Two Years of Hell for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist

 After more than two years of arrests, handcuffs, fingerprinting, imprisonment, home incarceration, ankle bracelets, surveillance, hearings, meetings with judges, and travel restrictions for a crime that doesn’t exist, Rev. Tony Spell is a free man.

Last Friday, the Louisiana Supreme Court threw out the criminal charges against the Central pastor as illegal and unconstitutional.  His arrest was based not on a crime defined by the legislature but an edict of Gov. John Bel Edwards. 

You can look in the Criminal Code of Louisiana or the Revised Statutes for as long as you please, and you will not find a crime called “Holding Church Services Without Permission of the Governor” or any such crime by any other name.  It simply doesn’t exist!

Freeing Pastor Spell from the restrictions he has been under was part of a landmark 20-page opinion that determined Edwards’ decree closing churches was unconstitutional.

The fact that the Sheriff, Police Chief, and Mayor-President would all join together behind the Governor to prosecute a pastor for a constitutionally protected activity and a crime that doesn’t exist raises many questions. Was it all just politics?  The Governor asked them to go after the pastor, so they did? Or did they actually think it through?  What were the real motives of the Governor and the others? Where are they getting their legal advice? And do they understand or care to understand the most basic principles of the American constitutional system?

Even non-lawyers know the Governor can’t make law. The Louisiana Constitution is quite clear about that.  Article II of the Constitution provides for three branches of government and a separation of powers among those branches. It says,

The powers of government of the state are divided into three separate branches: legislative, executive, and judicial… no one of these branches, nor any person holding office in one of them, shall exercise power belonging to either of the others.

Article III of the Constitution vests the legislative power in the Louisiana Legislature.

Every elected official and law enforcement officer has an obligation to understand who has the power to make the laws because these officials are bound to obey and enforce the law. Each official begins his service by taking an oath prescribed by the Louisiana Constitution in Art. 10, Sec. 30: 

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution and laws of the United States and the constitution and laws of this state…”

So every elected official and law enforcement officer has to know that the legislature makes laws and defines crimes — not the governor.

Nevertheless, a Central pastor has been persecuted for more than two years for violating a law that doesn’t exist — the crime of holding church services without the permission of the governor. 

At this point, the public doesn’t know what went on behind the scenes to put so many officials in lock step with the Governor and his illegal and unconstitutional decrees.  

However, as these officials are subpoenaed to testify and bring their records and documents, we will hopefully know much, much more about what went on in the halls of power in our state for the past two years.

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