Judge: Atheist's rights violated

State parole officers violated a Redding atheist’s rights when they imprisoned him for refusing to participate in a religious drug treatment program, a federal judge has ruled.

Barry Hazle Jr., a 40-year-old computer services specialist, has sued his parole officer and nearly a dozen others in connection with his 125-day imprisonment in 2007 after he declined to participate in a 12-step treatment program at Empire Recovery Center. In his recent ruling, the judge dropped Empire Recovery Center from the suit, which is scheduled for trial in late June.

“I am very gratified with the judge’s determination as to the parole defendants,” said Hazle, son of Maline Hazle, Record Searchlight metro editor. “I’ve always known that my First Amendment rights were violated.”

John Heller, a San Francisco-based attorney representing Hazle, said the case goes to the heart of Establishment Clause protections against forced participation in religious activities.

“This is one of the most important protections from government intrusion you can imagine,” Heller said. “You don’t get to trample on somebody’s constitutional rights just because they happen to be on parole.”

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in late 2008 declared that placing parolees in religious-based drug treatment programs over their objections is unconstitutional, based on a 2007 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling for a Hawaiian Buddhist who had objected to a 12-step program.

The CDCR has ordered parole officers to find alternative programs for such parolees.

The order came too late for Hazle, who will seek damages and an injunction “prohibiting the illegal expenditure of state money to fund unconstitutional parole practices” at trial in June.

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Hazle had asked for a secular drug treatment program just before he was released from the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco in February 2007. He had spent a year at the center on drug possession charges that had earlier been overturned by an appeals court, according to court documents.

A representative of WestCare California Inc., a Las Vegas-based nonprofit that coordinates substance abuse programs under contract with the CDCR, had recommended that Hazle attend Empire Recovery Center in Redding.

Hazle went to Empire and quickly discovered the treatment center uses a 12-step program that appeals to God and “higher powers,” according to court documents.

Hazle asked both his parole officer, Mitch Crofoot, and WestCare whether he could transfer to a non-religious drug treatment center. Crofoot and WestCare both told him there were no secular alternatives.