A Michigan appeals court on Tuesday (July 14) overturned a ruling that had sent a minister to jail for threatening a judge with curses from the Bible.
The appeals court unanimously decided the Rev. Edward Pinkney’s rights to free speech were violated when he was sentenced to jail for writing a commentary criticizing his trial judge.
In 2007, Pinkney was convicted for paying people $5 to vote in a recall election for a congressional seat in Michigan’s 6th District that he lost. He warned that the Lord would smite the judge who sentenced him to probation with “consumption and with a fever and with an inflammation and with extreme burning,” referring to a passage in Deuteronomy.
The black minister from Benton Harbor, Mich., also called Judge Alfred Butzbaugh “dumb” and a “racist” in the commentary published in a Chicago-based populist newspaper.
Pinkney argued the judge encroached on his First Amendment rights when he sentenced him to prison for three to 10 years in June 2008.
“The Court of Appeals opinion reaffirms the basic American value that citizens cannot be imprisoned for criticizing government officials or expressing their religious beliefs,” said Michael J. Steinberg, legal director at the ACLU of Michigan, in a statement.
“To our knowledge, this case marks the first time in modern history that a preacher has been thrown in prison for predicting what God might do.”
The appeals court said a probation rule that allows judges to restrict a convict’s First Amendment rights went too far.
By Lindsay Perna
Religion News Service
Copyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
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posted July 16, 2009 at 6:40 pm
The up side: some people may notice the judge has not been so smitten, and thus question the Bible.
The down side: like Voodoo, there might be the occasional self-fulfilling prophecy here when a superstitious judge is involved.
posted July 16, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Free speech aside, why hasn’t this Minister’s Church been taken off the No tax on Church law. If he pd. 5.00 for each vote he was trying to receive, isn’t that against the law? Whatever you wish on someone may come back and bite the curser. He should apologize fast, only thing that will save him from retribution.
posted July 16, 2009 at 7:22 pm
I presume his conviction for that was what led to the silly threat. I don’t know whether, legally, that conviction can lead to the church being taken off the tax-free list but it’s a good question.
posted July 16, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Another question: “Contempt of court” is an offense that can lead to incarceration. Did this moron’s tirade constitute contempt of court? If so, why should it matter whether the contempt was couched in religious terms?
posted July 18, 2009 at 9:16 am
Scripture says that blessing and cursing ought not to come out of the same mouth. Also says to live in such a way that you will not be brought before the judge for doing something illeagal—not withstanding the fact that if the civil law goes against God’s law, we ought to disobey it.
posted July 18, 2009 at 11:23 am
As a Church of God member, I first understand that this preacher is confused and misled, and is not currently being called by God, so his actions only demonstrate his wordly approach to christianity as most professing Christians follow similar traits, like observing “Holidays” vs. the “Holy Days” God has chosen, and rejection of the Sabbath instructed during the creation and reinstituted several times throughout scripture, and observed all the way through until 475AD when it was a crime. I agree curses should not come from a christians, because we are to be the light unto the world, so show me any protestant or evangelical faith that follows Gods Commandments, Statutes, and Instructions outside the Church of God and then test their faith. The sign and the test is the Sabbath, so all others are not actively being called by God, so they would by wordly degeneration, curse, pay bribes, and act just like other non-believers. look at the main-stream Catholic faiths and you will see idolitry, worship of other Gods, sin filled lives, and an overall dislike to God and his instructions. All I can say, is the Bible interprets itself, and no man is capable of proofing the doctrines, you must be called of God, and then following his truths, or all is in vain and life is a lie, or you make Jesus and his father liars. I care for all mankind, and realize where sin comes from, who is going to the first resurrection, and where they really go after death, don’t be deceived as Jesus commanded, the truth is out there, and not in the X-Files, in your Bible, so he who has ears, Hear….
posted July 19, 2009 at 11:55 am
These kinds of ‘reactionary’ threats are common in misreading “hard & fast” rules in Bible-based past/present…. Remembering Henry Miller’s “The Crucible” would be wise leading a way/path to transcendance _Beyond God_.