(CN) — A Texas judge is not violating federal law by letting volunteer chaplains open court with a prayer, the state's attorney general said in an advisory opinion.
Wayne Mack is a justice of the peace in Montgomery County, home to wooded rural neighborhoods that are succumbing to the northward march of development from sprawling Houston.
Montgomery County doesn't have a coroner. Its justices of the peace serve that role and are called to the scene of fatal accidents.
Mack found it difficult to assess an accident scene while at the same time tending to distraught family members of the deceased, so he recruited a group of volunteer chaplains, according to a request for an advisory opinion on the legality of Mack's courtroom prayer practices that Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick submitted to Attorney General Ken Paxton in February.
Mack asks the family on scene if they want a volunteer chaplain to come counsel them, and sends for one if they request it, according to Patrick, an outspoken Christian who hosts a conservative radio talk show.
To reward the chaplains for their unpaid counseling services, Mack invites them to say a brief prayer during the opening ceremonies of his courtroom proceedings, according to Patrick's Feb. 16 opinion request.
Mack said Tuesday in a phone interview that more than 50 chaplains representing 30 different faiths and denominations are involved in the program, including a rabbi and Hindu elders.
Notably absent is a Muslim imam, but Mack said he's working on bringing one into the fold.
"When we say we've extended the invitation to every faith in our community, we have," he said.
The judge said his court is very busy and doesn't always have time to hold an opening ceremony before hearings, but any time they have the ceremony a chaplain is available.
Mack said he's found the inclusion of prayers in his opening ceremonies often eases the tension of those unfamiliar with court procedure.
"We've had nothing but a positive response from our community. In fact today in court I had a plaintiff and defendant who both thanked me for the opening ceremony because they were nervous about being in court and they were concerned about how it was going to go," he said. "And they both stated that when we had our opening ceremony it gave them the peace of mind that we were going to be fair in our judicial decisions. And that's almost a daily event."
Mack caught the attention of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, or FFRF, in the fall of 2014 after a litigant who appeared before him complained to the Wisconsin-based nonprofit that the judge was sanctioning prayer in his courtroom.
"On October 10, 2014, FFRF contacted the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct to complain about Judge Mack's practice of opening court sessions with prayer," the foundation's attorney Sam Grover wrote in an April 21 brief to Paxton's office. "Shortly thereafter, a second complainant, an attorney who was obligated to appear before Judge Mack on a number of cases, contacted FFRF to object to the courtroom prayer practice. Both complainants consider the courtroom prayers to be an endorsement of Christianity."
The complaint prompted the state judicial conduct commission to call a hearing, during which its members questioned Mack about his chaplain program and courtroom prayers. The commission ultimately dismissed the complaint.