Terry Jones Update

A Wayne County Circuit Court judge hearing the appeal of Terry Jones and Wayne Sapp’s conviction last Good Friday in a kangaroo court proceeding before Dearborn District Judge Mark W. Somers has found the proceeding unconstitutional. As reported in WorldNet Daily:

The Florida pastor who wanted to protest jihad and Islamic Shariah law in Dearborn – but was jailed by a judge who worried about what he "intended" to say – has been cleared.

According to officials with the Thomas More Law Center, a circuit judge in Wayne County, Mich., has overturned the decision by Dearborn District Judge Mark W. Somers.

According to the ruling from Wayne County Circuit Judge Robert Ziolowski, Somers violated the constitutional rights of Pastor Terry Jones and his associate, Wayne Sapp, when he held a “peace bond” proceeding last spring and ordered them to pay a $1 peace bond and ordered them not to go into the vicinity of a Muslim mosque, including on the surrounding public property, for three years.

Because the “bond” violated their constitutional free speech rights, they refused to pay, and the judge locked them up overnight.

Somers had required the bond because of what he thought the men intended to say.

But the Thomas More Law Center appealed the verdict, and the decision was overturned.

“Pastor Jones had committed no crime and was not charged with a crime. Yet, he was forced into court and ultimately jailed because he intended to speak out against jihad and Shariah law,” said Richard Thompson, chief counsel for the center.

“Regardless of how one feels about Pastor Jones, he has a constitutionally protected free speech right to express his message. The heavy-handed actions of the city of Dearborn and the Wayne County prosecutor’s office give us a glimpse of how imposition of Shariah law, which forbids any criticism of Islam, will destroy that fundamental constitutional right.” (“Judge says people can't be jailed over intended speech”).

Thompson isn’t exaggerating. Behind last April’s legal fiasco was an absolute determination the area’s political and law enforcement officials to enforce a ban on speech criticizing Islam. Mayor Jack O’Reilly, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, Chief of Police Ronald Haddad, and Judge Mark Somers – every one of them – abused their offices rather than stand up to Dearborn’s imams.