Some governors use federal virus aid to expand school choice

(AP) — When Congress sent states billions of dollars early in the coronavirus pandemic to help make schools safe, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee saw an opportunity.

He used part of the windfall to further his goal of offering school choice options for parents, sending millions to charter schools that operate without traditional public oversight. That included funneling more than $4 million to new charters that are not scheduled to open until at least next year.

It was an easy way for the Republican governor to advance a long-held priority. For Lee and some other GOP governors, the discretionary money was a chance to sidestep their state legislatures and advance school choice, which typically involves funding charter schools or offering vouchers so parents can use taxpayer money to pay private school tuition.

Teachers unions and other critics view the efforts as a way to siphon money away from traditional public schools.

“This feels like he’s taking advantage of the pandemic and the pandemic relief to further his ideological goal of defunding the traditional public schools,” said state Rep. Gloria Johnson, a Democrat and retired teacher.

In a series of bills since the Covid-19 outbreak began last year, Congress has allocated $190 billion to help public and private schools weather the pandemic. Although there is no centralized way to see how districts and private schools are spending the aid, The Associated Press tracked most of that money to determine how much was received by virtually every school district in the country and to analyze the ways governors distributed the assistance they were free to dole out as they wished.

In the initial wave of funding, governors were given $3 billion with few strings attached but the expectation that it be used to help schools and colleges “most significantly impacted by coronavirus.”

They used that money in a variety of ways: New Jersey supported colleges. Oregon used it to make sure even tiny rural districts received minimum amounts of aid. States including Indiana and Colorado established competitive grant programs for school districts.

This week, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced he was using a separate pot of federal pandemic aid to create a $10 million grant initiative similar to the state’s existing private school voucher program. It was the Republican governor’s latest attempt to push back against public school districts that are defying a state ban on mask mandates. The funding allows grants up to $7,000 per student if their public school requires masks, orders quarantines due to Covid-19 exposure or gives different treatment to vaccinated students.

In Tennessee, Lee has long been an advocate of launching more charter schools — institutions that are publicly funded but operate outside traditional school districts. In a feature that appeals to many conservatives, they usually do not have unionized teachers.

Of the nearly $64 million in discretionary pandemic education money that came to his office, Lee dedicated $10 million to charters. The governor used it to make sure every charter received some aid and to help existing schools add grades. He reserved a chunk of it — $4.4 million — to help launch new charters, none of which is scheduled to welcome students until at least 2022.

Lee spokeswoman Casey Black did not directly respond to a question from the AP about funding for charter schools that are not yet open but said the use of the money would help provide families with access to a high-quality education. Brian Blackley, a spokesman for Lee’s state Department of Education, said the charter school funding is meant to give families more options.

“Education is not one size fits all, and the pandemic showed us just how important it is to provide families with better access to high-quality school options,” he said in an email.

Beth Brown, president of the Tennessee Education Association, criticized the spending.

“Using pandemic relief money to open new charter schools is an insult to the public school teachers who have worked tirelessly since March 2020 to keep public schools open,” said Brown, a high school English teacher in rural Grundy County.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat who serves as chair of the House Labor and Education Committee, said the federal money was not intended to be used that way.

“The 5% or 10% that end up in charters may or may not improve their education situation,” he said. “It’s hard to make an argument that reducing the money available to public schools helps the 90% to 95% of those who are in public schools.”

Oklahoma’s GOP governor, Kevin Stitt, used $10 million of the nearly $40 million in his governor-controlled fund to create a stay-in-school program that funded scholarships for lower-income students who already attend private schools.

The state education secretary, Ryan Walters, said the state was hearing from parents who lost income early in the pandemic and could not keep paying private-school tuition.

“Moving them in the middle of a pandemic to a brand-new school would create even more trauma for them,” he said.

Most Oklahoma private schools are religious. One exception is Positive Tomorrows, an Oklahoma City school exclusively for students in families experiencing homelessness.

The school usually costs around $3 million a year to run, with many expenses paid through donations. It got about $350,000 from Stitt’s program, plus another $250,000 in forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans from the federal government to keep paying teachers and staff. Public schools did not have access to the forgivable loans.

“Because of the role that we serve, I think we deserve some government funding,” said Susan Agel, president of the school. “This is a kind of thing that I’d really like to see more of, particularly for our school.”

State Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, a Democrat who was a public school teacher until he was elected in 2017, said there are still major needs in public schools that should be met before taxpayer money is considered for private schools.

