Reynolds V United States 1879

1879 The states Supreme Court case

Reynolds v. Usa
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 14–15, 1878 Decided January 6, 1879
Total instance name	George Reynolds v. United States
Citations	98 U.South. 145 (more) 25 L. Ed. 244; 1878 U.S. LEXIS 1374; 8 Otto 145
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted, District Court for the third Judicial District of the Territory of Utah; conviction upheld by Utah Territorial Supreme Court
Belongings
The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment protects the correct to hold whatever religious belief, just not the right to appoint in any religious activity whatsoever. Supreme Court of Utah affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Morrison Waite Associate Justices Nathan Clifford· Noah H. Swayne Samuel F. Miller· Stephen J. Field William Strong· Joseph P. Bradley Ward Chase· John Chiliad. Harlan
Case opinions
Majority	Waite, joined by Clifford, Swayne, Miller, Strong, Bradley, Hunt, Harlan
Concur/dissent	Field
Laws practical
Sect. 5352 of the Revised Statutes

Reynolds v. United States , 98 U.S. 145 (1878), was a Supreme Court of the United States case that held that religious duty was not a defence force to a criminal indictment.^[one] Reynolds was the first Supreme Court opinion to address the First Amendment's protection of religious liberties, impartial juries and the Confrontation Clauses of the Sixth Amendment.

George Reynolds was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), charged with bigamy under the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act after marrying Amelia Jane Schofield while still married to Mary Ann Tuddenham in Utah Territory. He was secretary to Brigham Immature and presented himself as a test of the federal regime's attempt to outlaw polygamy. An earlier conviction was overturned on technical grounds.^[2]

Background [edit]

The LDS Church, assertive that the law unconstitutionally deprived its members of their Starting time Amendment right to freely practice their religion, chose to challenge the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Human activity. The First Presidency decided to furnish a accused to establish a test instance to be brought before the United States Supreme Courtroom, to determine the constitutionality of the anti-bigamy police force. Reynolds, a secretary in the part of the president of the church, agreed to serve as the accused. He provided the United States Attorney with numerous witnesses who could testify of his being married to two wives, and was indicted for bigamy past a one thousand jury on October 31, 1874. In 1875, Reynolds was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison house at hard labor (a provision not included in the statute) and a fine of five hundred dollars. In 1876 the Utah Territorial Supreme Court upheld the sentence.

Previously, U.S. Attorney William Carey promised to finish his attempts to indict full general authorities during the test case. Even so when Carey failed to keep his promise and arrested George Q. Cannon, LDS Church leaders decided that they would no longer cooperate with him.^[3]

Prior history [edit]

Reynolds was indicted in the District Court for the 3rd Judicial Commune of the Territory of Utah under sect. 5352 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, which stated, as quoted in the Supreme Court decision:

Every person having a husband or married woman living, who marries another, whether married or single, in a Territory, or other place over which the Us have sectional jurisdiction, is guilty of bigamy, and shall be punished by a fine of non more than than $500, and by imprisonment for a term of non more than five years.

Reynolds tried to have the jury instructed that if they found he committed bigamy with the only intention of following his religion, then he must be found non guilty. The trial court refused this request and instructed the jury that if they found that Reynolds, under religious influence, "deliberately married a 2d time, having a first wife living, the want of consciousness of evil intent—the want of understanding on his part that he was committing criminal offence—did non excuse him, but the law inexorably, in such cases, implies criminal intent."

Afterwards being plant guilty by the lower court, Reynolds appealed to the Utah Territorial Supreme Courtroom, which upheld the conviction.

Conclusion [edit]

Reynolds' attorneys, George W. Biddle and Ben Sheeks, appealed the Utah Territorial Supreme Court determination to the U.S. Supreme Court, consisting of Master Justice Morrison Remick Waite, and Associate Justices Joseph P. Bradley, Nathan Clifford, Stephen Johnson Field, John Marshall Harlan, Ward Hunt, Samuel Freeman Miller, William Strong, Noah Haynes Swayne.

On 14 Nov 1878, arguments were heard in the Reynolds case before the United States Supreme Court. Reynolds' attorneys argued that his conviction for bigamy should be overturned on four issues: (1) that it was his religious duty to ally multiple times, the practice of which the First Amendment protected as his fundamental duty of his faith; (2) that his chiliad jury had not been legally constituted; (3) that challenges of certain jurors were improperly overruled; and (4) that testimony was not admissible equally information technology was under another indictment.

