On The Front Lines

Denouncing excessive, costly government security protocols lacking in common sense and intended to chill First Amendment activity, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have filed a Fourth Amendment lawsuit against government officials who allowed a disabled war veteran to carry two firearms through a security checkpoint only to arrest him for lawfully purchasing canned iced tea, bug spray, lightbulbs and razor blades, which were banned as part of the city’s pre-emptive measures to discourage civil unrest. A district court judge later dismissed the charges against 64-year-old John Miska, ruling that the ordinance used to justify the veteran’s arrest was overbroad and unreasonable and, therefore, unenforceable. The Rutherford Institute’s lawsuit against the City of Charlottesville comes in response to pre-emptive “state of emergency” lockdown measures adopted in anticipation of the one-year anniversary of the August 12, 2017, racially-charged protests and counter-protests in Charlottesville, Va., over the removal of a Confederate statue from a public park. In accordance with an emergency declaration by Governor Northam, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies locked down portions of the small college town, deployed 700 police officers—many in riot gear—to patrol portions of the downtown area, restricted the free movement of persons on public streets, and imposed a broad ban on innocuous items such as metal food and beverage containers, aerosol sprays, glass bottles, skateboards, masks and hoods at a cost of several million dollars.

The Rutherford Institute has come to the aid of a death row inmate who has been told that he must either submit to the presence of a chaplain representing a religion of the government’s choosing or have no clergy at all present during his execution. In an emergency amicus brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, The Rutherford Institute is challenging Alabama’s decision to only allow death row inmate Domineque Hakim Marcelle Ray, a Muslim, to have a Christian chaplain present when he is put to death by lethal injection on Feb. 7, rather than accommodating his request for clergy to be present who share his religious beliefs. Rutherford Institute attorneys argue that the state’s refusal to accommodate Ray’s religious beliefs violates the First Amendment and federal laws protecting religious freedom.