Atheist's rights were Violated

http://www.redding.com/news/2010/apr/08/judge-atheists-rights-violated/

Freedom from religion has taken a step in the right direction:

“State parole officers violated a Redding atheist’s rights when they imprisoned him for refusing to participate in a religious drug treatment program, a federal judge has ruled.

Barry Hazle Jr., a 40-year-old computer services specialist, has sued his parole officer and nearly a dozen others in connection with his 125-day imprisonment in 2007 after he declined to participate in a 12-step treatment program at Empire Recovery Center. In his recent ruling, the judge dropped Empire Recovery Center from the suit, which is scheduled for trial in late June.

“I am very gratified with the judge’s determination as to the parole defendants,” said Hazle, son of Maline Hazle, Record Searchlight metro editor. “I’ve always known that my First Amendment rights were violated.”

John Heller, a San Francisco-based attorney representing Hazle, said the case goes to the heart of Establishment Clause protections against forced participation in religious activities.

“This is one of the most important protections from government intrusion you can imagine,” Heller said. “You don’t get to trample on somebody’s constitutional rights just because they happen to be on parole.”

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in late 2008 declared that placing parolees in religious-based drug treatment programs over their objections is unconstitutional, based on a 2007 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling for a Hawaiian Buddhist who had objected to a 12-step program.

The CDCR has ordered parole officers to find alternative programs for such parolees.
The order came too late for Hazle, who will seek damages and an injunction “prohibiting the illegal expenditure of state money to fund unconstitutional parole practices” at trial in June.

U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. had denied that injunction in his summary judgment in the Hazle case, ruling the CDCR’s order made the issue moot.
Heller, Hazle’s attorney, said he wants something more ironclad than the state order.
“We want to make sure this never happens again,” Heller said.

Hazle had asked for a secular drug treatment program just before he was released from the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco in February 2007. He had spent a year at the center on drug possession charges that had earlier been overturned by an appeals court, according to court documents.

A representative of WestCare California Inc., a Las Vegas-based nonprofit that coordinates substance abuse programs under contract with the CDCR, had recommended that Hazle attend Empire Recovery Center in Redding.

Hazle went to Empire and quickly discovered the treatment center uses a 12-step program that appeals to God and “higher powers,” according to court documents.
Hazle asked both his parole officer, Mitch Crofoot, and WestCare whether he could transfer to a non-religious drug treatment center. Crofoot and WestCare both told him there were no secular alternatives.

Hazle filed a formal appeal with the state asking for transfer. If transfer wasn’t possible, Hazle wanted to be excused from the residential drug treatment requirement.
Meanwhile, Hazle resisted participating in the treatment program at Empire.

Employees there told Crofoot that Hazle had been “disruptive, though in a congenial way, to the staff as well as other students ... sort of passive-aggressive,” according to court documents.

Crofoot and his supervisor took Hazle’s resistance as grounds to send him back to prison. Authorities shipped him to Norco five weeks after he had been released.
Back in prison, Hazle learned the state had rejected his objection to participating in the Empire program. Authorities noted Hazle’s “negative behavior has caused (him) to be discharged” and the state had no alternative but to incarcerate him “for further treatment,” according to court documents.

A CDRC spokeswoman said the agency needed more time to review Hazle’s case before commenting.

Representatives of Empire Recovery Center and WestCare did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday afternoon.”

Everyone deserves to have their constitutional rights upheld. Even if they have been convicted of committing a crime.