State v. Patzer

• Decision Date: 20 February 1986
• Citation: 382 N.W.2d 631
• Parties: 30 Ed. Law Rep. 1265 STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Thomas PATZER, Defendant and Appellant. STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Peggy PATZER, Defendant and Appellant. STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Raymond LARSEN, Defendant and Appellant. STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Lorita LARSEN, Defendant and Appellant. STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Richard REIMCHE, Defendant and Appellant. STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Kathy REIMCHE, Defendant and Appellant. STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Gerald LUND, Defendant and Appellant. STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Sheryl LUND, Defendant and Appellant. CR.1096 to CR. 1099, CR. 1101 to CR. 1104.
• Court: North Dakota Supreme Court

Page 631

382 N.W.2d 631

30 Ed. Law Rep. 1265

STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Thomas PATZER, Defendant and Appellant.

STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Peggy PATZER, Defendant and Appellant.

STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Raymond LARSEN, Defendant and Appellant.

STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Lorita LARSEN, Defendant and Appellant.

STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Richard REIMCHE, Defendant and Appellant.

STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Kathy REIMCHE, Defendant and Appellant.

STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Gerald LUND, Defendant and Appellant.

STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Sheryl LUND, Defendant and Appellant.

CR.1096 to CR. 1099, CR. 1101 to CR. 1104.

Supreme Court of North Dakota.

Feb. 20, 1986.

John R. Gregg, Bottineau, for plaintiff and appellee in Nos. 1101-1104.

Richardson, Blaisdell, Isakson & Lange, Hazen, for defendants and appellants in Nos. 1101-1104; argued by Gregory L. Lange.

Charles J. Gilje, Jamestown, for plaintiff and appellee in Nos. 1096-1099.

Richardson, Blaisdell, Isakson & Lange, Hazen, and J. Douglas Alexander, Sidney, Mont., for defendants and appellants in Nos. 1096-1099; argued by Gregory L. Lange.

LEVINE, Justice.

The defendants in these consolidated appeals, ¹ parents who refused to send their children to school and instead sought to educate them in their homes, were convicted of violating North Dakota's compulsory school attendance laws, Chapter 15-34.1, N.D.C.C. None of the parents is a certified teacher or presently certifiable under state law, nor are their children being taught by certified teachers in the homes. The parents assert that their convictions should be reversed because the compulsory school attendance laws, as applied to them, unconstitutionally infringe upon their religious beliefs. We conclude that the state has an interest in the teacher certification feature of the compulsory school attendance laws which is of sufficient magnitude to override the burden imposed upon the religious interests claimed by the parents under the circumstances and, accordingly, affirm the judgments of conviction.

Tom Patzer and Peggy Patzer and Ray Larsen and Lorita Larsen were convicted in a consolidated bench trial in Stutsman County. The Patzers are Seventh Day Adventists and the parents of Jeremy, age eight at the time of trial. Peggy Patzer has taken two years of college instruction. Tom Patzer has a masters degree in divinity and at the time of trial served as pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Jamestown. Ray Larsen and Lorita Larsen are also Seventh Day Adventists and the parents of Michael and Brian, ages nine and seven respectively at the time of trial. Lorita Larsen has a bachelor of science degree in nursing. Ray Larsen is an ophthalmologist practicing in Jamestown. Although there is a state-approved Seventh Day Adventist School in Jamestown, the Patzers and Larsens chose not to send their children to it because of their religious beliefs.

Richard Reimche and Kathy Reimche and Gerald Lund and Sheryl Lund were convicted in a consolidated bench trial in Bottineau County. The Reimches attend the Lutheran Brethren Church in Bottineau and are the parents of Rachel and Joshua, ages eight and ten respectively at the time of trial. Richard Reimche has a high school diploma and has taken one year of post-high school instruction. Kathy Reimche has a high school diploma. Gerald Lund and Sheryl Lund are members of the Bottineau Seventh Day Adventist Church and are the parents of Naleah, age eight at the time of trial. Sheryl Lund has had one and one-half years of college education, and Gerald Lund has a high school diploma. Although the Reimche and Lund children had previously attended public schools, their parents decided for religious reasons to remove them from school.

