A federal judge in West Virginia ruled that the state corrections agency cannot force an incarcerated atheist and secular humanist to participate in religiously affiliated programming in order to be eligible for parole.
Joseph Goodwin, a Charleston-based US district court judge, said the Saint Marys Correctional Center inmate, Andrew Miller, “easily meets his threshold burden of showing an impingement on his rights”.
The state’s “unmitigated actions force Mr Miller to choose between two distinct but equally irreparable injuries”, the judge wrote. He can either “submit to government coercion and engage in religious exercise at odds with his own beliefs” or “remain incarcerated until at least April 2025”.
Goodwin issued a preliminary injunction requiring officials to remove completion of a state-run and federally-funded residential substance abuse program from Miller’s parole eligibility requirements. The agency did not comment.
Miller filed suit in April, alleging the state forced Christianity on incarcerated people and failed to accommodate repeated requests to honor his lack of belief in God.
The suit claimed Miller encountered “religious coercion” in June 2021 when he entered the Pleasants county correctional facility. Miller is serving a one- to 10-year sentence for breaking and entering. Substance use was not a factor in his offense but Miller was enrolled in the program because he is in recovery from addiction.
He alleged the federally funded substance abuse treatment program – a requirement for his parole consideration – was “infused with Christian practices” including Christian reading materials and mandated Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings, where the Serenity and Lord’s Prayer are recited.
Due to the religious elements of the program, Miller withdrew from it after five days. Prior to incarceration, he received secular treatment and maintained his sobriety for four years, according to his suit.
Multiple courts have determined that step-based programs like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are religious-based because they are predicated on the existence of a higher power or a God. Steps ask participants to turn their “lives over to the care of God” and encourages prayer to improve “conscious contact with God”.
In the Big Book, the foundational document of these programs, Chapter 4: We Agnostics tells atheists and agnostics that they are “doomed to alcoholic death” unless they “seek Him”. The chapter characterizes non-believers as “handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice”.
Judge Goodwin said although West Virginia’s “longstanding” program has never faced judicial scrutiny, other courts have found such programs to contain “such substantial religious components that governmentally compelled participation” violates the first amendment.
“I have been provided with no evidence that West Virginia’s program is any less religious or less coercive than the programs invalidated in other jurisdictions,” Goodwin said.
A parole board panel interviewed Miller three times and declined to grant parole. Miller alleged his failure to complete the program contributed significantly to the decision, something the state did not dispute.
“Although Mr Miller has no entitlement to parole, the record strongly suggests that he would already have been released but for maintaining his objections to an unconstitutional policy,” Goodwin said.
Geoffrey T Blackwell, litigation counsel for American Atheists who represented Miller along with the nonprofit legal services organization Mountain State Justice, called the ruling “a complete vindication of Andrew’s rights under the law”.
“Without Andrew’s willingness to take on this fight, West Virginia would continue to unconstitutionally impose religion on people in its corrections system,” he said.
American Atheists fights for atheists’ civil liberties and advocates the separation of church and state in the US.
Lesley Nash, an attorney with Mountain State Justice, said the organization was pleased the court protected Miller’s rights when the state did not.
“No one should be forced to set aside their moral or religious creed as a precondition of their parole,” Nash said.
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