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''United States v. Ballard'', 322 U.S. 78 (1944),〔(Text of the opinion ) on FindLaw.〕 was an appeal of the conviction of two leaders of the new religious "I AM" Activity movement for fraudulently seeking and collecting donations on the basis of religious claims that the defendants themselves did not believe. The United States Supreme Court held that the question of whether the defendants' claims about their religious experiences were actually true should not have been submitted to a jury. The Court arrived at this conclusion in part because the "freedom of religious belief... embraces the right to maintain theories of life and of death and of the hereafter which are rank heresy to followers of the orthodox faiths." However, the Court did not address the issue of whether the sincerity of the defendants' beliefs was a proper question for the jury. Justice Robert H. Jackson, dissenting, would have gone even farther, suggesting that the entire case should be dismissed for coming too close to being an investigation into the truth of a religious conviction. He would have held unconstitutional a jury determination of whether the defendants' religious beliefs were sincere, as well as whether they were true. == Prior history == After Guy Ballard's death, his wife and son were indicted for 18 counts of fraud. The indictment charged that the Ballards fraudulently collected over $3 million from their followers on the basis of religious claims the Ballards knew were false. Their followers protested outside the courthouse.〔 The District Court instructed the jury to convict if they found that the Ballards did not have a good faith belief in their religious claims. The Ballards were convicted. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the conviction and granted a new trial, declaring that the District Court erred in restricting the issue to whether the defendants had a good faith belief in their claims. The government appealed to the Supreme Court. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United States v. Ballard」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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