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-Lurid Crime Tales-

'Federal Black Robed Tyrant Reverses Conviction of Border Volunteers, Challenging Govt's 'Gruesome Logic'

2020-02-05

[The Intercept] A FEDERAL JUDGE in Tucson, Arizona, reversed the conviction of four humanitarian aid volunteers on religious freedom grounds Monday, ruling that the government had embraced a "gruesome logic" that criminalizes "interfering with a border enforcement strategy of deterrence by death."

The reversal, written by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez,

...child of Mexican immigrants, non-Ivy League, Obama appointee...

marked the latest rebuke of the Trump administration’s crackdown on humanitarian aid providers in southern Arizona, and the second time in matter of months that a religious freedom defense has prevailed in a federal case involving the provision of aid to migrants in the borderlands.

The defendants in the case ‐ Natalie Hoffman, Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse, and Zaachila Orozco-McCormick ‐ were fined and given probation in March of last year for entering the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge in the summer of 2017 without a permit, driving on a restricted access road and leaving food, water, and other humanitarian aid supplies for migrants passing through in the summer heat. They were the first among a group of volunteers with the faith-based humanitarian group, No More Deaths, to go to trial for their aid work in 2019.

The remains of roughly 3,000 migrants have been recovered in Pima County alone since 2000. Experts are confident that the true death toll is much higher. Situated at the heart of the Sonoran Desert, the Cabeza Prieta refuge is one of the deadliest spaces in the region. As Márquez made clear in her decision, the No More Deaths volunteers admitted to the factual claims in the case: that they left aid supplies in "an area of desert wilderness where people frequently die of dehydration and exposure." But in appealing their convictions, Márquez went on to write, the defendants had successfully argued that their actions ‐ imbued "with the avowed goal of mitigating death and suffering" ‐ were protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA.

The defendants established that they were exercising their "sincere religious beliefs," Márquez wrote, while the government failed to demonstrate that its application of the refuge rules was carried out in the "least restrictive" manner available.

Gotcha. Now on to the appeals court, to be followed, if necessary, by the Supreme Court. It’ll be fun!

Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia, where she is faculty director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project, called the reversal "fantastic." Last year, Franke and her colleagues published a report illustrating how the federal government has routinely sided with right-wing or conservative causes in religious freedom cases. The law professor has followed the No More Deaths cases closely, filing motions in support of RFRA defenses. "The lower court’s opinion was so horrible just as a matter of legal reasoning, that it was really nice to see the judge apply a thorough and careful analysis of the religious liberty claim," Franke told The Intercept. While she anticipates a government appeal, Franke said Monday’s reversal provides a solid foundation for applying RFRA in similar legal contexts.

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