The Supreme Court reversed a rulling in which a Kansas woman said that police stopped her from praying in her home. The court, in an unsigned opinion, reversed a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and sent the case back to the lower court.
The case of Mary Anne Sause involved police officers visiting her apartment on a noise complaint. She refused to open the door, and officers then said she would be going to jail and made comments that mocked the Constitution, court documents said.
The court’s opinion said that there "can be no doubt that the First Amendment protects the right to pray." The court said that the "First and Fourth Amendment issues may be inextricable," when a police officer’s order to stop praying is alleged to have occurred during "investigative conduct," the Washington Examiner reported.
Sause asked if she could pray and got permission to do. As Sause kneeled on a prayer rug and began to silently pray, a second officer ordered her to stop, and she was cited for disorderly conduct and interfering with law enforcement, the report said.
The woman filed a lawsuit saying that her First Amendment rights had been violated. According to her lawsuit, the officers said the Constitution was "just a piece of paper that doesn’t work here," and because she did not open the door when they first knocked, she would be jailed, NBC News reported.
"No American citizen should ever be subjected to such outrageous, blatantly unconstitutional behavior by government officials," said Kelly Shackelford, president of First Liberty, which is representing Sause in the case, the Washington Examiner reported.
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