“If you want to go to a private school, you have that choice,” he said. “You’re private for a reason.”

Governors in Florida and New Hampshire also used portions of their discretionary money for private-school scholarship programs.

A South Carolina program championed by GOP Gov. Henry McMaster was larger — $32 million — and scholarships were planned for students who were not already in private schools. But the scholarships were never awarded because the program was blocked unanimously by the state Supreme Court.

Shaunette Parker, board chairwoman for the Second Baptist Christian Preparatory School in Aiken, said McMaster’s proposal could have been a toehold for establishing a broader voucher program in South Carolina, something that has never been adopted in the Legislature.

“We were hoping the success of that one-year funding would have shown people how this wasn’t going to create a mass exodus of the public schools,” Parker said. “It would have improved education all around.”

After the court rejected McMaster’s effort, he redirected the money to other programs, including launching regional computer labs, boosting technical colleges, funding summer and extended-day programs for 4-year-olds — and helping helping public charter schools where enrollments have risen.

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By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press

from Courthouse News

Biden nominates first Native American to run National Parks Service

WASHINGTON (CN) — Charles “Chuck” F. Sams III, who has worked in nonprofit environmental preservation roles for more than 25 years, became the first Native American nominated to lead the National Park Service late Wednesday.

President Joe Biden announced Sams’ nomination alongside four other picks for key roles in various federal agencies.

Sams is a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla and served as that Oregon-based group’s deputy executive director, communications director and environmental health and safety officer. He holds a master’s degree of legal studies in indigenous people’s law from the University of Oklahoma.

He most recently had been serving as a member on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a committee created by Congress in 1980 to monitor energy’s role in the environment in Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Washington. The group’s main responsibility is to create regional power plans and fish and wildlife programs in those states.

Sams also has responsibilities as a board member on two environmental-related organizations: the Gray Family Foundation and the Oregon Cultural Trust. Both support Oregon-based investment in environmental stewardship and state culture.

Brian Rogers, the Oregon Cultural Trust’s executive director, said in an interview Thursday that Sams has been instrumental in providing direction for developing culturally-inclusive programs — especially for the tribal community.

“He’s also helped us out with our strategic plan that we developed a couple years back,” Rogers said. “All of our board is involved in that, but Chuck gave a lot of great insight about the kinds of activities that we should be doing to be more inclusive and equitable.”

Rogers, who is also executive director of the Oregon Arts Commission, said one of Sams’ major contributions was altering how the leadership of both groups interacted, creating a joint committee for more-cohesive planning.

In a statement Wednesday, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland – the first Native American to serve in that role – lauded Sams’ nomination and emphasized the importance of protecting the country’s natural resources. The National Park Service is an agency within the Department of the Interior.

“The diverse experience that Chuck brings to the National Park Service will be an incredible asset as we work to conserve and protect our national parks to make them more accessible for everyone,” Haaland said in a statement. “I look forward to working with him to welcome Americans from every corner of our country into our national park system.”

The National Park Service hasn’t had a Senate-confirmed director since former President Barack Obama nominated Jonathan Jarvis in 2009. He held that role until January 2017.

Former President Donald Trump’s administration cycled out various acting directors for the National Park Service, including David Vela, whose nomination never got to the Senate floor for a vote. Vela resigned after less than a year on the job after a legal challenge to his appointment was filed in Washington federal court by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Western Watersheds Project, who alleged the Interior Department violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act by appointing Vela.

Will Shafroth, CEO of the National Park Foundation, the charitable arm of the Park Service, stressed the importance of having a Senate-confirmed director in the post.

“Having a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed director in place to lead the more than 20,000 employees of the National Park Service is essential to the health, wellbeing and overall success of our parks,” Safroth said in a statement Wednesday. “Mr. Sams brings a significant background of experience that prepares him exceptionally well to take on and advance the mission of this critical federal agency.”

The Senate is set to return from summer recess on Sept. 13, and is expected to take up Sams’ nomination soon after.

The other nominees announced by the Biden administration on Wednesday evening include Scott A. Nathan, nominated to be CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation; Viquar Ahmad for assistant secretary for administration and chief financial officer of the Department of Commerce; Matthew Axelrod for assistant secretary for export enforcement at the Commerce Department; and Robert Gordon for assistant secretary for financial resources at the Department of Health and Human Services.

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from Courthouse News

Global sizzling: July was hottest month on record, NOAA says

(AP) — Earth sizzled in July and became the hottest month in 142 years of recordkeeping, U.S. weather officials announced.

