Did You Know?
Church Can’t Shelter

City authorities have dropped charges against a pastor who let homeless people sleep in his church in Bryan, Ohio.

In March 2023, Chris Avell, pastor of Dad’s Place Church, began letting homeless people stay overnight in the church. Avell’s move came in response to a housing shortage in Bryan, a town of 8,600 located 50 miles west of Toledo.

The city filed 18 criminal zoning violations against Avell, after city officials received calls about theft, harassment, and disturbing the peace at the church.

The city dropped the charges after Bryan agreed to stop residential operations at the church and to seek the necessary building and zoning permits.

The church has sued the city in federal court, alleging religious discrimination.

Source: WPR

Quotable
“When you think about the systems of Jim Crow, they were really built to dehumanize us, even in death.” – U.S Rep. Alma S. Adams (D-North Carolina)

The Supreme Court of Maryland is scheduled to rule this spring on a challenge to a county housing commission’s sale of land that contains a historic Black cemetery.

The Moses Macedonia African Cemetery, located in Bethesda, Md., was paved over to make a parking lot in 1968.

Descendants of people buried in the cemetery sued the Montgomery County Housing Commission in 2021. The commission proposed selling the parking lot to developers.

“This issue is really critical because right now there are literally hundreds of African American burial grounds around the United States that are in various states of desecration,” said Steven Lieberman, the attorney who represents the descendants.

Source: USA Today

By the Numbers
$24 million

– Amount awarded to Wisconsin in tobacco payment arbitration

An arbitration panel of former judges has awarded Wisconsin $24 million in the state’s dispute with cigarette manufacturers.

The dispute arises out of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) that Wisconsin and 45 other states reached with tobacco manufacturers in 1998.

Under the MSA, payments to states by manufacturers that are parties to the MSA shrink when the market share of manufacturers not parties to the MSA rises.

But the arbitration panel ruled that the reduced payment did not apply to Wisconsin because the state had diligently enforced a statute requiring non-MSA manufacturers to place money from the sale of cigarettes in Wisconsin into an escrow account.

Source: WEAU.com

On the Radar
Majority Disapprove of SCOTUS

Sixty percent of respondents in a recent Marquette Law School poll disapprove of the U.S. Supreme Court. In last year’s poll, 59% disapproved of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Among Democrats, 27% approved of the Court and 73% disapproved. In 2020, 60% of Democrats approved of the Court and 39% disapproved.

Among Republicans, 57% approved of the Court and 43% said they disapproved. In 2020, 78% of Republicans approved of the Court and 20% disapproved.

The poll was conducted between Feb. 5 and Feb. 15, 2024.

Source: CNN

Good Idea?
Honk at Your Own Risk

In February, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling that upheld a traffic ticket issued to a woman who honked her horn while driving by a demonstration outside a congressional representative’s office in 2017.

In their petition to the Court, attorneys for Susan Porter argued that her honk was protected by the First Amendment.

“The car horn is the sound of democracy in action,” the attorneys wrote.

But the Court declined to take Porter’s case.

A California statute prohibits a driver from honking the horn except when honking is necessary to ensure the vehicle’s safe operation. Violators are subject to a $238 fine.

Forty other states have similar laws.

Source: USA Today