Torcaso v. Watkins

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Torcaso v. Watkins

Argued April 24, 1961
Decided June 19, 1961


Full case name:	Torcaso v. Watkins, Clerk

Citations:	367 U.S. 488
Prior history:	Judgement for respondent, Maryland Circuit Court, 223 Md. 49; Judgement affirmed, Court of Appeals of Maryland, 162 A. 2d 438.

Subsequent history:	Reversed and remanded

Holding

Government cannot require a religious test for public office.

Court membership

Chief Justice: Earl Warren
Associate Justices: Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Charles Evans Whittaker, Potter Stewart

Case opinions

Majority by: Black
Joined by: unanimous

Laws applied

U.S. Constitution Amendments I, XIV

Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961) was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court reaffirmed that the US Constitution prohibited the states from requiring any kind of religious test for public office.

1 Background
2 Constitutional text
3 The Court's decision
4 External links

[edit] Background

In the early 1960s, the Governor of Maryland appointed Roy Torcaso as a notary public. At the time, Maryland required "a declaration of belief in the existence of God" (Maryland Declaration of Rights, Article 37) in order for a person to hold "any office of profit or trust in this State" (ibid.).

Torcaso, an atheist, refused to make such a statement, and his appointment was consequentially revoked. Torcaso, believing his constitutional rights to freedom of religious expression had been infringed, filed suit in a Maryland Circuit Court, only to be rebuffed; the Circuit Court rejected his claim, and Maryland's Court of Appeals held that the requirement for a declaration of belief in God as a qualification for office was self-executing.

The Court of Appeals justified its decision:

"The petitioner is not compelled to believe or disbelieve, under threat of punishment or other compulsion. True, unless he makes the declaration of belief, he cannot hold public office in Maryland, but he is not compelled to hold office."

Torcaso took the matter to the United States Supreme Court, where it was heard on April 24th, 1961.

[edit] Constitutional text

[edit] Article VI

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

[edit] Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

[edit] Amendment XIV, Section 1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

[edit] The Court's decision

The Court unanimously found that Maryland's requirement for a person holding public office to state a belief in God violated Article VI of the United States Constitution, and its First and Fourteenth Amendments.

The Court had previously established in Everson v. Board of Education (1947):

"The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion."

Writing for the Court, Justice Hugo Black recalled Everson v. Board of Education, and explicitly linked Torcaso v. Watkins to its conclusions:

"There is, and can be, no dispute about the purpose or effect of the Maryland Declaration of Rights requirement before us - it sets up a religious test which was designed to and, if valid, does bar every person who refuses to declare a belief in God from holding a public "office of profit or trust" in Maryland.

...

"We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person "to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion." Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs."

Rebuffing the judgement of the Maryland Court of Appeals, Justice Black added:

"The fact, however, that a person is not compelled to hold public office cannot possibly be an excuse for barring him from office by state-imposed criteria forbidden by the Constitution."