As extreme heat waves struck parts of the United States and Europe, the globe averaged 62.07 degrees (16.73 degrees Celsius) last month, beating out the previous record set in July 2016 and tied again in 2019 and 2020. the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday. The margin was just .02 degrees (.01 Celsius),

The last seven Julys, from 2015 to 2021, have been the hottest seven Julys on record, said NOAA climatologist Ahira Sanchez-Lugo. Last month was 1.67 degrees (0.93 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 20th century average for the month.

“In this case first place is the worst place to be,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a press release. “This new record adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe.”

“This is climate change,” said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann. “It is an exclamation mark on a summer of unprecedented heat, drought, wildfires and flooding.”

Earlier this week, a prestigious United Nations science panel warned of worsening climate change caused by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas and other human activity.

Warming on land in western North America and in parts of Europe and Asia really drove the record-setting heat, Sanchez-Lugo said. While the worldwide temperature was barely higher than the record, what shattered it was land temperature over the Northern Hemisphere, she said.

Northern Hemisphere temperatures were a third of a degree (.19 degrees Celsius) higher than the previous record set in July 2012, which for temperature records is “a wide margin,” Sanchez-Lugo said.

July is the hottest month of the year for the globe, so this is also the hottest month on record.

One factor helping the world bake this summer is a natural weather cycle called the Arctic Oscillation, sort of a cousin to El Nino, which in its positive phase is associated with more warming, the NOAA climatologist said.

Even with a scorching July and a nasty June, this year so far is only the sixth warmest on record. That’s mostly because 2021 started cooler than recent years due to a La Nina cooling of the central Pacific that often reduces the global temperature average, Sanchez-Lugo said.

“One month by itself does not say much, but that this was a La Nina year and we still had the warmest temperatures on record … fits with the pattern of what we have been seeing for most of the last decade now,” said University of Illinois meteorology professor Donald Wuebbles.

While the world set a record in July, the United States only tied for its 13th hottest July on record. Even though California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington had their hottest Julys, slightly cooler than normal months in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Alabama, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire kept the nation from approaching record heat levels.

The last time the globe had a July cooler than the 20th century average was in 1976, which was also the last year the globe was cooler than that normal.

“So if you’re younger than 45 you haven’t seen a year (or July) where the mean temperature of the planet was cooler than the 20th century average,” said Princeton University climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi.

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By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

from Courthouse News

Dogs for the Prosecution

If you’re like me, which god forbid, you’ve often asked yourself: “Bob, is a dog’s evidence admissible in court?”

I reply, as who would not: “Depends on what state you’re in. Stay out of Nebraska, unless you’re a criminal defendant, in which case, sure, beat feet to the Cornhusker State. A bloodhound can’t testify against you there.”

The bloodhound is the only dog whose evidence is admissible in U.S. courts. So far as I know. But only under certain conditions.

I hardly need tell you that the controlling cases regarding admissibilty of a bloodhound’s evidence in court rest upon Hodge v. Alabama (98 Ala. 10, Alabama Supreme Court (1893)); and Buck v. Oklahoma, (OK CR 65, 138 P.2d 115, Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (1943)).

These rulings, and 61 others our crack team of researchers at Courthouse News have found in 44 states, affirm that “Evidence of the trailing of human beings by bloodhounds is admissible as a circumstance to corroborate other evidence offered by the state.” (Buck, citing Hodge.)

Hodge was charged, and convicted, of murder.

“In that case the death penalty was upheld, and the evidence of tracking by the dog to defendant’s home was sustained as competent evidence,” according to the unanimous three-judge panel, upholding the death penalty in Buck. 

“Since this case in 1893, many courts have passed upon the question, and by the great weight of authority it has been held that the evidence is admissible under certain rules and conditions, as will be hereinafter stated.”

Harvey the bloodhound keeps an eye on Cherry Creek, Colorado. (Photo by Brooks Holliday for Courthouse News)

These conditions are (all from Buck, often citing Hodge):

• “The bloodhound in question must be shown to have been trained to follow human beings by their tracks and to have been tested as to its accuracy in trailing upon one or more occasions.” • The evidence of the bloodhound’s nose “may be received merely as a circumstance or corroborating evidence against a person toward whom other circumstances point as being guilty of the commission of the crime charged.” • The bloodhound must be of pure breed. (The CCLU is litigating this.) • “(P)referably out of the presence of the jury,” the judge shall hear evidence “as to the blood, training and experience of the dog, and determine as a matter of law whether it is such as to permit its introduction before the jury.” (Hereinafter: “The Infamous Dog Secrecy Exclusion.”)

