United States v. Ballard

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United States v. Ballard
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 3 – 6, 1944 Decided April 24, 1944
Full case name: United States v. Ballard, et al. Citations: 322 U.S. 78; 64 S. Ct. 882; 88 L. Ed. 1148; 1944 U.S. LEXIS 810 Prior history: Cert. to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Holding
"...[W]e do not agree that the truth or verity of respondents' religious doctrines or beliefs should have been submitted to the jury."[1]
Court membership
Chief Justice: Harlan Fiske Stone Associate Justices: Owen Josephus Roberts, Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, Robert H. Jackson, Wiley Blount Rutledge
Case opinions
Majority by: Douglas Joined by: Black, Reed, Murphy, Rutledge Dissent by: Stone Joined by: Roberts, Frankfurter Dissent by: Jackson

United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944)^[2], was an appeal of the conviction of two leaders of the new religious "I AM" Activity movement for fraudulently using the mails to seek and collect donations on the basis of religious claims that the defendants themselves did not believe. The United States Supreme Court held that the question of whether the defendants believed their religious claims should not have been submitted to a jury. The Court arrived at this conclusion in part because the "freedom of religious belief... embraces the right to maintain theories of life and of death and of the hereafter which are rank heresy to followers of the orthodox faiths."

Justice Robert Jackson, dissenting, would have gone even farther, suggesting that the entire case should be dismissed for coming too close to being an investigation into the truth of a religious conviction.

Contents 1 Prior history 2 Decision 2.1 Majority opinion 2.2 Chief Justice Stone's dissent 2.3 Justice Jackson's dissent 3 Subsequent history 4 References

[edit] Prior history

After Guy Ballard's death, his wife and son were indicted for 18 counts of fraud. The indictment charged that the Ballards fraudulently collected over $3 million from their followers on the basis of religious claims the Ballards knew were false. Their followers protested outside the courthouse.^[3]

The jury was instructed to convict if they found that the Ballards did not have a good faith belief in their religious claims. The Ballards were convicted.^[3]

The Ninth Circuit overturned the conviction and the state appealed to the Supreme Court.

[edit] Decision

[edit] Majority opinion

• Written by: William O. Douglas; joined by: Black, Reed, Murphy, Rutledge

The majority opinion vacated the fraud conviction, ruling that the question of whether the Ballards believed their religious claims should not have been submitted to the jury. In his majority opinion, Justice Douglas wrote:

The religious views espoused by respondents might seem incredible, if not preposterous, to most people. But if those doctrines are subject to trial before a jury charged with finding their truth or falsity, then the same can be done with the religious beliefs of any sect. When the triers of fact undertake that task, they enter a forbidden domain. The First Amendment does not select any one group or any one type of religion for preferred treatment. It puts them all in that position.

Prosecutions of this character easily could degenerate into religious persecution.

I would dismiss the indictment and have done with this business of judicially examining other people's faiths.

All schools of religious thought make enormous assumptions, generally on the basis of revelations authenticated by some sign or miracle.

Some who profess belief in the Bible read literally what others read as allegory or metaphor, as they read Aesop's fables.

If we try religious sincerity severed from religious verity, we isolate the dispute from the very considerations which, in common experience, provide its most reliable answer.

William James, who wrote on these matters as a scientist, reminds us that it is not theology and ceremonies which keep religion going. Its vitality is in the religious experiences of many people. "If you ask what these experiences are, they are conversations with the unseen, voices and visions, responses to prayer, changes of heart, deliverances from fear, inflowings of help, assurances of support, whenever certain persons set their own internal attitude in certain appropriate ways."

If religious liberty includes, as it must, the right to communicate such experiences to others, it seems to me an impossible task for juries to separate fancied ones from real ones, dreams from happenings, and hallucinations from true clairvoyance. Such experiences, like some tones and colors, have existence for one, but none at all for another. They cannot be verified to the minds of those whose field of consciousness does not include religious insight. When one comes to trial which turns on any aspect of religious belief or representation, unbelievers among his judges are likely not to understand, and are almost certain not to believe, him.

[edit] Chief Justice Stone's dissent

• Written by: Stone; joined by: Roberts, Frankfurter

Chief Justice Stone, dissenting, argued that the question was appropriate for the jury:^[4]

I am not prepared to say that the constitutional guaranty of freedom of religion affords immunity from criminal prosecution for the fraudulent procurement of money by false statements as to one's religious experiences, more than it renders polygamy or libel immune from criminal prosecution... I cannot say that freedom of thought and worship includes freedom to procure money by making knowingly false statements about one's religious experiences.

[edit] Justice Jackson's dissent

Although the ruling was 5-4, one of the Justices, Jackson, dissented because he wanted the Court to go further and dismiss the entire case for being too close to an investigation into the truth of a religious conviction:^[4]

I should say the defendants have done just that for which they are indicted. If I might agree to their conviction without creating a precedent, I cheerfully would do so. I can see in their teachings nothing but humbug, untained by any trace of truth. But that does not dispose of the constitutional question whether misrepresentation of religious experience or belief is prosecutable; it rather emphasizes the danger of such prosecutions.

[edit] Subsequent history

Interpreting this decision, the Ninth Circuit later found that the Court did not go so far as to hold that "the validity or veracity of a religious doctrine cannot be inquired into by a Federal Court."^[5]

The Ballards were subsequently convicted of fraud in a new trial that withheld from the jury all questions whether the Ballards believed their religious claims. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment on the grounds that women were improperly excluded from the jury panel.^[6]

[edit] References