Can a person be declared incompetent to stand trial based solely on his religious beliefs? Last week, the Ohio Court of Appeals said, no (via VC). But it’s not the victory for religious freedom that it may look like at first glance.
In March 2010, John Daley was charged with retaliation, intimidation, aggravated menacing, menacing, and telecommunications harassment, stemming from a threatening voice-mail and letter. At the court’s request, he was sent for a psychiatric evaluation and diagnosed with psychotic disorder, not otherwise specified. The court found Daley incompetent to stand trial and “ordered him hospitalized for restoration to competency.” The Ohio Court of Appeals disagreed because the sole grounds for the defendant’s incompetency were his constitutionally-protected religious beliefs.
Dr. Noffsinger’s opinion that Daley was incompetent, formulated after an hour and ten-minute evaluation, was based solely on Daley’s religious beliefs. Specifically, Dr. Noffsinger opined that Daley, a “radical Christian,” “expresses such extreme intensity of religious belief in very unorthodox religious beliefs to the point to constitute psychosis.” Noffsinger further testified that treating Daley would “change his psychotic symptoms of which are a religious theme[,]” so that his “intensity and [ ] preoccupation with his religious beliefs will be greatly decreased.”
Daley’s religious beliefs are constitutionally protected, however. Because the record demonstrates that Dr. Noffsinger’s diagnosis was based solely on Daley’s religious beliefs, we find that the trial court erred in finding him incompetent.
Although this looks like a ruling in favor of religious freedom, it stems from a condescending attitude towards religion that doesn’t belong in our courts.
According to the psychiatrist, Daley’s psychosis is of a “religious theme.” The court concluded that the First Amendment precludes religious beliefs from being the “sole basis upon which to base a finding of incompetence.” Presumably, because ruling otherwise would somehow impede the free exercise of religion. But this assumes that the free exercise of religion includes the freedom to immunize religious views from public scrutiny. Daley’s religious beliefs are constitutionally protected from government encroachment, but not from the otherwise-acceptable tools we use to assess psychological fitness.
It’s entirely plausible that a person’s psychosis would manifest itself in a religious context. The religiously insane are no less insane than anyone else. By shielding religion from the competency analysis, the court does it no favor, implying that religious beliefs either can’t stand up to rigorous scrutiny or are irrelevant to a person’s competence, both of which are false and, frankly, offensive. The only beliefs rightly immune from judicial scrutiny are those that, at the end of the day, don’t matter very much. Religious beliefs matter, at least under the Constitution.
[...] before about the tension between religion and democracy (see also here) and, more recently, about how religion is treated by our courts (see also Jason’s post on circumcision). When we expect personally devout political leaders [...]