National Roundup

Ohio
Court strikes down order restricting future commentary
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A judge’s order forbidding a man from making Internet postings in the future about two family members is unconstitutional, the Ohio Supreme Court said in a unanimous ruling.

At issue before the court were social media and other comments by a western Ohio man accusing his sister of contributing to her husband’s death in 2015 and accusing his mother of contributing to his father’s separate death in 2008.

The postings also accused local officials in Mercer County from failing to properly investigate the deaths. In 2018, a judge granted the women a stalking protection order that prohibited the man from having any contact with them.

The judge’s order also forbade the man from posting “in any manner that expresses, implies, or suggests” that the women were culpable in their husbands’ deaths.

That order is an unconstitutional restraint on free speech, the state Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision Tuesday.

The civil protection orders were meant to relieve the mental distress the women experienced from the postings, Justice Michael Donnelly wrote.

“But the means chosen to provide that relief—with its virtually unlimited restraint on the content of future postings about appellees—went far beyond anything that the factual record before us can sustain and the First Amendment can tolerate,” the justice said.

Wisconsin
Man charged with murder-for-hire against accuser, mother
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A Green Bay man charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl is now accused of trying to hire someone to kill the teen and her mother.

Laene Piontek made his initial appearance Tuesday afternoon via video conference on two counts of solicitation of first-degree intentional homicide.

WLUK-TV reports a criminal complaint says Piontek offered another inmate in the Brown County Jail $20,000 to kill the two.

Piontek was charged earlier this month with repeated sexual assault of a child.

Court commissioner Chad Resar set the bond at $100,000 cash.

Defense attorney Michael Levine called the charges “frivolous,” “ridiculous” and a “disingenuous complaint based on nonsense.” He noted Piontek hasn’t been able to post the $50,000 cash bond in the sexual assault case while asking for a lower bond.

Piontek returns to court June 26 for a preliminary hearing.

Arkansas
AG sues TV pastor over virus treatment claims
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas’ attorney general on Tuesday sued Missouri-based TV pastor Jim Bakker over his promotion of a product falsely touted as a cure for the illness caused by the coronavirus.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge filed the lawsuit in Arkansas against Bakker and Morningside Church Productions, less than three months after the state of Missouri filed a similar lawsuit.

Rutledge’s lawsuit says 385 Arkansans made purchases from Bakker’s company totaling approximately $60,524 for colloidal silver, a product often sold on the internet as a dietary supplement.

“Jim Bakker has exploited Arkansas consumers by leveraging COVID-19 fears to sell over $60,000 worth of their products that do nothing to fight the virus,” Rutledge said in a statement released by her office. The Republican attorney general added that her case was about consumer fraud, not freedom of religion.

The liquid solution has often been falsely peddled as a miracle solution to boost the immune system and cure diseases.

The lawsuit’s defendants also include Sherrill Sellman, a guest on Bakker’s show who claimed in February the products were “proven by the government to have the ability to kill every pathogen it has ever been tested on.”

Federal regulators in March sent letters to Bakker and several other companies warning  them stop selling soaps, sprays and other concoctions with false claims they could treat or cure the coronavirus.

Bakker has asked  a judge to dismiss Missouri’s lawsuit against him. Former Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who is representing Bakker, said the pastor never said the product treated or cured COVID-19. Nixon claimed Rutledge’s lawsuit was her response to the pastor seeking in court to prevent her from obtaining personal information of his congregation members as part of her investigation.

“Attorney General Rutledge’s filing today confirms that our action to prevent this type of retaliation was warranted,” Nixon said in a statement.

Arkansas
ACLU challenges state’s criminal eviction law
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas is challenging the legality of the state’s criminal eviction law that subjects tenants to criminal charges for not paying rent.

The ACLU filed suit Monday on behalf of 36-year-old Edrin Allen, a former factory worker who has been unable to pay his $400 monthly rent since losing his job in April amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Allen has not been able to find work and has been denied unemployment, the lawsuit states.

Under the Arkansas law, passed in 1901, it is considered a misdemeanor when tenants are one day late on rent. Each day the renter remains on the property after being asked to vacate is considered a separate criminal offense.

Arkansas is the only state that criminalizes evictions, subjecting renters to daily fines of up to $25 that can go on indefinitely, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“Arkansas is the only state where being late on the rent can result in a criminal prosecution — purely on the basis of a landlord’s say-so,” said Holly Dickson, ACLU of Arkansas interim executive director and legal director. “This law allows landlords to use the criminal process to get the upper hand in a matter for civil court, and it disproportionately impacts black and brown communities who already suffer from over-policing and systemic discrimination in housing, health care, and employment.”

Joined by the William H. Bowen School of Law Legal Clinic, the Center for Arkansas Legal Services and Legal Aid of Arkansas, the ACLU is asking U.S. District Judge Brian Miller to issue a temporary restraining order to keep Allen from being removed from his home until a trial can be held on the constitutionality of the statute.