Quote:BUTLER COUNTY, Pa. — A judge ruled in favor of several local counties in a federal lawsuit filed against Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine over COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings and orders to close all “non-life-sustaining” businesses.

Butler, Fayette, Greene and Washington counties were plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The judge said the actions of Wolf and Levine were taken with “good intention of addressing a public health emergency,” but they were unconstitutional.
“The Constitution sets certain lines that may not be crossed, even in an emergency,” the judge’s opinion read. It went on to say those lines were crossed.

(09-20-2020, 08:37 AM)Zombie.Hunter Wrote: It's about damn time somebody put that dictator in his place.

Quote:HARRISBURG, Pa. — A federal judge denied Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf’s motion to stay a week after some of his COVID-19 orders at the beginning of the pandemic were ruled unconstitutional.|

In the ruling, Judge William Stickman cited the large number of protests in the state -- along with the Carlisle car show in Cumberland County that was allowed to go on despite the heavy gathering restrictions -- as some of the reasons for why the stay was denied.

Quote:Breaking: Federal judge denies Commonwealth’s motion to stay. Judge Stickman’s ruling remains saying Pennsylvania's coronavirus orders are unconstitutional. We are reaching out to the Wolf administration for a response. pic.twitter.com/3LZCgzPPKu
— Amy Marcinkiewicz (@WPXIAmy) September 22, 2020

Tuesday’s ruling said some of the orders given out by Wolf and other Pa. health officials violated the first and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The judge said that the governor’s claim that there would be “immediate and irreparable harm” if they could not impose these kind of restrictions was not supported by how the state allowed certain things to continue.

WOOT!  

Quote:HARRISBURG (AP/KDKA) – A federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily restored Pennsylvania’s pandemic restrictions on indoor and outdoor gatherings, putting on hold a judge’s ruling that threw out statewide limits on crowd size.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, may once again enforce size limits on gatherings while it appeals the lower court order.

U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV in Pittsburgh, an appointee of President Donald Trump, had ruled against the state’s size limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings, saying they violate citizens’ constitutional rights to assemble. The state has been enforcing a gathering limit of more than 25 people for events held indoors and more than 250 people for those held outside.

The office of Attorney General Josh Shapiro asked the 3rd Circuit to intervene, saying crowd-size limits are a “life-saving mitigation tool” to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Stickman had also invalidated other Wolf administration pandemic orders that required people to stay at home and mandated “non-life-sustaining” businesses to shut down. Those orders have since lapsed and Wolf has said he has no plans to enforce them again.

“We have to recognize we have a virus out there, and I don’t like it, you don’t like it, no one likes it. And yet, that virus is out to get us. And so we have to be careful about how we gather together, and I think that’s the important thing,” Gov. Wolf said at a press conference Thursday afternoon.

“At the same time we got to make sure we’re being reasonable and realistic about how we do things. And so I’m doing everything I can — listening to folks and continuing to change as I did with restaurants, continuing to make sure the guidelines we have in place are reasonable.”

Stickman’s Sept. 14 order prompted many Pennsylvania schools districts to allow more fans in the stands at high school football games and other athletic contests.
Several local school districts, like Hampton Township, North Hills, West Jefferson, Butler, Ellwood City and Karns City changed their fan policies in the wake of Strickman’s ruling, which had called gathering limits unconstitutional.

“I’m working right now with school districts and others to do what we can to recognize the contexts that are different in every community,” Gov. Wolf said when asked about allowing more than 250 fans at games.

He went on to say “stay tuned, we’re working on it as we speak.”

The PIAA says they’re hopeful some modifications will be made to gathering limits. Until then, they say they’ll comply with the 25 indoor and 250 outdoor gathering limits.