Texas AG: Free Shelley Luther!
This:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has called for the “immediate release” of a Dallas salon owner who was arrested and sent to jail for opening her business in defiance of Gov. Greg Abbott’s stay-at-home orders…
“I find it outrageous and out of touch that during this national pandemic, a judge, in a county that actually released hardened criminals for fear of contracting COVID-19, would jail a mother for operating her hair salon in an attempt to put food on her family’s table,” said Attorney General Paxton. “The trial judge did not need to lock up Shelley Luther. His order is a shameful abuse of judicial discretion, which seems like another political stunt in Dallas. He should release Ms. Luther immediately.”
I certainly can’t argue with that. The rush to lock up people like Luther (interesting name, no?) and to release actual criminals is not an accident. Texas is one of the states the Democrats hope to turn blue. The state edges closer and closer, but has so far resisted. However, it has some deeply liberal/left pockets such as Austin and other cities.
Here’s a map of Texas voting from 2016. I can’t copy it, so you’ll have to look at it at the link. But it makes the urban/rural situation quite clear, as well as the Democratic dominance in the most southern portion of the state, the section that borders Mexico.
Yep, time for a Reformation in Texas’ cities.
Remember the Hammer, O!
The widespread civil disobedience is coming. The governor of WA told the mayor of Spokane that they can’t open up until they go 3 weeks with no new infections. 3 WEEKS!! That may never happen even with a vaccine. It almost certainly will never happen in the highly populated central Puget Sound counties.
The time is coming for lots and lots of businesses to responsibly open even if the authoritarian govt says no. Make them arrest hundreds or thousands of people.
I must ask my neighbor from Odessa, Texas, what he thinks of the video of police there sending a swat team and an armored vehicle to shut down a bar which had opened.
Griffin:
Egad. The only way that will happen is if they stop doing tests for it.
The rush to lock up people like Luther (interesting name, no?)…
There she stands. She can do no other. So help her, God.
That map reflects the same distribution across most of the country: urban blue, rural red. Even here in deep blue Connecticut. The last election showed the cities (Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, New London) all voting Democrat. And since they have the population, they control the outcome.
Sorry, but I gotta disagree with y’all this one time. This salon operator has run a free publicity campaign out of this issue, IMHO, getting constant coverage on the local TV channels here. This includes her tearing up the court’s restraining order on camera. Now she’s a GoFundMe martyr to boot.
If you’re going to rip up a court order in a TV event, then you need to take your medicine for it. Challenge the law with all your force, to be sure, but contempt for the rule of law (even if in error) comes at a price. When court orders are routinely ignored and torn up in defiance, you can be damn sure that the statists and leftist radicals will do the same in response to rulings they don’t like.
We are beginning to see the strain of this situation on all of us. Some people, especially the vulnerable, are frightened for good reason; others are economically distressed and ready to get back in business, also for good reason. Meanwhile, the media will create, amplify, and exploit wedge issues like this because they get a reaction — splitting well-meaning people apart — while the fascists and statists will use the situation as carte blanche to put their boot heel on our throats.
pikkumatti,
She’s going to jail for a week so I think she is taking her medicine.
Would you have said the same thing about another person named Luther in the 1960s?
Griffin:
The madness if King Jay, and to think he considers himself presidential material, as if we needed more evidence of his delusions.
pikkumatti said,
“Challenge the law with all your force, to be sure, but contempt for the rule of law (even if in error) comes at a price.”
A price? It sure does. A heavy price. And it will be paid sooner or later, whether we tear up court orders or not. We no longer reside in a country that honors the Rule of Law. I applaud her actions. I also donated money to her GoFundMe.
Its no longer a Justice System. Its a Legal System. Some people get justice, and some people get the law. One feels good and the other requires you to bend over and grab your ankles. Which one you get depends on who you are and what you believe. And who you own.
Also,
“When court orders are routinely ignored and torn up in defiance, you can be damn sure that the statists and leftist radicals will do the same in response to rulings they don’t like.”
You think they don’t already?!? That’s cute! Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention to the DOJ/Flynn debacle. Or the Hillary Email debacle.
Shall we go on?
No justice system, only laws. No rule of law, only people who use laws and bend them to their needs.
om,
A pattern is developing with Inslee. He introduces some draconian punishment then a lobbying group (i.e. unions, developers) puts pressure on him then he loosens but only for those groups then he makes it crazy hard for those people to meet his standard. Then another group (say small lightly hit counties) comes along and pressures him and then he comes out with new plan for them to open then he makes it almost impossible for them to meet these standards. Idiot.
