Death Penalty Survives Establishment Clause Challenge

In Hogan v. State, (May 15, 2006), the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a novel Establishment Clause challenge to the death penalty. Convicted murderer Kenneth Hogan argued that the effectiveness of capital punishment depends on the sectarian religious notion of a merit-based afterlife, such as heaven and hell, and thus unconstitutionally advances religion. The court, however, held that there are adequate secular punitive reasons for the death penalty, so that its primary purpose and effect are not to advance religion.