AP and the Cleveland Plain Dealer report on interesting attempts by lawyers to obtain release while their appeals are pending for Samuel Mullet and several of his Bergholz Amish followers who were convicted last year on hate crime charges for hair and beard cutting attacks on a rival group of Amish. (See prior posting.) Attorneys claim that assigning the convicted Amish to prisons around the country, some 1,000 miles away from home, is cruel and unusual punishment. Relatives of the convicted Amish, because of religious restrictions on means of travel, cannot fly to see them, and must hire drivers to visit them by automobile. The motions also argue that language in last year's Supreme court decision upholding Obamacare as a tax, but not as a regulation of commerce, casts doubt on the constitutionality of the hate crimes law as applied to this case where the interstate commerce nexus was that the clippers and scissors used in the attacks came from out of state. The motions also argue that the hate crime law was not intended to apply to disputes among a religious group's own members.
UPDATE: On April 9, Federal Judge Dan Polster denied Samuel Mullet's motion for release, ruling that he still poses a threat to his Amish community and that his appeal does not raise substantial questions of law. (AP).