That’s why we need to see lots of people defy him but be responsible doing it at least at first. Retail places require masks eating establishments take some distancing measures or expand outdoor dining weather permitting. This cannot continue.
Kate,
Have you seen the MEAL Team 6 memes, from Ector County images? The pictures of the of the Ector County Sheriff’s are sad and disgusting. Very meme worthy.
Push a person hard enough and they reach a point where they will push back. The desperation, frustration, and anger is going to come to a boil if the repressive lockdowns are not ended soon as in very soon. Free Shelley Luther.
Judge is an African-American Obama appointment. He’s not available in his office today but he does have a gruff and growling “assistant” answering his phone and taking messages.
Speaking of tearing up official documents, don’t forget your lovely (appears they refilled the Botox system) Speaker of the House. We have always had to fight judicial corruption thru-out our history. I just hope justice can be saved once again although it seems that each assault comes rather further up the shore.
@griffin But MLK did go to jail in Birmingham, in the manner of Gandhi, and it became a pivotal point in the civil rights struggle, rightly so. (I don’t remember him tearing up court orders, either….) The other point of civil disobedience is that the actor has the moral responsibility of being right (i.e., that the law is unjust, and thus not a law). I don’t see that here — especially since we are in the “reasonable people can disagree” area of whether salons ought to be closed.
@Fractal Rabbit I hope you’re wrong, but I fear you’re not . . .
” [Texas] it makes the urban/rural situation quite clear” [Neo]
“That map reflects the same distribution across most of the country: urban blue, rural red.” [physicsguy @ 4:46 pm]
It is a classic pattern. See Pennsylvania (Pennsyltucky?, Michigan, and although a little less so, Wisconsin below).
https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/pennsylvania/
https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/michigan/
https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/wisconsin/
and, perhaps most egregiously, New York:
https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/new-york/
“The madness if King Jay, and to think he considers himself presidential material. . . .” [om @ 5:09 pm]
Note Glenn Reynolds comment this morning over at Instapundit (7:30 am):
pikkumatti,
We all agree MLK’s cause was correct from 50 plus years in the future but not everyone thought that then. And lest you say those were bad people how do you know that these people destroying lives are so altruistic now?
You call them reasonable but are they?
Shelly Luther is only the first of many; and the ones that come after her won’t be nearly as graceful about it as she.
The simple fact is that people need to pay their bills and put food on their table. Most of us do that by going out and earning a living. Ms. Luther, like most of us, cannot telecommute her job; she has to be in her studio with her customers.
KRB
The AG was right.
Absolute overreach of judicial authority. Her TRO violation was minimal compared to the egregious “kiss my ring” conditions the AA judge set down. Fine her court costs + $1 & send her home. But he forced her to tell him “I cannot recant.” It was a set-up determined to make an example of her.
He needs a lesson in civil disobedience right outside his house.
Fractal Rabbit, oh heavens, I just saw that Meal Team 6 thing on Kurt Schlichter’s twitter feed. Hilarious!
Ah, apparently that Meal Team 6 meme is a photoshop. I didn’t see those guys in the original video from Odessa. It was bad enough.
Photoshop? I guess I believed it because I’ve seen too many deputies like that. Its still hilarious! I forwarded the meme about 100+ times today myself…
I did watch the Odessa video. That was unsettling to say the least. There’s also video of a brutal, very unnecessary arrest in NYC of some poor guy who had the temerity to question the NYPD’s handling of a different arrest:
https://gothamist.com/news/video-nypd-officer-beating-social-distancing-enforcement
What’s striking about that video, besides the action of the cop who dresses like a thug, is the sound of chaos around them, especially toward the end of the video just before it gets cut off.
That’s the sound of city, or at least a neighborhood, on the verge of exploding.
Its a lit powder keg. How long is the fuse? Who knows. But the cops have zero control or authority, having squandered all goodwill they may have had policing a people who feel trapped and oppressed.
If anyone lives in NYC, be wary.
Seems she is being jailed more for her defiance than for simply breaking the law. She tore up the court order, no doubt to get good p.r. and help her business flourish. Which it will now.
