Benchslaps All Around: Watch Out For Those Wiccans
Did a Wiccan prisoner cast a spell on the Ninth Circuit?
(By Midnightblueowl via English Wikipedia)
“Witches and the Law.” It’s only a matter of time before this course enters the law school curriculum, right? It seems there’s already a bibliography for such a class.
One can see many angles. The Salem witch trials. The law student witch who tried to pay for BARBRI by selling spells on eBay. And now this, from the Ninth Circuit.
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Because of course it’s from the Ninth Circuit. Per Courthouse News Service (emphasis added):
The Ninth Circuit on Friday found that a federal judge didn’t check whether prison officials were complying with a consent decree about an inmate’s Wiccan religion before he dismissed it.
“We are disappointed by the district court’s insouciance in this case. The court committed numerous errors in terminating a consent decree that had been carefully crafted over the course of two decades,” Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the majority.
Mess with a Wiccan, you get the horns — of the Horned God himself, Judge Alex Kozinski.
And the district court, aka Judge R. Gary Klausner, wasn’t the only one who got benchslapped in this opinion. The clerk’s office didn’t fare so well either (again, emphasis supplied):
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Bluntly stated, the record documented in Appendix A casts doubt on whether anyone in the Central District of California’s Clerk’s Office is paying attention to the important and sensitive process of providing parties with fair notice of the court’s orders. How can it be that the district court failed to implement the change of address for the delivery of orders after granting [inmate William] Rouser’s motion to proceed pro se, and then ignored almost two dozen orders that were returned to the court as undeliverable? Is the problem we note here limited to this case or does it reflect an absence of procedures designed to prevent and correct such errors in other cases? We find it inconceivable that a properly run clerk’s office would permit this to go on over the course of years.
Judge Kozinski was joined in the opinion by Judge James K. Singleton (D. Alaska). Mother Goddess Consuelo Callahan, proving herself impervious to Wiccan magic, dissented.
Moral of the story: yes, Wicca might seem weird — but it’s no weirder really than any other religion, and entitled to the same respect from prison officials, court clerks, and federal judges.
Rouser v. White [U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit]
9th Circ. Reinstates Order for Wiccan Prisoner [Courthouse News Service]
Earlier: Law Student Witch Sells Spells for Bar Exam Prep Course Money
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David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.
