# City of Boerne v. Flores > Supreme Court of the United States · June 25, 1997 · 521 U.S. 507 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433513 ## Case - **Full name:** CITY OF BOERNE v. FLORES, ARCHBISHOP OF SAN ANTONIO, Et Al. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** June 25, 1997 - **Citations:** 521 U.S. 507; 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 140; 97 Daily Journal DAR 7973; 1997 Colo. J. C.A.R. 1329; 65 U.S.L.W. 4612; 70 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 44,785; 74 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 62; 97 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 4904; 117 S. Ct. 2157; 138 L. Ed. 2d 624; 1997 U.S. LEXIS 4035 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Souter - **Judges:** Kennedy, Rehnquist, Stevens, Thomas, Ginsburg, Scalia, Iii-A-, O'Connor, Breyer, Souter - **Cited by:** 1,711 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Reported superseded by statute, as recognized in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. — not on the Supreme Court's list. - Negative treatments: 2 - Distinguished by: 1 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433513 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - concluding that Katzenbach confronted a “widespread and persisting deprivation of constitutional rights resulting from this country’s history of racial discrimination” - holding that the Religious Free- _________________________________________________________________ DPPA. 7 Although the Supreme Court's ground breaking decision in City of Boerne v. Flores, 117 S. Ct. 2157 (1997), was decided in June of 1997, the United States did not cite the… - stating that, with regard to Congress’ enforcement power under the Fourteenth Amendment: “ ‘Whatever legislation is appropriate, that is adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view, whatever tends to enforce submission to the prohibitions they contain ... if n… - finding that the "least restrictive means” prong of RFRA was coextensive with the Supreme Court’s decision in Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974), in which the "limitation of First Amendment freedoms must be no greater than is necessary or… ## Opinion text Justice Souter, dissenting. To decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment gives Congress sufficient power to enact the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, the Court measures the legislation against the free-exercise standard of Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990). For the reasons stated in my opinion in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 564-577 (1993) (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment), I have serious doubts about the precedential value of the Smith rule and its entitlement to adherence. These doubts are intensified today by the historical arguments going to the original understanding of the Free Exercise Clause presented in Justice O’Connor’s dissent, ante, at 548-564, which raises very substantial issues about the soundness of the Smith rule. See also ante, p. 537 (Justice Scalia, concurring in part) (addressing historical arguments). But without briefing and argument on the merits of that rule (which this Court has never had in any case, including Smith itself, see Lukumi, 508 U. S., at 571-572 ), I am not now prepared to join Justice O’Connor in rejecting it or the majority in assuming it to be correct. In order to provide full adversarial consideration, this case should be set down for reargument permitting plenary reexamination of the issue. Since the Court declines to follow that course, our free-exercise *566 law remains marked by an “intolerable tension,” id., at 574 , and the constitutionality of the Act of Congress to enforce the free-exercise right cannot now be soundly decided. I would therefore dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted, and I accordingly dissent from the Court’s disposition of this case. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433513. Public record. Not legal advice.