But the government’s order was not capricious. Trump’s Admin has declared an emergency. The state of Texas has a stay at home order. So why should this woman be allowed to open her business and get off scot-free? She is not the only hair salon in Dallas. She is not the only mother having difficulty feeding her children. It sucks for a lot of people but we have a rule of law for a reason and most respect that.
That said, I don’t know that I would have given her jail time. But based on what I’ve seen from her court appearance the judge gave her an easy way out if she just apologized. But she refused. Judges can and do punish defiance.
I will say too that she could have kept her business going on the low-down out of her home. Take appointments or do house calls and cut people’s hair. Something I know is happening right now all over America. There are ways around that technically are not keeping a physical business open but keeping a business running during the lock down.
Montage:
There’s a lot of room between “getting off scot-free” and going to jail for 7 days. How about just a fine?
At the same time, actual criminals are getting out of prison because of the COVID risks. So perhaps forcing her to be exposed to those risks isn’t such a great idea.
In addition, the rule was being rescinded on May 8, in just a couple of days:
In addition, the Texas governor, who was the one who promulgated the original rule in the first place, had this to say:
The Texas AG said this:
Judges have a lot of discretion. There was no need for this except power and retribution.
Neo, you may find this website of particular interest:
Dave Liep’s Atlas of US Presidential Elections
https://uselectionatlas.org/
He has data, (more recently, even county-level), going back to the 1789 election of George W.
He also has a lot of county level results for more recent elections, such as US senators and governors.
NOTE: He’s been updating this site for more than 20 years, and thus it predates the year 2000 election “switch” of GOP=Blue, Dems=Red to GOP-Red & Dem-Blue (The merdia wanted to help “distance” the Dems from their socialist connections, and, of course, Red==Socialist… What a difference a couple decades make, huh?)
THUS you will find it still uses Dems==Red and GOP==Blue.
“There was no need for this except power and retribution.”
This.
Now the judge needs to experience the backlash of that raw exercise.
Neo,
Yeah I did say I wouldn’t have jailed her but I do think the sentence was more for defiance than just breaking the law. We are seeing a lot of law enforcement issues. In Wisconsin the police threatened a woman who let her child go to a birthday party. In NYC some cops are arresting and ticketing [and in some cases using force] against people not wearing masks and not social distancing. That I find more troubling because in most of these cases people are not purposely being defiant. I don’t want to see law enforcement and judges coming down hard on people for these infractions – so I would agree with you on that.
Moue’s is a Harvard Lawyer, first appointed by BigTexas Hair Ann Richards, in 1992, God rest her soul, and then reelected to his bench which he has held for a number of years. Moue’s is a strong Democrat, buddy of Obama and co. and this is politics, pure and simple. Dallas is a Democrat enclave in a sea of Red necks, etc. Now, G-d willing it will bite those suckers on their butts.
The judge wanted her to apologize for in his words being ‘selfish’ and she rejected that description and stood by her principles and was willing to pay the price. That is impressive.
“…he makes it crazy hard for those people to meet his standard.” – Griffin in re Inslee.
Life imitates art. Folktales are remembered for reasons.
“You may go to the ball if you finish all your chores AND have a proper dress to wear, Cinderella.”
Step-mother and step-sisters tear up the beautiful dress.
“Oh dear, now you have to stay home.”
“Her TRO violation was minimal compared to the egregious “kiss my ring” conditions the AA judge set down. … But he forced her to tell him “I cannot recant.” It was a set-up determined to make an example of her.” – John Guilfoyle
“The judge wanted her to apologize for in his words being ‘selfish’ and she rejected that description and stood by her principles and was willing to pay the price.” – Griffin
Most of the videos circulating are of Luther’s response, but if you haven’t done so already, listen to the judge’s conditions.
He droned on for far longer than that (video linked below), a veritable sermon from the bench.
I kept visualizing him in a red robe with a curled wig, lecturing a pre-independence American about his duty to obey the Orders of the King and the Laws of Parliament — where he was not represented.
Or a southern judge haranguing Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King about the importance of obeying Jim Crow laws.
Or a Catholic court condemning the original Luther for defying Church edicts.
“If you would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that your own actions were selfish, putting your own interest ahead of those in the community in which you live,”
All rebellions have been characterized this way by the ruling establishment.
Somebody has finally taken the step of defying unConstitutional executive orders (NO state has yet enacted LAWS about the lockdowns, AFAIK), and it’s hard to demonize a working woman with kids — a hairstylist no less!
