Des Moines, USA - A federal appeals court panel of three judges including former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will hear arguments next week in a case that challenges president Bush’s policy of intermingling private faith-based programs and government.
U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt, after presiding over a three-week bench trial in the Southern District of Iowa, ruled on June 2, 2006, that the Prison Fellowship Ministries Inc. program used at a central Iowa prison was unconstitutional and must be shut down.
The program, during which inmates immersed themselves in evangelical Christianity, was operated at the Newton Correctional Facility, a state prison about 40 miles east of Des Moines.
The program was challenged in federal court by the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Pratt ruled that the program operated by Prison Fellowship through a contract with InnerChange Freedom Initiative Inc. violated the First Amendment’s clause barring government from the establishment of religion.
The ruling ordered the Iowa Department of Corrections to close the program and that the $1.5 million in contract payments had to be returned to the state.
The orders were suspended pending the appeal of the case before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The program had operated at the Newton prison since October 1999. About 210 inmates participated in the program, which included education, counseling and work, with a heavy emphasis on the Bible.
Prison Fellowship said the program was voluntary and had secular benefits.
The case has received national media attention due to its test of the Bush administration’s push for faith-based government services.
Similar programs are sponsored by Prison Fellowship Ministries at prisons in Texas, Minnesota, Kansas and Arkansas. One is set to begin next month in Missouri, the group said.
Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley said in a statement released Monday that he’s disturbed by attempts to shut down the program.
“It is troubling that at a time when the FBI has just reported an increase in violent crime for the second year in a row — and when two out of every three inmates are re-arrested within three years of their release — there are those who would try to shut down a voluntary program that transforms lives and helps reverse the destructive cycle of crime.”
The 8th Circuit arguments in the case are scheduled to be held in St. Louis before O’Connor and Judges Roger L. Wollman and Duane Benton at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 13, according to the court schedule.
O’Connor, 76, retired from the Supreme Court in July 2005 but continues to be paid as a federal court officer and takes assignments on federal appeals panels.
Attorneys for the state of Iowa and InterChange Freedom Initiative will argue for the program. Americans United for Separation of Church and State will argue against it. The group did not immediately return a phone call Monday evening.
Prison Fellowship, which contracts with IFI and other organizations to conduct faith-based programs, was founded by Charles Colson, special counsel to President Richard Nixon. Colson went to prison for seven months in 1975 for crimes related to the Watergate scandal. After his release, he began a ministry for men and women in prisons and in 1976, he established the Prison Fellowship organization.