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42 Cap. U. L. Rev. 583 (2014)
Sanctuary: A Modern Legal Anachronism

handle is hein.journals/capulr42 and id is 609 raw text is: SANCTUARY: A MODERN LEGAL ANACHRONISM DR. MICHAEL J. DAVIDSON* The crowd saw him slide down the facade like a raindrop on a windowpane, run over to the executioner's assistants with the swiftness of a cat, fell them both with his enormous fists, take the gypsy girl in one arm as easily as a childpicking up a doll and rush into the church, holding her above his head and shouting in a formidable voice, Sanctuary! ' I. INTRODUCTION The ancient tradition of sanctuary is rooted in the power of a religious authority to grant protection, within an inviolable religious structure or area, to persons who fear for their life, limb, or liberty.2 Television has Copyright © 2014, Michael J. Davidson. * S.J.D. (Government Procurement Law), George Washington University School of Law, 2007; L.L.M. (Government Procurement Law), George Washington University School of Law, 1998; L.L.M. (Military Law), The Judge Advocate General's School, 1994; J.D., College of William & Mary, 1988; B.S., U.S. Military Academy, 1982. The author is a retired Army judge advocate and is currently a federal attorney. He is the author of two books and over forty law review and legal practitioner articles. Any opinions expressed in this Article are those of the author and do not represent the position of any federal agency. 1 VICTOR HUGO, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME 189 (Lowell Bair ed. & trans., Bantam Books 1956) (1831). 2 Michael Scott Feeley, Toward the Cathedral: Ancient Sanctuary Represented in the American Context, 27 SAN DIEGO L. REv. 801, 802 (1990) (Sanctuary is the power of guardians of a defined religious site to grant protection to one who seeks safety out of fear of life or limb.); see M. M. Sheehan, Asylum, Right of, in I NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA 994 (1967) (Sanctuary, also known as religious asylum, concerns the custom or privilege by which certain inviolable places become a recognized refuge for persons in danger.). Sanctuary differs markedly from modem-day asylum, which is a statutorily based form of humanitarian protection that provides refuge for individuals who are unable or unwilling to return to their home countries because they were persecuted or have a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. U.S. GOV'T ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, GAO-08-940, U.S. ASYLUM SYSTEM: SIGNIFICANT VARIATION EXISTED IN ASYLUM OUTCOMES ACROSS IMMIGRATION COURTS AND JUDGES 11-12 (2008). The law concerning asylum was first (continued)

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