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Alex Zielinski

There was a pain that erupted into violence in our city last night, he told reporters the morning of Saturday, May 30. That is not something we can tolerate.

The curfew, which was extended until the morning of Tuesday, June 2, prohibited Portlanders from traveling anywhere in town from 8 pm to 6 am. The policy exempted people commuting to work, emergency vehicles, and unhoused people.

Now, nearly two years after Wheeler instituted his police-enforced curfew, a Multnomah County defense attorney is challenging the constitutionality of the sweeping policy. Her argument centers on a familiar question in Portland: What authority does the mayor have to limit or restrict demonstrations?

In the process of answering that question, Wheeler may have to testify in court.

The challenge has sprung from a criminal case thats headed to trial next week, after spending months winding through the county court system.

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, June 2, 2020, Portland police officers arrested 23-year-old Tommy Pak as he was walking to his car in Southeast Portland with his girlfriend, following the evenings demonstrations. Officers claimed his arrest was for violating Wheelers curfew (or, refusal to obey executive order) and for interfering with a police officer (by failing to follow an order to disperse). The officers proceeded to search Pak for weapons, and found a gun in his front pocket. That left Pak with two additional charges: unlawful possession of a firearm and possession of a loaded firearm in a public place.

Paks public defender, Emma McDermott, has challenged all four charges in court. Most notably, however, is her multifaceted argument disputing the validity of Paks arrest based on the curfew order.

In a January 11 memo, McDermott contends that Wheelers emergency curfew order didn't give officers permission to arrest anyone who violates it.

A violation of [Wheelers order] is exactly thata violation, McDermott writes. It is not a misdemeanor. It is not a felony.

McDermott referenced an Oregon law which prohibits law enforcement from arresting someone who has committed a violation. State law instead directs officers to issue citations to those who make violations.

Yet this delineation wasnt made in Wheelers order, which read: Law enforcement has been delegated the authority to enforce the Mayors emergency order. Refusal to obey this order may result in citation or arrest.

The Mayors office does not have the legal authority to do this, writes McDermott.

Even if police were allowed to arrest people for violating the curfew, McDermott said Wheelers order remains wholly unconstitutional, as it restricted free speech.

[The curfew] directly targeted political demonstrations, unreasonably restricting legitimate exercise of citizens First Amendment rights, writes McDermott. She suggests that Wheeler used this curfew as a pretext to broadly arrest people participating in the protest who were not breaking the law.

In their response to McDermotts memo, Multnomah County Deputy District Attorneys Sydney Tumble and William Garms contend that Wheelers curfew was constitutional because it was an emergency curfew which, according to the prosecutors, doesnt require free speech protections. The attorneys based this argument on other court cases outside of Oregon that upheld city curfews during an emergency to prevent civil disorder. The prosecutors note that the curfew didnt limit people from demonstrating during daylight hours.

The only restriction was on one form of expression (public gathering) during nighttime hours, their response reads. Given the riotous behavior that had escalated in the city during the previous nights, this was a completely reasonable restriction.

Prosecutors also argue that Wheeler was allowed to threaten those who violated the curfew with arrest, because violating a city codelike a mayor's emergency orderis considered a criminal offense.

Pak wasnt the only person charged with disobeying Wheelers curfew on June 2. County court records show that five other people were charged with refusal to obey executive order the same day. Four of those people were simply given a written citation from an officer, and prosecutors later dismissed the violation. The other individual, Andrew Morris, is facing additional charges identical to Pak.

Like Pak, Morris was initially stopped for disobeying the curfew on June 2, but was then discovered to be illegally carrying a gun after an officers search. Morris lawyer contends that, because this search was conducted without a warrant, it was unconstitutional. McDermott has posed the same argument in Paks case.

McDermott will argue to dismiss Paks charges in court next week. Paks trial is scheduled to begin on January 18, and is expected to last three days.

On Thursday, McDermott sent a subpoena to Wheeler, requesting his appearance in court next week.

Wheeler's office did not respond to the Mercury's request for comment.

This isnt the first time Wheeler has been accused of bending First Amendment rights to restrict public demonstrations. In November 2018, Wheeler attempted to pass a city policy that would have allowed the city to restrict the location and time of two opposing protests. After hearing from civil rights attorneys that this policy would restrict the free speech of non-violent protesters, City Council voted to keep Wheelers ordinance from moving forward. So where does this leave us?" Wheeler asked after the council vote. I'll continue to work with anybody who has a good idea."

