Teen Sentenced To Attend Church In Order To Avoid Jail Time

The sharia judge can only convict someone for a qisas crime, the victim/victim's family determines the punishment. However, if the victim's family pardons the criminal, in addition to the sharia punishment the criminal would normally receive a tazir prison sentence (such as ten to twenty years in prison) for crimes such as "intentional loss of life", "tazir assault and battery" "disturbance of the peace", and so forth. However, if the murder/injury was unpremeditated (such as during a fight or if there were mitigating factors), then the person would be released after paying the blood money, or spend a short time in prison.
Semi-intentional murder/injury is rarely applied, only if a person carried out an act that would not normally be dangerous/lethal, but it resulted in death/injury. In most cases, semi-intentional murder/injury would be prosecuted as intentional murder/battery. And lastly, unintentional murder/battery is when the crime was clearly accidental. This is punishable by only paying diyya, If the perpetrator cannot afford the blood money, he/she can fast for two months straight to be forgiven. Neither semi-intentional or unintentional murder/injury is punishable by qisas.In sharia law, murder and injury is seen as a tort, and the victim could either forgive the perpetrator or have him/her punished with the same injury/death inflicted (eye for an eye) if it was intentionally committed. Unlike common and civil law, there are very few mitigating factors for the death penalty, often those who murder under any circumstances would either die or be forgiven by the victim's family...

The mitigating factors to qisas are:
*A father who murders his child cannot be punished by qisas (he can be punished by tazir penalty and executed/imprisoned, thus he cannot receive diyya for murdering his own child). If a mother killed her child, such as infanticide, the mother would pay diyya to charity or receive qisas.
*A person who murders a spouse/lover caught in the act of adultery (only if the murderer has four witnesses, if he/she does, would receive tazir imprisonment).
*Self-defence murder (if there are two witnesses who can prove it was self-defence, or if crime is deemed to be manslaughter).
*If the person was insane or mentally/cognitively impaired, then it would be considered semi-intentional murder.
*If a person was under the legal age (typically 15–18 years of age).
*If the person murdered on the orders of another, the mastermind would receive qisas/diyya, the actual murderer would receive tazir sentence (which would be death or imprisonment depending on whether the family forgave the mastermind). If someone induced a minor or an insane person to murder,
If it was an abortion, usually measured after three months in a pregnancy, the woman may pay 1/10 of the blood money to charity or face imprisonment (not qisas). If somebody forced a woman to have a miscarriage, the rule is the same.

I can't see why folks are upset about a sentence that is being embraced by all of the principles.

The Gavel of God: Oklahoma Judge Sentences Teen To Church Rather Than Jail in Manslaughter Case
November 20, 2012
by Jonathan Turley

We have another judge who has decided to create his own system of criminal punishment with novel sentencing. Oklahoma judge Mike Norman has magnified this increasingly common form of judicial abuse by adding compelled religious observance to sentence. Norman deferred a prison sentence for Tyler Alred, 17, in exchange for his agreement to attend church for 10 years. Norman observed “[t]he Lord works in many ways,” including it appears through him and his court. While many would view the imposition of religious observance in a criminal sentence as something akin to an American Taliban court, Norman insists that he has judicially ordered religious practices in the past.

Alred pleaded guilty to an August crash that killed his friend and passenger John Luke Dum. Alred had been drinking before the accident.

As in many of these cases, there is no one in the case to challenge the obvious constitutional violation since both the prosecutor and the family support the sentence. The agreement of the prosecutors shows an ethical and professional failure to protect the integrity of the legal system.

Norman admitted that “There are a lot of people who say I can’t do what I did. They’re telling me I can’t legally sentence someone to church.” Well, yes, that would be anyone who reads and believes in the Constitution.

Norman is a member of First Baptist Church in Muskogee and said that “I told my preacher I thought I led more people to Jesus than he had.” Of course, that is his preacher’s job.

I have written columns here...
http://jonathanturley.org/2007/08/18/humiliating-punishments-and-the-abuse-of-judicial-power/
http://jonathanturley.org/2007/08/18/humiliating-punishments-and-the-abuse-of-judicial-power/
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/08/24/good-judge-or-bad-gamble-in-nevada-judge-orders-defendant-to-write-report-criticizing-drug-policies-as-punishment/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/25/extreme-judicial-makeover-utah-judge-orders-mother-to-cut-off-13-year-old-girls-ponytail-or-accept-longer-detention/
and here
http://jonathanturley.org/2008/03/22/iowa-judge-orders-criminal-to-church-in-another-abuse-of-creative-sentencing/

criticizing this worrisome trend, though the most serious such cases involve judges like Norman who try to bring “more people to Jesus” while carrying out his duties as a judicial officer. These judges make a mockery out of our court system and sit like little Caesars in meting out their own idiosyncratic forms of justice — often to the thrill of citizens. They degrade not just their courts in such novel sentencing but the legal system as a whole. This judge appears to relish his reputation as the gavel of God — sending felons to embrace faith.

In the meantime, other judges, prosecutors, and the state bar remain silent in the face of this judicial abuse. I can understand a judge ignoring the most fundamental principles of our Constitution and our profession. What I cannot understand is an entire bar that just stands by silently as he imposes religious-based sentences. I have often spoken to the Oklahoma bar members and I have previously stated my love for the state. I am saddened to see the lack of action taken against Norman in a bar with so many talented and respected lawyers.
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/11/20/the-gavel-of-god-oklahoma-judge-sentences-teen-to-church-rather-than-jail-in-manslaughter-case/

JONATHAN TURLEY

Professor Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. He has written over three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals at Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Northwestern, and other schools.

