Justices tackle limits for COVID-19
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court refused Monday to require increased pandemic precautions at a Texas geriatric prison where 20 inmates have died.
At the same time, the justices are more likely in the coming days to order fewer COVID-19 restrictions at New York churches and synagogues.
While the prison case continues a pattern of high court actions in which it has refused to second-guess how state officials combat the virus, the religion cases will reveal whether the court’s beefed-up conservative majority is finally ready to assert itself.
The court earlier this year refused to lift restrictions on churches in California and Nevada as Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the four liberal justices. But since then, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and was succeeded by Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, giving conservatives a 6-3 majority.
That could be enough to topple New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s church-related restrictions, which limit attendance to 10 or 25 worshipers in areas where COVID-19 is most prevalent. The restrictions were challenged in recent days by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel, an Orthodox Jewish organization.
The court ruled 5-4 in July that Nevada can impose tighter restrictions on churches than casinos while a legal dispute over its social distancing policies continued. But four conservative justices dissented from the order, which upheld limits on church gatherings to 50 worshipers while allowing bars, restaurants, casinos and indoor amusement parks to operate at 50% capacity.
The court also ruled 5-4 in May against a California church seeking to exceed a 25% capacity threshold, which was more stringent than local businesses faced.
Associate Justice Samuel Alito told the conservative Federalist Society last week that COVID-19 restrictions had resulted in “previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty.” He denounced high court rulings that he said discriminated against religious groups and argued that the pandemic highlighted a wider assault on religious freedom.
In the prison case, the court upheld the COVID-19 protections taken by the state Department of Criminal Justice at the Wallace Pack Unit in southeast Texas. Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented, arguing that prisoners remained at risk.
“The people incarcerated in the Pack Unit are some of our most vulnerable citizens,” Sotomayor wrote. “If the prison fails to enforce social distancing and mask wearing, perform regular testing, and take other essential steps, the inmates can do nothing but wait for the virus to take its toll.”
Through the year, the court has not second-guessed prison officials’ refusals to move elderly or medically compromised inmates threatened by COVID-19 in Texas, Louisiana and Ohio.