Go here to see the original:
Mayor Wheeler Subpoenaed Over 2020 Curfew Policy - Blogtown - The Portland Mercury

From Valadez v. St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church, 2021 WL 6128567, decided Sept. 24, 2021 by Judge Audra Mori (L.A. Superior Court),

Plaintiff, Flavia Valadez filed this action against Defendant, St. Joseph The Worker Catholic Church alleging causes of action for negligence and premises liability. The complaint alleges Defendant caused Plaintiff to fall due to unsafe conditions in and around an unlit staircase at Defendant's property. Defendant now moves for summary judgment. "The owner of premises is under a duty to exercise ordinary care in the management of such premises in order to avoid exposing persons to an unreasonable risk of harm. A failure to fulfill this duty is negligence."

Defendant asserts the incident occurred on April 5, 2017, during a Catholic faith tradition known as the Service of the Light (the "Service") at Defendant's church. In keeping with the tradition, the church was in darkness intentionally at the time of the incident. Prior to the incident, Plaintiff attended the Service since 1997. When Plaintiff entered the church, it was already dark, and when Plaintiff was unable to find a seat in the lower level of the church, Plaintiff went upstairs to find a seat in the balcony, which she had been to five or six times previously. When Plaintiff reached the balcony, it was still dark, as there was only one overhead light shining on the altar. The balcony has four levels or landings on which seats are available. Plaintiff proceeded to a seat, and as she took a step thinking she had reached the last landing, she fell because there was actually one more landing Plaintiff had missed. Defendant avers the only dangerous condition Plaintiff claims caused her fall is the darkness in the church, which prevented her from seeing the landing.

The court rejected the Church's defense that the danger was "open and obvious": Under California law, the court concluded, "if it is foreseeable that a condition may cause injury despite its obvious nature, a duty to correct the danger may exist, and a breach of that duty may form the basis for liability if it proximately causes the injury." But the court concluded that the Church was protected by the "primary assumption of risk" doctrine:

Where, "by virtue of the nature of the activity and the parties' relationship to the activity, the defendant owes no legal duty to protect the plaintiff from the particular risk of harm that caused the injury," the assumption of risk "operate[s] as a complete bar to the plaintiffs recovery." {[F]or example in the context of sports, [p]laintiffs assume risks inherent in a sport by participating, and defendants generally owe no duty to protect plaintiffs from such risks but owe a duty not to increase the risks beyond those inherent in the sport.}

The doctrine of assumption of risk is not limited to sports. It applies to activities involving an inherent risk of injury to voluntary participants where the risk cannot be eliminated without altering the fundamental nature of the activity. (Beninati v. Black Rock City, LLC (Cal. App. 2009) [affirming application of assumption of risk doctrine where Plaintiff was burned by remnants of Burning Man effigy while at Burning Man Festival].)

Plaintiff does not dispute attending the Service since 1997 or otherwise being aware darkness was involved in the Service. The church was dark from the time Plaintiff entered the church and went to the balcony where the incident occurred. Nonetheless, Plaintiff chose to participate in the Service, and thus, chose to engage in an activity in which darkness was an inherent part. The risk to persons who voluntarily decide to take part in the Service is self-evident, as participants who attend will be inside the church while it is dark. The risk of falling inside the church while walking or moving around inside while it is dark is an obvious and inherent risk to participating in the Service.

[T]he evidence shows that Plaintiff knowingly chose to walk up to the balcony in the darkness and encounter the subject landings, of which Plaintiff was aware. The darkness was inherent and necessary to the event, and the risk of falling on the balcony while there in the darkness was obvious. It was within the contemplation of the activity.

Furthermore, although Plaintiff contends Defendant increased the risk the darkness posed, Plaintiff does not identify any conduct by Defendant other than the darkness that caused Plaintiff's injuries. Plaintiff argues the darkness together with the faulty stairs caused Plaintiff to fall. However, Plaintiff merely provides the balcony riser where Plaintiff fell presented a height differential of 7-1/4 inches, the subject landing ranged between 33-5/8 and 85 inches in length, and the area features varying tread lengths, but Plaintiff does not submit any admissible evidence explaining why these factors made the balcony dangerous or increased the risk of the darkness. Similarly, Plaintiff does not explain how the other factors Plaintiff identifies increased the inherent risk of the Service, especially whereas here, Plaintiff was aware of the balcony landings. There is no evidence that any action or inaction by Defendant increased the risk of harm to Plaintiff.

