Vandalizing Religious Building Includes Vandalizing Sign Outside It

In People v. Laduke, (CA App., Dec. 14, 2018), a California appellate court held that defendant could properly be convicted under California Penal Code Sec., 594.3(a) for vandalism of a building owned and occupied by a religious institution after he torched a sign in front of John Paul the Great Catholic University. The court said in part:

Because the vandalism set forth in section 594.3, subdivision (a) prohibits damage to both real and personal property, we reject LaDuke's suggested interpretation limiting that offense to damage to only an occupied structure with four walls and a roof....  [W]e construe section 594.3, subdivision (a) as prohibiting, inter alia, malicious damage to personal property or fixtures located on or attached to the real property of, and related to, a "building owned and occupied by a religious educational institution."

The court also rejected the argument that Sec. 594.3 violates the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection clause.

Man Charged After He Destroys Statue of Jesus For Religious Reasons

Yesterday's Charleston Post and Courier reports on the arrest last Sunday of 38-year old Charles Jeffrey Short for malicious injury to real property after he hammered off the head of a statue of Jesus that stands near a Charleston, South Carolina Catholic church. Short says he was making a religious statement. He told police he battered the statue with a sledge hammer "because the second or first commandment states to not make an image of a male or female to be on display to the public." Police are investigating whether Short was also involved in a similar incident last Friday in which a head and two hands were broken off another statue depicting Jesus and a child that stands at the same church.

Security Guard Pleads Guilty to Federal Charges of Defacing Religious Objects

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee announced that 25-year old Justin Baker yesterday pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of students and faculty of the Margolin Hebrew Academy.  Baker, a security guard at a Jackson (TN) hotel, defaced a Torah and prayer books left in a hotel meeting room by students after they used the room to conduct a Sabbath service:

Baker admitted that while employed as a security guard at the hotel, he discovered the items in the room, and defaced the Torah, the prayer books, and the musical instruments with profanity, anti-Semitic phrases, and Satanic writing. He also admitted to spitting on the Torah. Photographic evidence presented during the hearing confirmed that the Torah was defaced with profanity and phrases including "Hail Satan."