“Harrisburg, Pennsylvania/December 15, 2021 – Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s COVID lockdown orders are on trial and more businesses are getting on board with the effort to overturn them. The Amistad Project’s legal challenge against the overuse of emergency police powers got a vote of confidence when the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA) filed an Amicus Curiae brief urging the United States Supreme Court to overturn the Third Circuit’s ruling of mootness in the case against the Pennsylvania governor.
“The issue of emergency powers is still very relevant today, with governors continuing to threaten unilateral and arbitrary lockdowns in response to each new variant of the novel coronavirus,” said Phill Kline, director of The Amistad Project. “The Supreme Court needs to inject itself into this conversation and declare that violations of individual rights cannot be ignored simply because a governor has temporarily stopped abusing police powers.”
In 2020, federal judge William Stickman IV issued a momentous ruling in a case brought by The Amistad Project, striking down Gov. Wolf’s use of emergency powers and declaring that they violated First Amendment rights and other important individual liberties. Even though Wolf had relaxed his orders by the time of the ruling, Stickman pointed out that he would be able to reinstate the orders at any time without a court ruling deeming them unconstitutional.”