Therefore, the doctrine of primary assumption of the risk applies to the activity engaged in by Plaintiff, and accordingly, Defendant owed no duty to Plaintiff to prevent Plaintiff's injuries. The court needs not address the remaining issues.

Read the original:
The First Amendment Right to Religious Darkness - Reason

Enlarge / A Navy nurse prepares a syringe.

Getty Images | petesphotography

US Navy Seals who objected to COVID vaccination on religious grounds yesterday won a preliminary injunction that prohibits the Navy from enforcing its vaccine mandate.

"Thirty-five Navy Special Warfare service members allege that the military's mandatory vaccination policy violates their religious freedoms under the First Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act," Judge Reed O'Connor wrote in the ruling out of US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. "The Navy provides a religious accommodation process, but by all accounts, it is theater. The Navy has not granted a religious exemption to any vaccine in recent memory. It merely rubber stamps each denial."

O'Connor, who was nominated by President Bush in 2007, found that the Navy service members are likely to win the case on the merits. He granted the injunction prohibiting the Navy from enforcing its mandate against the plaintiffs and "from taking any adverse action against Plaintiffs on the basis of Plaintiffs' requests for religious accommodation."

"The Navy service members in this case seek to vindicate the very freedoms they have sacrificed so much to protect," O'Connor wrote. "The COVID-19 pandemic provides the government no license to abrogate those freedoms. There is no COVID-19 exception to the First Amendment. There is no military exclusion from our Constitution."

The 35 plaintiffs include 26 Navy SEALs, five SpecialWarfare Combatant Craft Crewmen, three Navy Divers, and one Explosive Ordinance Disposal Technician. They sued President Biden, Secretary of DefenseLloyd Austin, the Department of Defense, and Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro. O'Connor dismissed Biden from the lawsuit because the court has no declaratory or injunctive power against the president.

The Department of Defense and Navy can appeal the preliminary injunction ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In a December 2021 brief opposing the preliminary injunction, the Department of Justice said the motion "ask[s] this Court to intrude into the management of the military by forcing the Navy to considerPlaintiffs medically qualified for continued service in a special warfare unit, eligible for combatmissions, and world-wide deployable. Plaintiffs cite no case that has ever granted such extraordinary relief in the military context, and in fact, they provide no authority supporting the reviewability of military decisions."

"[T]he Navy has a vital interest in maximizing the effectiveness of Naval Special Warfare operations against US enemies and minimizing the risk of error in these critical operations," the US also argued. "The Government's interest in 'maximum efficiency' of Navy SEAL special operations and ensuring their maximum capacity 'of easily and quickly responding to continually changing circumstances' is paramount. The Navy cannot accept any Naval Special Warfare operating conditions that place its success in combat against enemies of the United States at risk of failure."

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While 99.4 percent of active-duty Navy service members were fully vaccinated by early November, the plaintiffs are among the remaining 0.6 percent and belong to the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant branches of Christianity. The plaintiffs' religious beliefs include "(1) opposition to abortion and the use of aborted fetal cell lines in development of the vaccine; (2) belief that modifying one's body is an afront [sic] to the Creator; (3) direct, divine instruction not to receive the vaccine; and (4) opposition to injecting trace amounts of animal cells into one's body," O'Connor wrote.

The Navy has so far denied at least 29 of the 35 exemption requests, has never granted a religious exemption request for the COVID-19 vaccine, and has not granted any religious exemptions for any vaccine in the past seven years, O'Connor wrote. "Several Plaintiffs have been directly told by their chains of command that 'the senior leadership of Naval Special Warfare has no patience or tolerance for service members who refuse COVID-19 vaccination for religious reasons and wants them out of the SEAL community,'" the ruling said.

O'Connor criticized the Navy's 50-step process for evaluating religious exemption requests, writing that "the first fifteen steps require an administrator to update a prepared disapproval template with the requester's name and rank. In essence, the Plaintiffs' requests are denied the moment they begin."

After that, a tentative disapproval letter is "sent to seven offices for review," religious exemption requests from multiple service members are packaged together, and the administrator "prepares an internal memo to Vice Admiral John Nowell, asking him to 'sign... letters disapproving immunization waiver requests based on sincerely held religious beliefs.'" O'Connor continued:

Then, at step thirty-five of the process, the administrator is toldfor the first timeto read through the religious accommodation request. At that point, the disapproval letter has already been written, the religious accommodation request and related documents has already been reviewed by several offices, the disapproval has already been packaged with similar requests, and an internal memo has already been drafted requesting that Vice Admiral Nowell disapprove the religious accommodation request. The administrator is then tasked with reading the request and recording any pertinent information in a spreadsheet. At no point in the process is the administrator given the opportunity to recommend anything other than disapproval. The materials are then sent to Vice Admiral Nowell. The entire process belies the manual's assertion that "[e]ach request is evaluated on a case by case basis."

