Posted on 08/05/2013 1:56:24 PM PDT by BenLurkin
RIVERSIDE (CBSLA.com) — Two Hemet church members who were arrested while reading the Bible outside a DMV office were expected to be in court when their trial begins Monday.
Brett Anthony Coronado, 42, of Reconciled Christian Fellowship in Hemet, and Mark Allen Mackey, 59, a Calvary Chapel Hemet church elder, visited the DMV at 1200 S. State Street on Feb. 2, 2011, before business hours and began to read passages from the Bible.
After a security guard approached Mackey and instructed him to leave the premises, the men continued reading, claiming their First Amendment rights protected their actions and that they were not interfering with any DMV business.
A video posted on YouTube shows the men were arrested shortly after that by California High Officer Darrin Meyer, who eventually cited them for “impeding an open business”.
Another member of the ministry, Edmond Flores, was also taken into custody, but was not charged.
Attorneys for the men argued that the penal code under which Coronado and Mackey were arrested is meant to protect businesses from protesters who intimidate patrons and block entrances, and since the DMV was not yet open at the time the men were reading, the citation had no merit.
“We believe that these men were exercising their First Amendment right of Free Speech,” attorney Robert Tyler with Advocates for Faith & Freedom. “These men were simply sharing their faith on public property, and we will defend their constitutional right to do so.”
According to attorneys, Riverside County District Attorney Paul Zellerbach later decided to charge the men with misdemeanor “trespassing” on state property.
Coronado, Mackey and Flores filed a civil liberties lawsuit in April 2011 alleging Meyer, and by extension the CHP, had violated their First, Fourth and 14th amendment rights, as well as violated the “liberty” clause of the California Constitution.
But U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee suspended further hearings on the lawsuit in September 2011 until the criminal case against Coronado and Mackey was resolved.
If convicted, Coronado and Mackey face up to 90 days in jail, or by a fine of up to $400, or both.
“Reading” should be replaced with “reciting.”
This is from 2011.
No news of outcomes since then?????????
This is from 2011.
No news of outcomes since then?????????
You can get answers to your questions by going to the video in the link. He was reading in a loud voice so that those waiting for the license office to open would hear him. He was arrested for proselytizing to a captive audience.
If they were pro-abortion or pro-ObamaCare activists they would not have been arrested.
August 5, 2013 11:48 AM
RIVERSIDE (CBSLA.com) “Two Hemet church members who were arrested while reading the Bible outside a DMV office were expected to be in court when their trial begins Monday.”
There’s a whole body of case law concerning “free speech fora.” If he’d been on the sidewalk, there wouldn’t have been a problem, but to be on the grounds of a government facility doing this is no different than if they’d come into a store, a courtroom, or your home and done this.
Would that cop have arrested him had he read from the Koran?
More likely to have arrested whoever complained about the guy reading the Koran.
To be on the grounds of a government facility is not trespassing, which is what these men are being charged with, especially considering there were customers lined up waiting for the DMV to open who were not charged.
But I doubt that reading the Koran in public is.
It was getting a little out of hand. A patron said “I got in line right when they started reading the first chapter of Genesis. They were half way through Leviticus by the time I got service.”
It's the same as if they had come onto the property of a store to proselytize. If they refused to leave, they could be arrested for trespassing while customers of the store were not.
I don’t think so. For instance, you always run into people begging for money or asking you to sign petitions outside grocery stores. The stores would love to have those people arrested for trespassing and kicked out, but they can’t. Same situation here.
Sounds like they arrested the wrong people. That is about a five hour wait.
There you start to get into the weeds of case by case opinions, the “reasonableness” of their restrictions, the willingness of stores to stir up the ire of activists of whatever stripe vs the inconvenience to their patrons, and the willingness of police to get involved. There’s a large body of federal case law on this, and there are state level laws as well. But as for a government facility like this DMV, there’s a case called US v Kokinda about post offices that is pretty on point.
US v Kokinda had to do with violation of a Federal statute, 39 CFR 232.1(h)(1)(1989), which prohibits “soliciting alms and contributions ... on postal premises.” This was on state (not federal) land, and there was no solicitation involved. Plus, they are not charged with solicitation, only trespassing. The men were outside, standing in a planter area, not impeding/obstructing anyone. How do you get a trespass conviction out of that, when there were others on the property at the same time?
Sorry, I should have said I was joking—making fun of the DMV.
The article said they were 'sharing their faith' so that seems to imply they were reading out loud.
Would you be OK if they were reading the Koran out loud instead of the Bible?
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