And finally:

• “It should be shown that the dog so trained and tested was laid on the trail, whether visible or not, concerning which testimony has been admitted, at a point where the circumstances tend clearly to show that the guilty party has been or upon a track which such circumstances indicate has been made by him.”

I find no problem with the reasoning of the courts. And I thank the courts for bringing it to our attention.

In State v. Hall (3 Ohio N.P. (1895)), the court ruled, wisely, against an appeal of the reliability of a bloodhound’s evidence, in a case of burglary and larceny.

Citing the Encyclopædia Britannica (9th Ed., 1895), the appellate court found in Hall that “The bloodhound is remarkable for its acuteness of scent, its discrimination in keeping to the particular scent on which it is first laid, and the intelligence and pertinacity with which it pursues its object to a successful issue. These qualities have been taken advantage of not only in the chase, but also in the pursuit of felons and fugitives of every kind. According to Strabo, [Greek geographer, 63 B.C.-23 A.D.] these dogs were used in an attack upon the Gauls. In the clan feuds of the Scottish Highlands, and in the frequent wars between England and Scotland, they were regularly employed in tracking fugitive warriors, and were thus employed, according to early chroniclers, in pursuit of [Sir William] Wallace [1270-1305]* and Bruce [Robert the Bruce, 1274-1329]. The former is said to have put a hound off the scent by killing a suspected follower, ‘on whose corpse the hound stood.’’’**

Laugh if you will, but both men — Buck the arsonist, who burned down his neighbor’s barn, and Hodge, the murderer — lost their appeals, against the truth, honesty and fidelity of bloodhounds.

Why, then, have we kept them in prisons since the 1800s? In case after case, the sheriff sends to the local prison for a bloodhound, but … oh, wait a minute … I get it.

Footnotes

* Wallace, a hero of Scottish independence, defeated an invading English army, bloodhounds and all, at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, in September 1297.

** Unlikely, probably garbled in the telling, and apocryphal. Had Robert the Bruce done this, he [not the bloodhound] would have stood upon the body of a dead comrade, hoping to throw the bloodhound off the scent. But surely, the bloodhound(s) would have continued to traipse over the corpse. And where would Robert the Bruce be then? Still alive, with a bloodhound on his trail.

from Courthouse News

Oklahoma appeals court rules McGirt decision does not apply retroactively

(CN) — Oklahoma’s highest criminal appeals court decided Thursday that the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial ruling that the state lacks criminal jurisdiction on Native American tribal lands does not apply retroactively. The decision may stem the flow of thousands of post-conviction appeals by convicts wanting to be released on the technicality.

In a 4-0 decision, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reversed a post-conviction dismissal of a murder case against Clifton Parish, a member of the Choctaw Nation. Parish was convicted of felony second-degree murder in 2010 for killing Robert Strickland on Choctaw land. A lower court threw out the case after McGirt v. Oklahoma held last year that large sections of Oklahoma remain Native Americans lands due to Congress never dissolving the reservations and that the tribes retain criminal jurisdiction.

Judge David Lewis, a Democrat appointee, wrote the lower court’s vacating of Parish’s murder conviction was “unauthorized under state law” in spite of McGirt.

“We cannot and will not ignore the disruptive and costly consequences that retroactive application of McGirt would now have: the shattered expectations of so many crime victims that the ordeal of prosecution would assure punishment of the offender,” the 31-page opinion states. “[T]he trauma, expense, and uncertainty awaiting victims and witnesses in federal re-trials; the outright release of many major crime offenders due to the impracticability of new prosecutions; and the incalculable loss to agencies and officers who have reasonably labored for decades to apprehend, prosecute, defend, and punish those convicted of major crimes; all owing to a longstanding and widespread, but ultimately mistaken, understanding of the law.”

Oklahoma officials cheered the Thursday’s ruling, as they have implored Congress to pass legislation allowing the Cherokee and Chickasaw Nations to compact with the state on criminal jurisdiction.

Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor thanked the judges for handing “a significant victory” to Oklahomans.

“There are thousands of cases that would have to be retried if the State had lost this case,” O’Connor said in a statement. “In many of those cases, the crimes were committed long ago. Witnesses may be gone. Evidence may be lost. Re-prosecution might be barred by statutes of limitations.”

