Voswinkel v. City of Charlotte
Decision Date | 19 August 1980 |
Docket Number | No. C-C-80-012.,C-C-80-012. |
Citation | 495 F. Supp. 588 |
Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of North Carolina |
Parties | Patricia J. VOSWINKEL, and the Society of Separationists, Inc. (a/k/a American Atheists), Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF CHARLOTTE and J. C. Goodman, as Chief of the Charlotte Police Department, Defendants. |
Jonathan Wallas and James C. Fuller, Jr., Chambers, Stein, Ferguson & Becton, P. A., Charlotte, N. C., for plaintiffs.
Henry W. Underhill, Jr., City Atty., Richard D. Boner, Asst. City Atty., City of Charlotte, Charlotte, N. C., for defendants.
This is a suit for declaratory and injunctive relief challenging the constitutionality of the police chaplaincy recently created by the City of Charlotte. Patricia J. Voswinkel, the individual plaintiff and president of the local chapter of the corporate co-plaintiff, the Society of Separationists, Inc., is a resident taxpayer of the City of Charlotte and an avowed atheist. The individual defendant, J. C. Goodman, is chief of police for defendant City of Charlotte.
The position in question is the result of an agreement between the City of Charlotte and Providence Baptist Church approved by the Charlotte City Council on November 19, 1979. The agreement provides that the Church will furnish the City with the services of a minister to serve as a "full-time" police chaplain. After opposing the agreement unsuccessfully before the City Council, plaintiffs brought suit challenging the arrangement as violative of the First Amendment prohibition against any law "respecting an establishment of religion." Defendants' motion to dismiss was denied after plaintiffs successfully amended the complaint to show standing to challenge the municipal act in question. The suit is now before the court on opposing motions for summary judgment.
Defendants contend the arrangement should be sustained as one with both a secular purpose and a predominantly secular effect. Plaintiffs insist the agreement gives a preferred position to the Providence Baptist Church, and to Baptists and Protestants in general, over other religious groups and results in "excessive entanglement" of the City with religion. Both sides submitted lengthy briefs, and the motions were heard on oral argument on April 10, 1980. It appears from the evidence of record that, while some facts are disputed, the disputed facts are not material to a decision in the case. After considering relevant decisions of the Supreme Court and lower courts, I hold that, on the undisputed evidence, the agreement providing for the police chaplain violates the Establishment Clause, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, plaintiffs are entitled to summary judgment. A discussion of the evidence and the law follows.
The evidence before the court consists of the admitted allegations of the complaint; the depositions of Police Chief Goodman and Police Chaplain Dennis L. Whitaker; a stipulation of facts; a copy of the agreement; and an affidavit by Dr. Daniel Biber, a practicing clinical psychologist. Except where otherwise indicated, the evidence is uncontroverted.
The text of the agreement approved on November 19, 1979, is reproduced here in its entirety. Those provisions which assertedly render the entire agreement void under the Establishment Clause are underlined for emphasis.
The chaplain hired pursuant to the agreement is Dennis L. Whitaker, an ordained Baptist minister. He assumed his duties as police chaplain in January of 1980 (Stipulation of Fact). His background and experience combine religious training, clinical and classroom education in counseling, and extensive exposure to the area of law enforcement prior to his entering Southeastern Baptist Seminary in 1976.
Beginning in 1969 or 1970, Whitaker worked for roughly two years in public relations for a nonprofit agency involved in traffic safety. In 1971, he began five years as a criminal justice planner for the Centralina Council of Governments. During this time he had many contacts with police officers and gained extensive familiarity with police operations. One task he performed during these years was to help secure funding for courses "on stress management for police officers and how police officers could deal with family crisis situations." (Whitaker deposition at 4-7.)
Whitaker left his position as criminal justice planner in 1976 to begin study at the seminary. While there, he took "a great many courses related to counseling, family problems, crisis situation counseling." He spent his last year as a "chaplain intern" at Wake County Medical Center in Raleigh. A substantial part of his study at the seminary was, of course, devoted to religious matters (Whitaker deposition, at 7-9).
Whitaker testified at considerable length on his understanding of his duties under the agreement, particularly with respect to the provision that, while the chaplain is "not to engage in religious instruction nor conduct any service of religious worship," he "may provide religious guidance to any police officer or other person he is counseling when he is specifically requested to do so by the officer or other person being counseled." Whitaker testified to his belief, and that of all Baptists, that Jesus Christ represents the exclusive means to personal salvation and that Baptists have a duty to spread the Gospel. But Whitaker further testified that (Whitaker deposition at 11.) On the other hand, he said, if an ...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Malyon v. Pierce County, 63664-8
...needed to help people of all religious backgrounds as well as those with no religious background at all). Voswinkel v. City of Charlotte, 495 F.Supp. 588, 595-97 (1980) held Charlotte police department's use of a Baptist minister as chaplain failed the second prong of the Lemon test because......
-
Malyon v. Pierce County, 17367-1-II
...126 Wash.2d 1004, 891 P.2d 38 (1995).72 --- U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 2521.73 --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 115 S.Ct. at 2525-26.74 495 F.Supp. 588 (W.D.N.C.1980).75 Id. at 590-91.76 Id. at 592.77 495 F.Supp. at 595; Id. at 596; Id. at 596-97.78 495 F.Supp. at 597-99.79 Respondents in Grumet br......
-
Carter v. Broadlawns Medical Center, Civ. No. 84-800-E.
...of the Establishment Clause apply to both legislative enactments and other governmental activities. Voswinkel v. City of Charlotte, 495 F.Supp. 588, 594 (W.D.N.C.1980); see also Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 675, 104 S.Ct. 1355, 1360, 79 L.Ed.2d 604 The Supreme Court has set forth a thre......
-
NORTH PACIFIC UNION CONFERENCE ASSOCIATION OF SEVENTH-DAY …, 28364-6-II.
..."enmesh[ed] churches in the process of government." Larkin, 459 U.S. at 127, 103 S.Ct. 505; see also Voswinkel v. City of Charlotte, 495 F.Supp. 588, 595-97 (W.D.N.C.1980) (court struck down police department's use of a Baptist minister as chaplain because: (1) the department contracted dir......