Ricky Inouye, of Hawaii, served time for drug crimes, but landed back in jail when he refused, on religious grounds, his parole officer’s instructions to attend Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. 9th Circuit judges sided with Inouye, saying his rehabilitation order violated the First Amendment because it required religion-based treatment. Hiram Sasser with the Liberty Legal Institute says that’s unfortunate.

“We live in this society where we have judges that say that if there’s any sort of religious reference at all in a program that somebody cannot benefit from that.”

AA says spirituality is part of its accountability approach, but it’s not affiliated with any religion or sect.

“I think what you’re seeing is that there are judges that have an allergic reaction to anything religion. It’s all part of this drive to make people keep religion in their pocket or their closet at home.”

Colby May with the American Center for Law and Justice disagrees with the 9th Circuit on this one as well.

“The 9th Circuit goes out of its way to find this kind of thing. And I don’t those kind of organizations that do make themselves available to help parolees and convicts is to be disqualified simply because they had a reference to a higher being.”

Over the course of this several-year proceeding, Inouye passed away, and his son took up the case.