The Honorable Judge Carla Baldwin
An attorney representing Youngstown Police officer Thomas Wisener says Youngstown Municipal Court Judge Carla Baldwin was unreasonable for handing Wisener a ten-day jail sentence for not wearing a mask in her courtroom.
A brief filed in the Seventh District Court of Appeals by the Ohio Patrolman’s Benevolent Association says Judge Baldwin was wrong to find Wisener in contempt and interfered with his religious beliefs when he refused to wear a face covering during a February 22 hearing.
Representing the city in the case, attorney John Juhasz said in an earlier brief that Wisener’s claim that his objection to wearing a mask was based on a religious belief was “devoid of any effort” by Wisener to seek a religious exemption from the court’s mask order.
Youngstown Officer Thomas Snowflake Wisener
Officer Wiseener’s attorney Leffler earlier argued that wearing a facial covering would have caused him to communicate what he believed was a lie, that wearing a mask will protect other people or that it will save their lives.
Juhasz argued in his filing that when Wisener’s pastor testified at Wisener’s contempt hearing, he “did not testify that the wearing of masks violates a central tenet of the religion, or that wearing masks violated anything else in the Bible.”
Juhasz’s filing said Wisener “chose on his own to wear the uniform of a law enforcement officer while flaunting the law himself” by refusing to wear a facial covering while in the court building. Wisener was there for a case for which he was involved in his role as a police officer.
According to municipal court documents, Judge Fuhry advised Officer Wisener Feb. 23 he was in violation of the court’s masking order and advised him the penalties were a $500 fine and up to 30 days in jail. A hearing was scheduled.
Officer Wisener was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt during a hearing in March.
From a News Views Discussion in March.
