Members of Christ Church announced their lawsuit in federal court against the City of Moscow. The complaint is a result of the church members’ violation of Moscow’s COVID-19 ordinances and their subsequent arrest last fall.
Rachel Bohnet, Sean Bohnet and Gabriel Rench are pursuing a lawsuit stating their constitutional rights, as stated by the First and Fourth Amendments, were violated. The initial incident happened Sept. 23, when a group of Christ Church members hosted a “psalm sing” to protest the city’s mask mandate in the Moscow City Hall parking lot.
Michael Jaques, special counsel of the Thomas More Society, said Bohnet and Rench were arrested for violating the mask ordinance, through which the city didn’t consider their constitutional rights.
“This lawsuit is in order, really, to make reparations for their wrongful arrests and the fact that they were humiliatingly prosecuted for criminal activity when there was no violation of the law,” Jaques said.
“We believe our city’s response to COVID-19 was arbitrary, irrational and not within the scope of their emergency powers as written,” Bohnet said, on behalf of himself and his wife.
The couple also said they believed there was an issue where people working in the Moscow jail weren’t following the mandate completely after they were arrested and spent some time their themselves.
“Staff at the jail occasionally had no issue with letting their faces freely shine,” Bohnet said.
Rench, one of the five people arrested Sept. 23, said he had been in constant contact with the Moscow police and Moscow City Council, about the enacted mask ordinances. Both Rench and the Bohnets believed that they had been unfairly targeted.
“The Moscow City Council has revised their order to continually target religious members in our community and continually target political opponents that disagree with the reckless actions,” Rench said.
The plaintiffs are also suing the city of Moscow, Chief of Police James Fry, Moscow City Attorneys Elizabeth Warner and Mia Bautista along with three police officers present during the arrest of the churchgoers. The plaintiffs brought five total charges: violation of the First Amendment right to speech, right of expressive association, petition the government for redress of grievances and free exercise of religion.
The final charge is the violation of the Fourth Amendment right to refuse to identify themselves during “protected core political activities and religious assemblies” if there’s no reasonable suspicion.
University of Idaho Distinguished Professor of Law Richard Seamon said he can’t comment on the case itself, but that government officials are protected from lawsuits seeking monetary damages by a legal doctrine called qualified immunity.
“They have what is known as qualified immunity,” Seamon. “(Where they are) only held liable if they knew they were violating the plaintiffs’ civil rights.”
The plaintiffs argue in the court documents that Fry “knew the Moscow mayor issued a health emergency order through his emergency powers under the city code.”
The complaint also states Fry knew Moscow citizens have protectable rights under the First Amendment, including the right to assemble, the right to protest and the right to exercise their religious beliefs among other protectable rights under the U.S. Constitution, the Idaho Constitution and the laws of the state of Idaho.
With most civil rights’ court cases, Seamon said, attorneys have special protections.
“Prosecutors usually have a very special immunity process,” Seamon said. “It’s more than qualified immunity, it’s called absolute immunity.”
According to Seamon, these types of cases often settle due to the costs involved with a drawn-court case. In order to win, the plaintiffs must not only prove their rights were violated, but that they had also sustained damages from the violation.
Cory Summers can be reached at [email protected]
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify Seamon’s comments on civil rights’ court cases.