On 6 January 1879, the Court issued its unanimous decision affirming Reynolds's conviction and rejected Reynolds' statement that the Latter-24-hour interval Saint practice of plural marriage was protected past the Free Exercise Clause of the First Subpoena to the Constitution. Thus, his conviction was upheld, as was the constitutionality of the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Human action. Chief Justice Morrison Waite wrote on behalf of himself and seven colleagues. Justice Field wrote a concurrence that dissented on 1 minor point.

At a subsequent day of the term, on a petition for rehearing, it was pointed out that Reynolds' sentence to "hard labor" was not a part of the statute. MR. Primary JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the courtroom not affirm the judgement of the lower court.

"Since our judgment in this case was announced, a petition for rehearing has been filed, in which our attending is called to the fact that the sentence of the [98 U.S. 145, 169] court beneath requires the imprisonment to be at difficult labor, when the act of Congress under which the indictment was found provides for punishment by imprisonment only. This was not assigned for error on the old hearing, and we might on that account reject to consider information technology now; but every bit the irregularity is one which appears on the face of the record, nosotros vacate our former judgment of affirmance, and opposite the judgment of the court below for the purpose of correcting the but mistake which appears in the tape, to wit, in the course of the sentence. The cause is remanded, with instructions to crusade the judgement of the District Court to be set aside and a new one entered on the verdict in all respects similar that before imposed, except then far as it requires the imprisonment to be at hard labor."

Religious duty statement [edit]

The Court considered whether Reynolds could use religious belief or duty as a defense. Reynolds had argued that every bit a Mormon, it was his religious duty as a male person member of the church to practice polygamy if possible.

The Court recognized that under the First Amendment, the Congress cannot pass a constabulary that prohibits the gratuitous exercise of religion. However it held that the law prohibiting bigamy did not meet that standard. The principle that a person could only exist married singly, non plurally, existed since the times of Male monarch James I of England in English law, upon which United states police was based.

The Court investigated the history of religious freedom in the The states and quoted a letter from Thomas Jefferson in which he wrote that there was a distinction between religious belief and action that flowed from religious belief. The quondam "lies solely betwixt man and his God," therefore "the legislative powers of the government attain actions only, and not opinions."

The Court upheld the criminalization of polygamy on the reasoning that polygamy was "odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people." As such [polygamy] "fetters the people in stationary despotism."^[4] Post-obit this reasoning the Court considered that if polygamy was allowed, someone might somewhen argue that human being sacrifice or bride burning was a necessary part of their religion, and "to allow this would exist to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the country, and in outcome to permit every citizen to become a police unto himself." The Court ruled the First Amendment forbade Congress from legislating against opinion, but allowed it to legislate against activeness.

Other arguments [edit]

Reynolds argued that the thousand jury that had indicted him was not legal. United States police at that time required that a grand jury consist of no fewer than 16 persons. The grand jury that indicted Reynolds had only 15 persons. The courtroom rejected this argument because the Utah Territory had passed a law in 1870 under which a grand jury had to consist of only 15 persons.

During his original trial, Reynolds had challenged two jurors, both of whom stated that they had formed an opinion on the guilt or innocence of Reynolds earlier the trial. The courtroom held that universal education and press reports made information technology difficult to observe jurors who had non formed some opinion. It found that Reynolds had failed to run into the requirement that he, as challenger of a juror's objectivity, demonstrate that a juror had adult a real and strong opinion. The prosecution had discharged two potential jurors who refused to say whether or not they were living in polygamy. The Courtroom held that it would not overturn a example based on the legality of challenges to dismissed jurors.

The Court held that bear witness Amelia Jane Schofield, Reynold's second wife, gave during an before trial of Reynolds for the same offense only under a different indictment was admissible. Schofield could not be found during the second trial and so evidence from the previous trial was used. The Court held that "if a witness is kept abroad past the adverse political party, his testimony, taken on a former trial between the aforementioned parties upon the same problems, may be given in evidence". The courtroom held that Reynolds had every opportunity under oath to reveal the whereabouts of Schofield. This was the one point on which Justice Field dissented, finding that the prove should not have been allowed.

