Harvest Rock Takes Another Shot at the Ninth Circuit

Lawyers with a local church filed another supplemental brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on New Year’s Eve.

According to attorneys for Harvest Rock Church, a recent order in L.A. County offers the church no relief since Pasadena executes its own health orders.

The church has been meeting indoors illegally while seeking an injunction against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order.

“It is the City of Pasadena (Criminal Prosecutor and Public Health Department) — under the color of the Governor’s Orders — that has explicitly threatened Harvest Rock Church with criminal sanctions for alleged violations of the Governor’s Orders.”

In August, city officials sent church leaders a cease and desist order and threatened to fine them if they continued meeting indoors.

The letter states that the city of Pasadena will continue to enforce the governor’s orders “until the present emergency ends.”

So far, the church has not complied. It was not known if church leaders have been cited.

In the latest state order, Newsom allowed for outdoor gatherings for protests and religious gatherings.

The virus is running rampant in Southern California and has just about filled up intensive care unit beds across the region. 

Moreover, it is not just Harvest Rock Church that has been threatened with criminal penalties and daily fines; it is also every pastor, staff member, visitor, and parishioner.

So far, the city has not arrested anyone in connection with the church.

The Court of Appeals requested a supplemental briefing by the parties to address several issues including the impact of the L.A. County Order on the case, the church’s challenge to the singing and chanting ban, and the challenge to the regional Stay-at-Home Order.

On Dec. 22, U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal denied a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Newsom’s stay-at-home orders.

The church immediately appealed Bernal’s ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

According to an article in Courthouse News, when asked to explain exactly how California’s public health order unfairly targets the church, the Harvest Rock attorneys compared church gatherings to grocery stores and malls.

However, Bernal said that movie theaters and concert halls were a more apt comparison.

Seth Goldstein, a California deputy attorney general, told Bernal the state’s indoor gathering restrictions are neutral, backed by undisputed scientific evidence.

“Throughout the current pandemic, the state has been fine-tuning its restrictions and trying less restrictive alternatives in light of developing scientific knowledge and changing circumstances, as strict scrutiny requires,” the brief said. “This court should not lift restrictions on particularly risky activities and create the danger of ‘super-spreader’ events at the very time that our healthcare system is least able to deal with them.”

In October, Bernal ruled that the church’s right to free speech was not being violated and that Newsom’s order instead opposed where the speech was occurring.