the modern federal clergy-penitent privilege is not restricted to persons with formal ordination. The policies underlying the privilege apply with equal force to lay persons who regularly conduct religious counseling sessions.Defendant Angel Dillard ministers to inmates in the Sedgwick, Kansas County Jail through Christian Ministries to Offenders, Inc. (CMO). Dillard's communications with Scott Roeder, who is serving a life sentence for of murdering abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, and with another inmate, are sought by the government in a civil case it has filed against Dillard charging that she sent a threatening letter to an abortion provider.
In reaching its conclusion that Dillard's communications were privileged, the court relied both on the Kansas statute (K.S.A. 60-429) which privileges penitential communications with "regular" as well as with "duly ordained" ministers, and on proposed Rule 506 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The court said:
Limiting the federal clergy-penitent privilege to formally ordinated ministers would have the inescapable effect of shutting down prison ministry programs not only in Kansas, but throughout the nation. Programs such as CMO depend on the volunteer services of lay ministers, and could not survive if the private communications between prisoners and ministry volunteers were unprotected from government scrutiny. As a consequence, ministry programs serving thousands of inmates would be directly imperilled.