Read more:
Judge blocks Navy vaccine rule: No COVID-19 exception to the First Amendment - Ars Technica

Marjorie Taylor Greene rages on over losing one of her Twitter accounts due to a long history of spreading COVID-19 misinformation, and sedition. Apparently, the congressperson from Georgia does not understand how free speech and its associated protections work.

Daily Beast:

Nevertheless, Greene has spent the past three days having a protracted meltdown over the decision, and went one step further Tuesday night by effectively accusing Twitter of committing an act of domestic terrorism in deleting her. She told Newsmax: "Twitter has attacked my district, and has attacked I would say our country as a whole by kicking a member of Congress off of their platform And also, remember, they kicked off President Trump while he was a sitting United States president. So Twitter is completely out of bounds. No one elected them. No one put them in charge of what is information or what is misinformation."

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Empty G demonstrates zero knowledge of the first amendment - Boing Boing

In the months leading up to Donald Trumps 2016 election victory, Fox News host Sean Hannity used his massive media platform to openly help his friend defeat Hillary Clintonan approach he justified by insisting that he is not a journalist and does not have to abide by journalistic ethics. Im not hiding the fact that I want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States, Hannity said in August of 2016, adding: I never claimed to be a journalist. Earlier that year, the Fox News star acknowledged that, if he were to interview Clinton, he would go after her a hundred times harder than any Republican because he is an overtly partisan actor. Im not a journalist, Im a talk show host, he concluded.

However, on Tuesday, Hannitys attorney Jay Sekulow insisted that the House select committee investigating the Capitol riotwhich has released text messages Hannity sent to former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadowstreat his client like a journalist and offer him the same protections that members of the press are afforded by the First Amendment. We are evaluating the letter from the committee. We remain very concerned about the constitutional implications especially as it relates to the First Amendment, wrote Sekulow. We will respond as appropriate. Separately, to Axios, Sekulow mentioned concerns regarding freedom of the press.

The text messages in question, which were obtained as part of 9,000 pages of documents that Meadows handed over after being subpoenaed, show how Hannity acted as a key outside adviser for the former president during his final days in office. One week before the Capitol riot erupted, Hannity questioned Trumps strategy to overturn the election and warned that it could result in mass White House resignations. We cant lose the entire WH counsels [sic] office. I do NOT see January 6 happening the way [Trump] is being told, Hannity wrote in an exchange with Meadows. On the night of January 5, Hannity again texted Meadows, writing that he was very worried about the next 48 hours while expressing concern regarding Trumps attempt to pressure Mike Pence into intervening in the elections certification process. On the afternoon of January 6, as violence erupted around the Capitol building, Hannity pleaded with Meadows to try to put a stop to the attack. Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol, he wrote. "Ask people to peacefully leave the Capitol.Finally, on January 10, Hannity reacted to the Houses attempt to impeach Trump by telling Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan that Trump cant mention the election again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, Im not sure what is left to do or say, and I dont like not knowing if its truly understood. Ideas?

The bipartisan committees chair and vice-chair have requested Hannitys cooperation with the investigation. We have no doubt that you love our country and respect our Constitution, wrote committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson and vice-chair Rep. Liz Cheney. Now is the time to step forward and serve the interests of your country.On the Tuesday night edition of Hannity, the host lashed out at the cowardly swamp creatures and the media mob, though he ultimately dodged the issue by not directly responding to the committees request. He also failed to address the role that his personal messages and advice to Trump have played in the January 6 investigation. Instead, he allowed his attorney to speak for him, with Sekulow releasing his First Amendment statement shortly after the conclusion of Hannitys show.

When asked for comment about the committees request and Hannitys lawyers reference to the First Amendment, a Fox News spokesperson referred Vanity Fair to Sekulow's statement. The question of whether Hannity is a journalist, and subject to any professional and ethical obligations that go along with it, has come up before. While Hannity has both denied being a journalist and described himself as suchIm an advocacy journalist, or an opinion journalist, he said in 2017The Washington Post struggled the following year to get a direct answer from his employer following the revelation that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen also represented the Fox News host. At the time, a network spokesperson would allow that Hannity is an opinion talk show host.

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Sean Hannity Wants the January 6 Committee to Believe Hes a Journalist - Vanity Fair