United States v. Farah Ali, No. 11-3512 (8th Cir. 2012)
Annotate this CaseDefendant was found guilty of twelve counts of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and one count of conspiring to do so. During trial, the district court cited defendant for criminal contempt for repeatedly failing to stand when the court convened and recessed as required by a pretrial order. After her first failure to stand, defendant objected to the order as violating her right to the free exercise of religion. Defendant subsequently appealed her 20 criminal contempt citations and her 25 day prison sentence, contending that they violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. 2000bb, et seq. The court affirmed defendant's first citation because she knew about the court order in advance, failed to make a formal challenge although she had the opportunity to do so, and knowingly violated the order by failing to rise. Because the district court applied only a First Amendment analysis in regards to her objection to the burden the order placed on her exercise of religion, it never evaluated whether the pretrial order was the least restrictive means to achieve a compelling government interest, as required by RFRA. Thus, the court vacated the subsequent citations and remanded to the district court to evaluate this issue.
Court Description: Criminal case - Criminal law. In an appeal of defendant's criminal contempt citations, where she violated a pre-trial order in her criminal case by failing to stand when the court convened and recessed, defendant may not challenge the contempt citation based on her first failure to rise because she knew of the order and failed to make a formal challenge to it; after the first failure to rise in violation of the order, defendant challenged the pretrial order on the grounds of her religious beliefs and, having raised the defense of free exercise of religion, she was entitled to risk contempt convictions in order to avail herself of the right to expedited appellate review; in analyzing defendant's objections to the order, the court only applied a First Amendment analysis and never evaluated whether the pretrial order was the least restrictive means to achieve a compelling state interest as required by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act; as a result, the matter must be remanded to the district court for it to evaluate whether the pretrial order was the least restrictive means to maintaining order in the courtroom.
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