Roy Torcaso, 96; Defeated Md. in 1961 Religious Freedom Case

Notary Roy R. Torcaso witnesses daughter Linda's application for an exam to become a ham operator. (1961 Photo By Frank Hoy -- The Washington Post)

Roy R. Torcaso, 96, whose application to be a Maryland notary public led to a U.S. Supreme Court case that affirmed his refusal to take a state oath requiring him to declare a belief in God, died June 9 at the Himalayan Elderly Care assisted living home in Silver Spring. He had complications of prostate cancer.

Mr. Torcaso, who said he was an atheist, was a bookkeeper by profession. He worked for a Bethesda construction company when his legal challenge started in 1959. He had been urged by his boss to become a notary public.

At the Montgomery County Circuit Court, he refused to swear to a state oath given to notaries public that made them profess the existence of God.

"The point at issue," he said at the time, "is not whether I believe in a Supreme Being, but whether the state has a right to inquire into my beliefs."

The state disqualified him and barred his commission. The Maryland courts upheld the state constitution on the basis that Mr. Torcaso had not been compelled to pursue the notary public designation. The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Jewish Congress became involved on Mr. Torcaso's side.

In a case that became known as Torcaso v. Watkins-- Clayton Watkins was the Montgomery County Circuit Court clerk who administered the oath -- the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Mr. Torcaso's favor in June 1961.

The high court declared that the Maryland test for public office "unconstitutionally invades [Mr. Torcaso's] freedom of belief and religion guaranteed by the First Amendment and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from infringement by the States."

Writing for the court, Associate Justice Hugo Black said neither the state nor the federal government "can constitutionally force a person 'to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.'

"Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs," Black wrote.

That August, Mr. Torcaso won his commission as a notary public after swearing to uphold the laws of the state and the federal Constitution. There was no mention of religious belief.

His first official act was to witness the application of his daughter Linda to take an exam for a ham operator's license.

Roy Reed Torcaso was born Nov. 13, 1910, in Enumclaw, Wash., where his parents were farmers. The son of a Catholic father and Protestant mother, he had been a nonbeliever his entire adult life.