| Gingerich, et al. v. Commonwealth Commonwealth v. Menno Zook, et al. |
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| Friday, April 10, 2009, 3:45 pm | |
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Gingerich, et al. v. Commonwealth Commonwealth v. Menno Zook, et al. Kentucky Court of Appeals / Graves Circuit Court These two cases contain the consolidated appeals of nine separate Amish men in Graves County, Kentucky from their criminal convictions for failing to display slow-moving emblems (fluorescent yellow-orange triangles) on their horse-drawn buggies. These particular defendants are members of the Swartzentruber Amish community, an ultra-conservative branch of the Old Order Amish. They maintain that the requirement of displaying a slow-moving vehicle emblem violates their sincerely held religious beliefs because it represents a worldly symbol that encroaches upon their adherence to the Biblical teaching to “shun” those things that are “of the world.” County officials refused to consider the Swartzentrubers’ proposed alternative safety measure ⎯ grey reflective tape outlining the rear perimeter of the buggies ⎯ despite evidence establishing that the reflective tape is equally effective, if not more so, at improving the buggies’ nighttime visibility. The ACLU of Kentucky represented several of the Amish at a jury trial conducted in November, 2008, and those cases are currently on appeal to the Graves Circuit Court. The remaining defendants were represented by Mr. Robin Irwin, a private counsel who donated his services, at a bench trial earlier in the year. Because of Mr. Irwin’s inability to continue the representation, those individuals are now represented by the ACLU of Kentucky in their pending appeal before the Kentucky Court of Appeals. The defense is based upon §§ 1 and 5 of the Kentucky Constitution, because we believe those provisions provide greater protection for Kentuckians to freely exercise their religion than does the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. At the November trial, we also argued that because only Amish individuals have been charged under this law in Graves County for the last two years (despite evidence that non-Amish individuals frequently violate the law), the targeted enforcement against the Amish constitutes selective enforcement of the law in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. |
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