The parents essentially believe that God has given them sole responsibility to educate their children. They fear that their children, by attending school at an early age, will become "peer socialized" and will accept the values and beliefs of their classmates rather than those of their parents. Peer socialization, they believe, will preclude their children from gaining the religious values the parents believe are essential to the spiritual salvation of their children. The parents testified that their children could be educated outside of the home at some point, but the ages at which they believed this could be accomplished varied, essentially depending upon when the particular child was mature enough to resist peer pressure.

Dr. Raymond Moore, president of the Hewitt Research Foundation; Dr. Donald Erickson, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at U.C.L.A.; and Rousas John Rushdoony, president of the Chalcedon Foundation, testified on behalf of the defendants. The essence of their testimony was that children under the age of thirteen are more susceptible to peer dependency than are children above that age, and that peer dependency could adversely affect their religious values; that home education, mainly because of the one-to-one relationship between teacher and child, is the most effective means of educating a child; and that the state teacher certification requirements are unnecessary for a parent to successfully educate a child in the home. Dr. Moore testified that he had reviewed the educational procedures used by each family and found them adequate to secure a sound education for the children.

At the outset, we note that the issue in the present case is not whether the state may constitutionally impose a total prohibition of a home study alternative to institutional education. During oral arguments, counsel for the defendants informed us that the state has given approval to several home schools in which children are being instructed by persons who hold teaching certificates. The issue in this case is the narrower one of whether the parents, because of their religious beliefs, have the right to educate their children at home without complying with a law requiring certification of all persons who give instruction to children within the state. ²

Resolution of a conflict among the state's interest in its compulsory education laws, the fundamental rights and interests protected by the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, and the traditional interest of parents with respect to the religious upbringing of their children necessitates a three-fold inquiry: (1) whether the activity interfered with by the state is motivated by and rooted in a legitimate and sincerely-held religious belief; (2) whether the parents' free exercise of religion has been burdened by the regulation, and the extent of or impact of the burden on their religious practices; and (3) whether the state has a compelling interest in the regulation which justifies the burden on the free exercise of religion and overrides the interest of the parents in exercising their religious practices. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972); State v. Rivinius, 328 N.W.2d 220 (N.D.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1070, 103 S.Ct. 1525, 75 L.Ed.2d 948 (1983); State v. Shaver, 294 N.W.2d 883 (N.D.1980).

Counsel for the state in these cases have conceded, and we will therefore assume for purposes of argument, that the parents' decisions not to enroll their children in state-approved schools but to educate them in their homes are motivated by sincerely-held religious beliefs. ³

The state contends, however, that the defendants have failed to establish that the compulsory attendance statutes impose a burden upon the free exercise of their religious beliefs. We disagree.

The nature of the burden on the defendants' religious beliefs in this case differs from that claimed by the defendants in Rivinius and Shaver. In those cases it was the very concept of state regulation and approval of the religious schools involved which was abhorrent to the religious beliefs of the defendants. There is no doubt that parents do not have the right to be completely unfettered by reasonable governmental regulations as to the quality of the education furnished their children. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534, 45 S.Ct. 571, 573, 69 L.Ed. 1070, 1077 (1925), the Supreme Court held that although parents have a right to send their children to schools other than public institutions, the state nevertheless has the power "reasonably to regulate all schools, [and] to inspect, supervise, and examine them, their teachers and pupils; ..." Thus, in Shaver, where the defendants had failed to show that the tenets of their religion forbade compliance with the specific requirements needed to obtain state approval, and where certified instructors were available and could teach in the religious school without violating the tenets of the defendants' religion, this court assumed for purposes of argument only that seeking state approval imposed a burden upon the defendants' religious beliefs. In Rivinius, supra, 328 N.W.2d at 227, where the defendants had shown that the tenets of their religion forbade compliance with the teacher certification requirement needed to secure state approval, but where the instructors in the religious school involved were in fact certifiable under state law, this court held that the defendants had "demonstrated that the state laws and regulations, to a degree, impose a burden upon their religious beliefs."

In the present case, the defendants do not object to state supervision in general. The parents do not claim that even if they had the requisite qualifications to become certified teachers under state law, the act of seeking certification itself would violate their religious convictions. Rather, the claim made here is that the teacher certification requirement imposes a substantial burden upon the parents' religious beliefs, which dictate that they...