Mississippi Pastor Stephen Joiner sued the city of Columbus and its police captain for constitutional violations last week for his arrest in a 2011 abortion protest.
Joiner stood on the side of a Columbus road holding a pro-life sign toward passing vehicles in 2011, and was arrested for obstructing traffic and violating a parade ordinance.
In a lawsuit filed on May 15, 2014, Joiner claimed that the parade ordinance is unconstitutional, and several of his civil rights have been violated.
In the lawsuit, Pastor Joiner stated that he was driving on Highway 45 near 18<sup>th Avenue on March 30, 2011, when he saw 30-40 Pro-Life Mississippi members on the side of the road. The advocates were raising awareness for the state's Personhood Amendment—a proposal that would have considered a fertilized egg to be a person. The amendment failed in November 2012.
The advocates were preaching, praying, passing out literature, and holding up pictures of aborted fetuses and fetuses in the womb. Joiner, who is a Church of the Nazarene pastor, picked up a sign and displayed it to passing motorists in support of the pro-life cause.
Columbus Police Captain Frederick Shelton accused Joiner and the other advocates of obstructing traffic, and ordered them to disperse. Joiner refused, and said that the group was being targeted because of their beliefs.
"If we were out here protesting for gay rights, the police would be out here protecting us, not arresting us," Joiner stated as he was being arrested. "But they come out to arrest good Christian folks."
The lawsuit states that the pastor was placed in handcuffs so tightly that his wrists bled, and was also placed in leg restraints. It also says that at the Lowndes County Jail, Joiner was denied food, water, and the use of a restroom, despite the fact that he is diabetic.
At the August 2011 trial, the traffic obstruction charge was dismissed, but Joiner was found guilty of violating the city's parade ordinance. The charge was dismissed on appeal in June 2013.
Liberty Counsel—a Christian legal defense and advocacy organization - is defending Joiner in the current litigation. They are challenging the constitutionality of the parade ordinance, and seeking nominal and actual damages for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, due process, and equal protection violations.
Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, said that Captain Shelton clearly violated Pastor Joiner's First Amendment protections.
"The city's actions were entirely unjustified and are an affront to the fundamental rights of all Americans," he told LifeSiteNews.
https://www.liberty.edu/media/9980/attachments/051514-Joiner-Complaint-FINAL.pdf
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/diabetic-pastor-sues-after-being-arrested-denied-food-and-water-for-holding/
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-mississippi-fails-to-pass-personhood-amendment
