Boston, USA - For seven years, convicted murderer and ordained minister Wesley R. Spratt preached to fellow inmates on the belief that he was called by God to do so. That ended in 2003, when the Adult Correctional Institutions stopped him out of "security concerns."
The American Civil Liberties Union is intervening on Spratt's behalf to put Spratt back behind his prison pulpit, on grounds the preaching ban violates a federal law designed to protect the religious freedom of institutionalized persons.
The law is known as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), and protects institutionalized persons who are dependent upon the government for permission and accomodation for religious exercise.
Spratt, who considers his preaching a "calling" and "a gift" from God, had been preaching at weekly religious services under the supervision of, and with the support of, clergy at the ACI. (Spratt, who was convicted of fatally shooting a downtown parking lot attendant in a 1995 robbery, was sentenced in 1997 to serve at least 45 years in prison).
Two years ago, Spratt "was unilaterally stopped from doing so based on vague and generalized 'security' concerns" raised by a new warden, James Weeden, who took over the maximum-security facility in 2003, according to ACLU volunteer attorney Carly Beauvais Iafrate.
Spratt filed his own lawsuit, known as pro se representation. He named Corrections Director A.T. Wall as a defendant. Last November, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacob Hagopian recommended in favor of the prison's ban on Spratt's preaching.
Notwithstanding the lack of any security problems in the years that Spratt had been preaching, Hagopian ruled that he would defer to the warden's judgment that there was no means to accommodate Spratt's preaching while maintaining institutional security.
In his ruling, Hagopian noted that "although there is no evidence that there has been any incidents of violence or mischief during the seven years that the plaintiff has been preaching, prison officials do not have to wait for misdeeds to occur before acting to prevent such misdeeds."
Hagopian wrote that the RLUIPA "does not elevate accommodation of religious observances over an institution's need to maintain order and safety."
Patricia Coyne-Fague, chief legal counsel for the corrections department, said that Hagopian's recommendation and both her own brief and the ACLU's brief will now be reviewed and ruled upon by Judge William Smith in U.S. District Court.
Coyne-Fague said the ACLU met a Jan. 9 deadline to file its objection to Hagopian's recommendation, and she has until Jan. 23 to do so. There is no timetable for Smith's ruling.
Coyne-Fague said that while Spratt "absolutely does have religious freedom," the most recent Supreme Court case (Cutter v. Wilkinson) regarding RLUIPA "was very clear that even in the light of the religious freedom an inmate has under this statute . . . there are some security concerns that outweigh an inmate's right to practice his religion in the way he wants to practice it."
Coyne-Fague said the Corrections Department argues that "you can't have an inmate in a position -- either actual or perceived -- of authority."
If that were allowed, Coyne-Fague said, then other inmates "will view that inmate as having a level of influence or a level of authority or ability to provide special favors or receive special favors, which may not even be true, but even that perception can create unrest."
Also, said Coyne-Fague, "if there's a perception that there's a competing authority rather than the prison's authority, that can be dangerous . . ."
Iafrate's ACLU brief argues the Corrections Department "provided no evidence of security problems during, or as the result of, his supervised preaching during the seven years he had been doing so."
It also argues "that the DOC has failed to meet the standards of a federal law protecting the exercise of religious beliefs by prisoners. The law bars states from imposing any substantial burden on an inmate's exercise of religion unless it furthers a compelling interest and is the least restrictive means available."
The brief states that Hagopian improperly accepted the Corrections Department's "unsupported explanations for its sudden and unexplained change of position," and that the facts establish that "allowing Spratt to continue preaching, as he had for seven years, while supervised, satisfies security concerns and preserves his critical religious exercise."
Iafrate said the federal law "was designed to protect the religious freedom of people like Wesley Spratt. That law is undermined if courts give uncritical deference to prison officials in denying inmates the right to practice their religion."