Appeals court upholds ruling against funding for Christian prison programs

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s decision saying state funding for a Christian prison program in Iowa was unconstitutional.

But the three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in its Dec. 3 ruling, overturned the lower court’s decree ordering the Christian group to reimburse the state of Iowa for most of the funds it spent on the program.

The judges said the lower court was correct in ruling that the InnerChange program at Iowa’s Newton Correctional Facility violated the First Amendment, as well as provisions of the Iowa constitution. That was because participants were offered living-arrangement advantages unavailable to those who did not participate in the program, the prison had no way to monitor whether government funds given to it were spent on sectarian purposes, and the program was focused on Bible study and conversion.

“Under these facts, the claim that prisoners participated ‘voluntarily’ mocks religious freedom,” said BJC General Counsel K. Hollyn Hollman. “The government contracted with one vendor and prisoners had no access to comparable secular services.”

In the case, a group of Iowa taxpayers and inmates represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued InnerChange, which also operates in other prisons around the nation. It is run by Prison Fellowship, the ministry to prisoners founded by former Nixon White House official, Chuck Colson.

The panel was joined by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who is filling in for the 8th Circuit temporarily.

The appellate judges said the lower federal court erred in ordering InnerChange and Prison Fellowship to reimburse Iowa for more than $1.5 million in state funds it paid to operate InnerChange at the Newton facility prior to the lower court’s ruling. That ruling came in June 2006.

Nonetheless, InnerChange will still have to return state funds received between the 2006 ruling and last July, when Iowa officials stopped funding the program.

“While the First Amendment and other religious liberty laws require accommodation of religious practice for prisoners, the government is not allowed to endorse religion or sponsor religious conversion programs,” Hollman said. “The program challenged in this case should never have been funded with tax dollars.”

The program has continued to operate at the Newton facility, but it does so under an agreement with the Iowa Department of Corrections that private funds would underwrite it. A stipulation of the agreement was that the state could end the program if the appeals panel ruled against it.

It was not immediately clear whether Iowa would exercise that option.

Prison Fellowship released a statement focusing on the reversal of the lower court’s decision to force it to reimburse Iowa to the tune of $1.5 million.

“The Eighth Circuit has acknowledged that the operational changes we have made to the program have enabled it to remain in good constitutional standing,” Mark Early, the group’s president, said. “We are appreciative of the court for today’s guidelines that provide clearer ground rules as we continue to address a crime problem that threatens the safety of our nation’s communities.”

The case is Americans United v. Prison Fellowship, No. 06-2741.

— ABP and staff