Reynolds had argued that the jury had been improperly instructed past the guess when he told them that they "should consider what are to be the consequences to the innocent victims of this delusion". Reynolds argued that this introduced prejudice to the jury. The Court held that Reynolds had freely admitted that he was a bigamist. All the judge had done was "telephone call the attention of the jury to the peculiar graphic symbol of the crime" and had done and so "not to make them partial, but to go along them impartial".

Reaction [edit]

George Q. Cannon, representative of the territory, wrote in response to this determination:^[5]

Our crime has been: We married women instead of seducing them; nosotros reared children instead of destroying them; we desired to exclude from the land prostitution, bastardy and infanticide. If George Reynolds [the man who was convicted of committing bigamy] is to exist punished, let the world know the facts.... Let it be published to the 4 corners of the earth that in this land of liberty, the most blessed and glorious upon which the sun shines, the law is swiftly invoked to punish organized religion, but justice goes limping and blindfolded in pursuit of crime.^[6]

The New York Times defended the decision, noting that the 1862 human activity that banned bigamy, though "plain directed at the polygamous practices of the Mormons, merely extended over the Territories the common police force in relation to bigamy which exists in every State of the Union." Its editorial ridiculed the Mormon defense of polygamy as a religious practice and said: "Similarly, a sect which should pretend, or believe, that incest, infanticide, or murder was a divinely appointed ordinance, to be observed under certain weather, could set that the enforcement of the common law, as confronting either [sic] of these practices, was an invasion of the rights of conscience."^[vii]

Wall of separation between church and state [edit]

The aforementioned letter from Thomas Jefferson was an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists. They were a religious minority which was concerned about the dominant position of the Congregational church in Connecticut and which voiced its concerns in a letter dated October 7, 1801, to the newly elected President Thomas Jefferson against a authorities institution of religion. Jefferson wrote in return to the Baptists that the Us Bill of Rights prevents the establishment of a national church, and in and then doing they did non have to fear government interference in their right to expressions of religious conscience:

Assertive with you that organized religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his organized religion or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which alleged that their legislature should "brand no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", thus edifice a wall of separation betwixt Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall meet with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to human being all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural correct in opposition to his social duties.^[viii]

The metaphor "a wall of separation between Church building and State" used by Jefferson was first used by Chief Justice Morrison Waite in the Reynolds case. American historian George Bancroft was consulted by Waite in the Reynolds example regarding the views on establishment by the framers of the U.S. constitution. Bancroft advised Waite to consult Jefferson. Waite then discovered the above quoted letter in a library subsequently skimming through the alphabetize to Jefferson'due south collected works co-ordinate to historian Don Drakeman.^[9]

Run into also [edit]

Poland Act (1874)
Edmunds Act (1882)
Edmunds-Tucker Human activity (1887)
LDS Church building v. United States (1890)
1890 Manifesto
Smoot Hearings (1903–1907)
History of civil spousal relationship in the U.S.

References [edit]

^ Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1878). This article incorporates public domain material from this U.S authorities document.
^ Riggs, Robert Eastward. (1992). "Reynolds V. United States". In Ludlow, Daniel H. (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Mormonism. New York: Macmillan. pp. 1229–1230. ISBN0-02-879605-5 . Retrieved 2020-09-30 .
^ Larson, "Authorities, Politics, and Disharmonize," pp. 252, 254.
^ Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 166, 25 L. Ed. 244 (1878)
^ Gustive O. Larson, Federal Government Efforts to "Americanize" Utah Earlier Admission to Statehood, pp. ??
^ Cannon, George Quayle, A Review of the Decision of the Supreme Courtroom of the United States, in the case of Geo. Reynolds vs. The United states, Deseret News Press and Publishing Institution, Table salt Lake City, Utah, p. 52.
^ "A Accident at Polygamy" (PDF). New York Times. January 8, 1879. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
^ "Jefferson's Letter of the alphabet to the Danbury Baptists – The Final Letter, as Sent on January 1, 1802". Library of Congress. Retrieved February 13, 2014.
^ Movsesian, Mark (February 13, 2013). "How The Supreme Court Constitute The Wall". Manager of the Center for Law and Organized religion at St. John'due south University. Offset Things. Retrieved 8 December 2021.

External links [edit]

Works related to Reynolds 5. The states at Wikisource
Text of Reynolds five. Usa, 98 U.South. 145 (1878) is available from:CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress OpenJurist
"Mormon" Entry for The Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States, David S.Tanenhaus