervisor disapproved of his dating a white woman (I’m going to assume the man is black, though the article doesn’t say). Attorneys for the city want the judge to limit what the man’s lawyer can say in his opening and closing statements. To wit, they want the judge to tell the man’s lawyer (Joe’s boss) that he can’t mention God, Jesus or the Bible in his opening or closing statements.
. . .
I get on the religious right’s case with all of their war on Christmas bull, I think they’ve just gone too far with their persecution complex. But that doesn’t mean that sometimes they’re not right (even a broken clock is right twice a day). In this case, whether you like religion or not, I just don’t see the problem with a lawyer invoking God or the Bible in a closing argument, especially when he’s doing it on a civil rights case in favor of fairness.Though, having said that, my argument could backfire. What if the city’s lawyer wanted to argue that the Bible makes clear that blacks shouldn’t have the same rights as whites, and that blacks shouldn’t date whites? (Once upon a time, that was the thinking.) Would that be okay, legally or otherwise? Or if the lawyer tried to bias the jury in an anti-gay discrimination case by saying “sure the law says you can’t fire the gay guy, but let’s face it, the Bible says he’s an abomination” – would that be okay? In both those cases, I’d obviously have a problem with the lawyer’s arguments.
John’s right. The fact that the lawyer in question isn’t allowed to reference god or the Bible is wrong. This is clearly a case of free speech and the lawyer in question should be allowed to craft any sort of argument that he wants. The fact that this could, in John’s words, “backfire” is just the price you pay for free speech. Besides, there shouldn’t be anything stopping the other attorney from taking the same tactic.
Now you could make the argument that religious talk would unfairly sway the jury, but in my mind, the fault lies with the jurors who are dumb enough to let “WWJD?” interfere with their duty to make a decision according to the judge’s instructions. Anyone who would be willing to change their position based on a couple of out-of-context Bible quotes is a simple-minded rube who has no business serving on a jury. I’m not saying all religious people should be disqualified from jury duty, just anyone whose religious views would interfere with their ability to render a fair verdict. I don’t see how that’s any more unjust than death penalty opponents being disqualified from the juries in capital murder cases.
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As a lawyer and a liberal, I’ll be the first to admit that government entities (particularly towns and school boards) have caused problems for the left (that turn up as anecdotes in bestselling “Christmas War” books) by overinterpreting Supreme Court pronouncements and doing generally stupid things that feed conservative paranoia. But I need a lot more information as to what the man’s lawyer was going to say before I could make any conclusions about this particular case.
Given that there are perfectly good laws on the books that prevent anti-miscegenation discrimination, I can’t imagine what “higher law” the man’s lawyer would need to resort to. And there is also the problem that lawyers generally aren’t permitted to instruct the jury on the law at all – that is the role of the judge in his instructions/charges to the jury.
And I’m really having a hard time imagining what references to the Bible or Jesus or whatever would be appropriate or admissible in any closing argument. This really isn’t an example of taking Jesus out of the courts – While morality and religion inform the creation of laws, we don’t try cases under an Ecclesiastical Law or Sharia or the Old Testament. Appeals to the Bible are not made in court, particularly in a civil case as this one appears to be. References to religion really have no place in the jury’s decision making process.
Without knowing exactly what the man’s lawyer wants to say, its hard to call this one. But given that the request to limit his argument was made before the trial, I suspect that the City attorneys have had prior problems with the plaintiff’s lawyer. Ordinarily, it would never occur to a defense attorney to make such a request before a trial. There’s more to this story….
Comment by Scott Hack — December 13, 2005 @ 12:57 pm
Backfiring? My feeling is that any lawyer who starts using the Bible to justify segregation and racism would be a blessing for his opponent.
As for the War on Christmas crap, I’m going to need to see someone who is prohibited from celebrating Christmas on their own before I’ll believe any of this crap. Just because it’s not being endorsed by the state, does not mean it’s not allowed. If you want a CHRISTMAS tree so badly, put one up in your living room like everybody else. What do you care if the one in town square is a holiday bush?
Morons. Before we were ruled by monkeys. Now we’ve kicked them out in favor of developmentally disabled monkeys.
Comment by Dr. Pants — December 13, 2005 @ 2:52 pm
I’ve met few truly devout, zealous religious people that don’t let their beliefs color and affect everyday decisions. The very depth and strength of their convictions dictates religion MUST be a part of the calculus of all they do. Those people would be questionable candidates for a jury pool as they would likely let such considerations prevail over civil law or a judge’s instructions. Would I want a dozen Pentacostal Baptists deciding whether I’d violated some obscure, poorly written sodomy law by getting a BJ from my wife? Hardly, but after exhausting preemptory challenges my attorney might have to accept just such jurors deciding my guilt. I’d be very comfortable with overt (anti) religious discrimination in such a scenario.
Comment by steve duncan — December 14, 2005 @ 6:21 am
How long before this Onion piece on activist judges banning Christmas hits the fundy circuit as the truth?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43438
Comment by Bella — December 14, 2005 @ 1:53 pm