Governor Kevin Stitt, a fellow Republican, touted the ruling as a win for public safety and for crime victims.

“I am pleased that the Court agreed that retroactively applying McGirt to tens of thousands of cases would unnecessarily traumatize victims and give dangerous criminals opportunities to fall through the cracks,” Stitt said in a statement. “While today’s ruling is a significant step forward, McGirt still presents major challenges that threaten the future of Oklahoma.”

The post-McGirt burden has since fallen on federal prosecutors to assert criminal jurisdiction and bring federal charges against those with voided convictions. Federal prosecutors have been tasked with charging Shaun Bosse, who was convicted to death in 2012 for killing  girlfriend Katrina Griffin and her two young children, Christian Griffin and Chastity Hammer, in a mobile home south of Oklahoma City on Chickasaw Nation land. The Court of Criminal Appeals threw out his conviction five months ago, citing the state’s lack of jurisdiction to prosecute under McGirt.

Federal prosecutors were forced to charge former Tulsa cop Shannon James Kelper last November after he demanded his release under McGirt. He was convicted of manslaughter in 2017 and sentenced to 15 years in state prison for shooting and killing Jeremy Lake, 19, his daughter’s boyfriend.

Judge Lewis said the reversal of Parish’s final conviction “would not be justice” even if it is a “monumental” victory for him. Lewis was joined by judges Robert Hudson, Gary Lumpkin and Scott Rowland — all Republican appointees. In a concurring opinion, Hudson criticized Congress for missing the opportunity to “implement a practical solution which, at this point, seems unlikely” to come.

“It is now up to the leaders of the state of Oklahoma, the tribes and the federal government to address the jurisdictional fallout from the McGirt decision,” Hudson wrote.

Follow David Lee on Twitter

from Courthouse News

Schools reopen with masks optional in many US classrooms

MCDONOUGH, Ga. (AP) — As Tussahaw Elementary opened this week for a new school year, teary-eyed mothers led in kindergartners dwarfed by backpacks and buses dropped off fifth graders looking forward to ruling their school. The biggest clue to the lingering Covid-19 crisis was the masks worn by students and teachers — but not all of them.

Georgia, like most states, is leaving it up to local schools to decide whether to require face coverings. And 43,000-student Henry County, like many districts worn out by months of conflict over masks, has decided not to insist on them.

Instead, they are “highly recommended.”

Many parents Wednesday in this suburb south of Atlanta had mixed feelings about the policy. Some kept their children home in disagreement with it. Others sent their youngsters to class with face coverings.

Shatavia Dorsey, the mother of a kindergartner and a fifth grader, said her children are going to wear their masks at school regardless of the rules.

“They’re not vaccinated because they’re too young, and I don’t know if someone else is carrying it in,” said Dorsey, who is doubtful about the school system’s ability to maintain in-person instruction amid rising infections.

With the delta variant spreading rapidly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics have advised in recent weeks that everyone in schools wear masks in communities with substantial or high transmission.

Educators have had to contend with strong resistance to masks from some parents and political leaders. Some consider mask rules an intrusion on parents’ authority to make decisions about their children’s health.

California, Louisiana, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington state intend to require masks for all students and teachers regardless of vaccination status. At the other end of the spectrum, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah have banned mask requirements in public schools.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said Thursday the decision of whether to wear masks in school should be made by parents, adding: “What are the harmful effects of putting a kindergartener in a mask for seven hours? Have they talked about the emotional, the academic, the physiological? Why isn’t CDC studying that?”

Outbreaks that have hit schools at the very start of the year have added to calls for more mask requirements.

In Marion, Arkansas, over 800 students and staff members have been quarantined because of exposure since classes began last week in the 4,000-student district.

Marion Superintendent Glen Fenter urged lawmakers to overturn the state law banning masks, warning that a “full-blown crisis” could lie ahead. And Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson expressed regret over signing the ban in the first place and asked that it be lifted. But the GOP-controlled Legislature left it in place Friday.

From the beginning of the pandemic to the peak of infections in January, CDC data showed children 15 and under had the lowest infection rates. Now, though, school-age children have infection rates higher than adults 50 and older.

Henry County recorded 111 cases of Covid-19 in children ages 5 to 17 in the two weeks ending July 28. Its per capita rate is one of the highest in Georgia and higher than the nationwide figure.

Henry County Superintendent Mary Elizabeth Davis said she believes schools have learned how to prevent transmission, citing intensified cleaning, air filtration and use of hand sanitizer. The district is also offering its 6,000 employees $1,000 bonuses to get vaccinated.