After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the George Washington faculty in 1990 and, in 1998, was given the prestigious Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law, the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history. In addition to his extensive publications, Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades ranging, representing whistleblowers, military personnel, and a wide range of other clients.
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/11/20/the-gavel-of-god-oklahoma-judge-sentences-teen-to-church-rather-than-jail-in-manslaughter-case/

The New York Times
November 21, 2012
Constitution Experts Denounce Oklahoma Judge’s Sentencing of Youth to Church
By ERIK ECKHOLM

Initially there was little outcry in Muskogee, Okla., last week when a judge, as a condition of a youth’s probation for a driving-related manslaughter conviction, sentenced him to attend church regularly for 10 years.

The judge, Mike Norman, 67, had sentenced people to church before, though never for such a serious crime.

But as word of the ruling spread in state and national legal circles, constitutional experts condemned it as a flagrant violation of the separation of church and state.

This week, the American Civil Liberties Union said it would file a complaint against Judge Norman with the Oklahoma Council on Judicial Complaints, an agency that investigates judicial misconduct, seeking an official reprimand or other sanctions.

“We see a judge who has shown disregard for the First Amendment of the Constitution in his rulings,” said Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the civil liberties union branch in Oklahoma.

The 17-year-old defendant, Tyler Alred, was prosecuted as a youthful offender, giving the judge more discretion than in an adult case. Mr. Alred pleaded guilty to manslaughter for an accident last year, when he ran his car into a tree and a 16-year-old passenger was killed.

Although his alcohol level tested below the legal limit, because he was under age he was legally considered to be under the influence of alcohol. Mr. Alred told the court that he was happy to agree to church attendance and other mandates — including that he finish high school and train as a welder, and shun alcohol, drugs and tobacco for a year. By doing so, he is avoiding a 10-year prison sentence and has a chance to make a fresh start.

But his acquiescence does not change the law, Mr. Kiesel and others pointed out. “Alternative sentencing is something that should be encouraged, but there are many options that don’t violate the Constitution,” Mr. Kiesel said. “A choice of going to prison or to church — that is precisely the type of coercion that the First Amendment seeks to prevent.”

Mr. Alred and his family already attend a church, although Judge Norman said in an interview that he had not known that when he ruled.

The judge said he was surprised at the criticism. “I feel like church is important,” he said. “I sentenced him to go to church for 10 years because I thought I could do that.”

He added, “I am satisfied that both the families in this case think we’ve made the right decision,” and noted that the dead boy’s father had tearfully hugged Mr. Alred in the courtroom. If Mr. Alred stops attending church or violates any other terms of his probation, Judge Norman said, he will send him to prison.

As for the constitutionality of his ruling, Judge Norman said, “I think it would hold up, but I don’t know one way or another.”

Judge Norman did not specify which religious denomination Mr. Alred must follow. But he also said: “I think Jesus can help anybody. I know I need help from him every day.”

Randall T. Coyne, a professor of criminal law at the University of Oklahoma, agreed that the judge’s church requirement was unconstitutional. But unless the defendant fights the ruling, he said, civil liberties advocates have no way to challenge it in court, leaving the complaint to the judicial review agency as their only option.

Over the years, several judges around the country have mandated church attendance as part of sentences, sometimes stirring criticism. In the early 1990s in Louisiana, Judge Thomas P. Quirk ordered hundreds of defendants in traffic and misdemeanor cases to attend church once a week for a year. The judge said that he had imposed the condition only on people who agreed to it, and that it provided a good alternative to sending defendants to overcrowded jails or imposing fines they could not afford.

The Judiciary Commission of Louisiana found that Judge Quirk had engaged in knowing violations of the Constitution and recommended that he be suspended without pay for 12 months. But the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that while the judge might have erred, he did not engage in “judicial misconduct,” and it rescinded the sanctions.

In 2011, the city of Bay Minette, Ala., required first-time misdemeanor offenders to choose between doing jail time and attending church weekly for a year. The city dropped the program after the American Civil Liberties Union called it unconstitutional.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/us/oklahoma-judges-sentencing-of-youth-to-church-stirs-criticism.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1353597702-vubGZbXs1B45O+EVrr1OfQ

But his acquiescence does not change the law, Mr. Kiesel and others pointed out

I don't understand the ban on tobacco for a year.

what the hell does that have to do with drunk driving or killing your best friend?

Why don't you send a copy of Professor Turley's opinion to the OK bar and demand secular justice?

it seems as though the victim's family has decided on forgiveness.

JPB wrote:

it seems as though the victim's family has decided on forgiveness.

so when the cops arrive to find a bloodied woman in her home and she says "it's ok, he won't do it again", it's all good?



I definitely don't think we get to pick and choose which laws are applied and in which circumstances.

I don't understand the ban on tobacco for a year.

what the hell does that have to do with drunk driving or killing your best friend?

Apples and oranges.

Some of us don't think that the government has juristiction to enter all disputes, and that in order to claim that a crime has taken place needs to present a victim.

Actually, such could happen here, too (though it is disputed by quite a few law professors).

The main difference, however, is that verdicts under juvenile criminal law are ruled under special preventive (educational) aspects. That give judges a broad spectrum of possibilities ... and the probation officers a lot of work.