Founder and president of Oklevueha Native American Church of Hawaii, Inc. (“Oklevueha”), Michael Rex “Raging Bear” Mooney, filed suit in 2009 against various federal officials in the Federal District Court of Hawaii.  Mooney and Oklevueha sought to prevent the government from prosecuting them under the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”), 21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq. for possession of marijuana.  They argued that possessing cannabis for religious or therapeutic use, obtaining cannabis, and cultivating or distributing cannabis consistent with state law is protected religious exercise under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), and that the federal government had substantially burdened the Church’s religious exercise by prosecuting them for possessing the drug.

Given the lack of evidence presented on the issue by the Plaintiffs, the Court was skeptical that marijuana use constituted religious exercise.  However, the Court never answered the question of whether Mooney and Oklevueha’s cannabis use is “an exercise of religion” because it found that no rational trier of fact could conclude a prohibition of cannabis use imposes a “substantial burden” on religious exercise.

Like RLUIPA, RFRA does not define a “substantial burden,” but courts, including the Ninth Circuit, look to cases decided before Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990) for the proper judicial framework.  A substantial burden is imposed “only when individuals are . . . coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions . . . .” (citing Navajo Nation v. U.S. Forest Serv., 535 F.3d 1058, 1070 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc)).

At the heart of the Court’s reasoning was that Mooney and Oklevueha did not allege that the CSA’s prohibition on cannabis “‘force[s] [them] to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit,’ the other kind of substantial burden we have recognized under RFRA.” (citing Navajo Nation, 535 at 1070).

The Plaintiffs were not forced to make such a choice, the Court reasoned, because they “expressly told us that foregoing cannabis is not contrary to their religious beliefs.” Instead, cannabis could be used as a substitute for peyote and Mooney and Oklevueha did not plead they could not obtain peyote.  Also, other “naturally occurring substances” could be used as an adequate substitute.

Unlike the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Schlemm v. Wall (7th Cir. 2015), where the court concluded that the Supreme Court decisions in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014) and Holt v. Hobbs (2014) articulated a substantial burden standard “much easier to satisfy” than the Seventh Circuit had previously applied, the Ninth Circuit quickly distinguished the SCOTUS cases.  (Post regarding Schlemm here) Unlike the Seventh Circuit, the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of a “substantial burden” remained focused on pre-Employment Division v. Smith case law.

The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Oklevueha Native American and Church of Hawaii, Inc.; Michael Rex Mooney v. Lynch et. al., No. 14-15143 (9th Cir. 2016) is available here.

Original photo by Dave H., some rights reserved.

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Photo of Evan Seeman Evan Seeman

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of…

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of an amicus curiae brief at the petition stage before the United States Supreme Court in a RLUIPA case entitled City of San Leandro v. International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Evan serves as the Secretary/Treasurer of the APA’s Planning & Law Division. He also serves as the Chair of the Planning & Zoning Section of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section, and is the former Co-Chair of its Municipal Law Section. He has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list as a Rising Star in the area of Land Use Law for 2013 and 2014. He received his B.A. in political science and Russian studies (with honors) from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was selected as the President’s Fellow in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. Evan received his Juris Doctor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, where he served on the Connecticut Law Review. While in law school, he interned with the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General in the environmental department, and served as a judicial intern for the judges of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court. Following law school, Evan clerked for the Honorable F. Herbert Gruendel of the Connecticut Appellate Court.

Photo of Dwight Merriam Dwight Merriam

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of…

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a former Director of the American Planning Association (APA), a former chair of APA’s Planning and Law Division, Immediate Past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of State and Local Government Law, Chair of the Institute of Local Government Studies at the Center for American and International Law, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a member of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute National Advisory Board, a Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, a Counselor of Real Estate, a member of the Anglo-American Real Property Institute, and a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers.

He teaches land use law at the University of Connecticut School of Law and at Vermont Law School and has published over 200 articles and eight books, including Inclusionary Zoning Moves Downtown, The Takings Issue, The Complete Guide to Zoning, and Eminent Domain Use and Abuse: Kelo in Context. He is the senior co-author of the leading casebook on land use law, Planning and Control of Land Development (Eighth Edition). Dwight has written and spoken widely on how to avoid RLUIPA claims and how to successfully defend against them in court. He is currently writing a book on the subject, RLUIPA DEFENSE, for the American Bar Association.

Dwight has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list in the area of Land Use Law since 2006, is one of the Top 50 Connecticut Super Lawyers in Connecticut, and is one of the Top 100 New England Super Lawyers (Super Lawyers is a registered trademark of Key Professional Media, Inc.). He received his B.A. (cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts, his Masters of Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina, where he was the graduation speaker in 2011, and his J.D. from Yale. He is a featured speaker at many land use seminars, and presents monthly audio land use seminars for the International Municipal Lawyers Association. Dwight has been cited in the national press from The New York Times to People magazine and has appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, MSNBC and public television.

Dwight also had a career in the Navy, serving for three tours in Vietnam aboard ship, then returning to be the Senior Advisor of the Naval ROTC Unit at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where he taught Defense Administration and Military Management as an Assistant Professor in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum in Defense Administration and Military Management. He left active duty after seven years to attend law school, but continued on for 24 more years as a reserve Surface Warfare Officer with two major commands, including that of the reserve commanding officer of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. He retired as a Captain in 2009 after 31 years of service.