Ninth Circuit Allows Selective Ban on Indoor Worship Services | National Review
Over the objections of Judge Diarmuid O Scannlain, the Ninth Circuit on Friday and today issued a pair of rulings in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom and Harvest Rock Church v. Newsom that rejected the claim by churches that California, in its fight against the covid pandemic, violated their Free Exercise rights by completely prohibiting indoor worship services in Tier 1 (highly infected) counties. Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote the unanimous 51-page panel opinion in South Bay. The panel in Harvest Rock determined in a brief order that the South Bay ruling, as circuit precedent, bound it to reach the same result.
In a concurring opinion in Harvest Rock, Judge O Scannlain protested that the South Bay decision is woefully out of step with both the Supreme Court s decision in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo and our own court s decision in Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak.