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6 Mohamed Mattar Legal Perspectives on Arabs and Muslims in U.S. Courts An estimated five to eight million Muslims live in the United States. This chapter is devoted to a discussion of cases in which Islamic law issues have been debated in American courts. The number of these cases has grown with the increase in commercial relations between the United States and other states in which Islam plays a role in shaping their legal systems. The increased number of disputes involving Islamic law in the United States also reflects the rising number of immigrants from the Arab world and other predominantly Muslim countries, as well as the relatively large numbers of Muslim African Americans. The chapter focuses on religious discrimination in prison and in the work place and on issues related to marriage, divorce, and child custody. Ethnic and Religious Discrimination In Michigan v. Saad Bahoda,1 prosecutorial misconduct was an issue, and the court had to decide whether use of a reference to the terms "Arab," "Arab connection," and "Iraqi" at a trial conducted during the Persian Gulf War had deprived defendant of a fair trial. The rule is that injection of racial or ethnic remarks into any trial may arouse the bias of jurors against defendant and lead to a decision based on prejudice rather than on the guilt or innocence of the accused. American courts are open to aliens and citizens alike, and any attempt that arouses prejudice of jurors to curtail this right is a departure from the proper privilege of counsel and, when carried to the extent indicated by the language quoted, is sufficient to justify reversal of the case. In the case under review, references were made by the prosecution to the defendant's Arab ethnicity during the opening statement and during the questioning of prosecution witnesses. Moreover, in his closing argument, the prosecutor stated, "this man comes from the Middle East, and he's not content to make his money from the gas station. He needs more; he gets into the cocaine, nontaxable income lifestyle." When the defendant was indicted by a grand jury for conspiracy to possess with intent to deliver cocaine, he appealed his conviction, claiming that he was denied a fair trial. The Court LEGAL PERSPECTIVES ON ARABS AND MUSLIMS IN U.S. COURTS ror of Appeals held that all references to the defendant's Middle East background and Arab ethnicity were improper, especially because the trial occurred during the Gulf War. The Supreme Court of Michigan disagreed and concluded that the statements were not intended to inflame the jury and not of a degree that prejudiced the defendant's right to a fair trial. The Court added, "Simply because these references occurred during the Persian Gulf War does not mean that reversal is required. It must be remembered that we were fighting with, as well as against, those of Arabic heritage during the Persian Gulf War. Hence, prejudice by use of Arabic ethnicity does not automatically follow." In O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz,2 the U.S. Supreme Court held that the prison regulations that prevented Muslim inmates from attending Jum'ah services did not violate the inmates' right to free exercise of religion. The inmates concerned were low-security prisoners who were assigned to outside work details. Because permitting the inmates to attend Jum'ah services proved to be burdensome and posed something of a security risk, prison officials issued a policy memorandum that prohibited inmates assigned to outside work details from returning to the prison during the day except for emergency reasons. The U.S. Supreme Court, balancing the constitutional rights of prisoners against the legitimate objectives of incarceration, stated that the prison regulations alleged to infringe constitutional rights are judged under a reasonableness test less restrictive than that ordinarily applied to alleged infringements of fundamental constitutional rights. It concluded that the policy directive, as implemented, was neither arbitrary nor irrational and that it did not violate the plaintiffs' constitutional rights. In another case, Cleophus Khalid Abdur-Ra'oofand Abdul-jail Danfodio v. Department of Corrections,3 the issue was whether the Department of Corrections' policy, which denied Muslim prisoners the right to attend Friday afternoon Jum'ah prayer services and the congregational services of Eid-al-Fitr and Eid-al-Adha, impermissibly infringed on their constitutional rights under the free exercise clause of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The policy directive provided in part that "[b]eyond the state observed holidays...

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