She’s not a Black Panther or a Weatherman or an Antifa thug or a #BLM activist or even a college student grabbing microphones, stealing signs, and shouting down invited guests; yet she was given a stern lecture, fine, and jail sentence for doing something that doesn’t even approach within light years of what the Democrats routinely justify for THEIR rebellion.
I wonder what the judge’s responses have been to defendants who have protested or rioted in support of causes that the judge believes to be “unselfish” opposition to somehow “unjust” laws, and if he was worried that they endangered the welfare of the community by vandalizing businesses, beating by-standers or journalists, torching cars, and the rest of the litany of literal crimes that constitute the left’s repertoire of “civil disobedience.”
Ben Franklin (as quoted in “1776”) reminds us that “A rebellion is always legal in the first person – our rebellion; it is only in the third person — their rebellion — that it is illegal.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/texas_created_a_wuhan_virus_martyr_by_imprisoning_shelley_luther.html?utm_source=vuukle&utm_medium=newsfeed
“The judge, it should be noted, continues to work and draw a paycheck — as does every government employee in America.”
But really, just don’t mess with Texans.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/tx-lt-gov-dan-patrick-to-pay-7k-fine-of-arrested-salon-owner-offers-to-serve-her-jail-sentence-so-she-can-work
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/this-is-nuts-ted-cruz-defends-salon-owner-sentenced-to-week-in-jail-for-violating-texas-shut-down-order
https://www.dailywire.com/news/dan-crenshaw-small-minded-officials-who-arrested-texas-salon-owner-are-drunk-with-power
BTW, when I started reading this morning, her GoFundMe was only at $75,000 of the $100K target; it’s now north of $400,000 — including our 2-cents-worth — and climbing.
GFM is starting to serve as the peons’ popular poll – putting their money where their mouths would be if the Social Media (how is that not an oxymoron now?) would allow it.
Some more information on the case.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/judge-napolitano-dallas-hair-salon-owner-jailed
Ordinarily, I would agree with this policy.
This is not an ordinary time.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2020/05/06/who-is-eric-moye-the-dallas-judge-who-jailed-salon-owner-shelley-luther/
That may be the proper advice for actual criminals (see Napolitano’s opinion above; he’s not alone in his viewpoint that there was not lawful order that had to be obeyed in the first place), but it’s out of place in this one.
The judge’s stance is also kind of at odds with his history.
https://www.dallascounty.org/government/courts/civil_district/14th/bio.php
This is a classic Civil Liberties case, except the Democrats are on the other side now.
I’m not just guessing at Moye’s party affiliation, btw; this is his own re-election campaign blurb (judges are elected in Texas; it’s often a pro forma affair, but I suspect his next campaign might be contested).
http://judgemoye.com/
“A lifelong Democrat, Judge Moyé is a dedicated public servant who is passionate about justice …”
AesopFan,
400K? Nice. Good for her.
The advice to comply with the judge’s order is interesting. In the normal course of events, when various natural rights haven’t been suspended, it’s probably the best advice.
But how do you fight when you can’t support your family and your only “crime” is violating an order that is likely unlawful. Judges like to think they’re a variation on the French King’s old quote:
“The Law, it’s me.” (Actual quote: L’Etat, C’est moi. The State, it’s me)
Sooner or later, people will have to decide what side they’re going to settle on: Rule of Law or Rule of Men. And siding with the Rule of Law may necessitate breaking caprice and unconstitutional “laws”, i.e. orders and decrees. Submission to tyrants, petty and large, is no virtue. I’m very proud of this woman and proud she is my countryman.
Movies and stories, oft written by Leftists, tell of noble people standing up to The Man and The Powers That Be. In these tales, the “heroes” are most usually journalists. Sometimes they’re lawyers or politicians.
In real life, the hero is a hairdresser. Think we’ll ever get a movie about her someday? An honest one?
In TX it has been reported that since she was jailed on contempt the AG and governor can’t use their powers to release her, not even the pardon power by the governor. If true, that needs to be changed or allow an emergency appeal to the state supreme court.
Apparently she was freed today.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-texas-salon-owner-shelley-luther-released-from-prison
“In real life, the hero is a hairdresser.” – Fractal
What a great trailer line!!
The MSM/Hollywood cabal will never make the movie, but this is a real “Rosa Parks” story for the new era.