“We are highly recommending that individuals opt for a mask as an added layer of prevention, but we also know so much more today than we did a year ago,” Davis said, wearing an “I got vaccinated” sticker. “And what we know today is that schools are not catalysts for community spread.”

At least 28 of Georgia’s more than 180 school districts are requiring masks, encompassing more than 38% of the state’s public school students.

At Tussahaw Elementary, more than 60% of students were wearing masks in four classrooms visited by a reporter Wednesday, though some had pulled them down. In only one room, where the teacher was also unmasked, were a majority of students without face coverings.

What parents at Tussahaw really wanted was some normalcy — an end to trying to help children at home learn virtually, or cycling between in-person school and quarantine.

“We weathered the storm, but it’s a lot better being back in the classroom,” Bryant Thigpen said after dropping off his son for the first day of fifth grade. He said he thinks the school system should require masks — “at least until the cases go down.”

Daniel Denny sent both his children to Tussahaw with masks but said face coverings should be up to parents.

“To each his own,” he said. “You take care of your household how you choose.”

Kimberly Vining, a parent of two middle school students, strongly approved of the policy, saying it will make things much easier for children with asthma or anxiety about wearing masks.

“I have faith in God and I’m not going to live in fear for a virus that has a 98% survival rate,” she said.

Overall, 90% of Henry County students are back in person, while 10% are opting for all-virtual instruction or a combination of both.

Holley Freeman’s 8-year-old daughter, Kalani, is one student who will be staying home and learning virtually. Freeman said that members of her household have health problems and that with no mask mandate, it would be unsafe for her daughter to go to school.

“I feel really upset that we didn’t have a safe choice,” Freeman said. “I feel really upset that our community betrayed us.”

She said her daughter took the news hard: “She cried all the way home and cried all night and cried this morning, knowing she had to go online again.”

—

By JEFF AMY Associated Press

Associated Press writer Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to this report.

from Courthouse News

First Amendment Rights

Here’s something you probably haven’t thought about: Would you go to court to protect your right to pass out bologna sandwiches?

Is the distribution of bologna a religious act or expression protected by the First Amendment? (Insert your own joke here about people spewing baloney.)

You’ve guessed by now that we have litigation about this issue. Members of the New Life Evangelical Center in St. Louis sued after police officers cited them for passing out the sandwiches without a permit.

According to a federal judge’s ruling last week, “The Incident Report stated that Officer Ogunjobi observed Ohnimus handing out prepared sandwiches from a cooler that did not have ice in it.”

That’s one sharp-eyed cop doing his duty.

Bologna can go bad and the city didn’t want the homeless to get sick. Hungry is OK, but not sick.

Imagine for a moment that you’re the lawyer for the evangelicals. When your clients present you with this scenario, shouldn’t your first advice be: “Consider peanut butter?”

Or maybe, “comply with the requirements to make your food safe?”

Maybe the lawyer(s) here did that — I don’t know — but instead we got a lawsuit attacking the city ordinance as interference with religious freedom and expression.

Noted the ruling: “Redlich (one of the plaintiffs) admits that he can communicate his message that God loves the homeless by distributing food other than bologna sandwiches, and there’s nothing about a bologna sandwich in and of itself that can communicate God’s love as opposed to a different kind of sandwich.”

Unless, of course, you’re with the Church of O. Mayer, patron saint of processed meat.

I think what happened here is that someone really likes bologna. Or maybe needs to give it away.

Be that as it may, the dispute, amazingly, produced a 42-page federal court ruling.

Someone may have been bored.

Meanwhile, another federal judge in Oklahoma last week ruled that the First Amendment also fails to protect the right to express yourself by exhibiting animals.

I’m not exactly sure what expression would be, but I suppose caging beasts does express a feeling about animal freedom. The owners of (or at least lawyers for) Tiger King Park in Thackerville, Oklahoma, seemed to be saying this in response to being sued for violating the Endangered Species Act and the Animal Welfare Act.

Yes, it’s that Tiger King Park — the one in the Netflix series.

The court didn’t have any trouble with this one: “Defendants have wholly failed to identify any expressive element in their exhibition of animals.”

They should have put signs on the cages.

Sentence of the week from a Los Angeles Times front-page article about professional wrestling shows with actual audiences in Japan: “But she said she felt far safer about wrestling events than she did about the Olympic Games.”

Sometimes I think all of reality is kayfabe.

from Courthouse News