AUSTIN, Texas – Top Texas officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott, said Wednesday a Dallas judge’s decision to jail a salon owner for illegally reopening her shop went too far.
Their comments came one day after the woman was jailed and two days before the next phase of Abbott’s plan to relax coronavirus restrictions allows barber shops and hair and nail salons to reopen across the state.
Abbott then modified his statewide stay-at-home order Thursday, prohibiting local officials from jailing Texans for violating any of his numerous coronavirus-related executive orders.
“Throwing Texans in jail who have had their businesses shut down through no fault of their own is nonsensical, and I will not allow it to happen,” Abbott said in a statement. “That is why I am modifying my executive orders to ensure confinement is not a punishment for violating an order.”
Shelley Luther, a Dallas salon owner, was sentenced to a week in jail and strapped with a $7,000 fine after she violated an order to close her salon. She reopened her store, Salon à la Mode, nearly two weeks ago and ignored a cease-and-desist order by Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. According to The Dallas Morning News, Jenkins offered to let Luther go with just a fine if she apologized, but she refused.
Abbott said Thursday’s order, “if correctly applied,” should free Luther.
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Abbott, whose stay-at-home order in March first required salons and other non-essential businesses to close, previously said jail time should be the last resort for people who disobeyed his executive order.
“Compliance with executive orders during this pandemic is important to ensure public safety,” Abbott said in a statement Wednesday. “However, surely there are less restrictive means to achieving that goal than jailing a Texas mother.”
But his comments received pushback from both sides of the aisle, with Democratic lawmakers criticizing Abbott for only caring about the jail sentences of white Texans and conservative activists arguing that his comments didn’t go far enough.
State Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton called for her immediate release from jail, with Patrick even saying he’d take her place in a seven-day house arrest and “step up and pay” Luther’s fine.
“And if he wants to substitute me for her and sentence me for seven days of house arrest, that’s fine,” Patrick told reporters on a call Wednesday.
Paxton called her sentence “outrageous and out of touch.”
“The trial judge did not need to lock up Shelley Luther,” Paxton said in a statement. “His order is a shameful abuse of judicial discretion, which seems like another political stunt in Dallas.”
Opinions on Luther’s jail sentence were divided along party lines Wednesday afternoon.
In an interview with the Texas Tribune, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, called her punishment “straight up wrong.”
And U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, tweeted his support for Luther and her decision to not apologize for keeping her store open.
“7 days in jail for cutting hair?? This is NUTS,” he wrote. “And government officials don’t get to order citizens to apologize to them for daring to earn a living.”
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But several Democratic lawmakers, including state Rep. Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat, compared Luther’s punishment to minorities who historically have faced harsh sentences for nonviolent crimes.
“I wish Black and Brown people could be offered the chance to apologize instead of going to jail,” Wu said in a series of tweets Wednesday.
Luther’s punishment made headlines just before Abbott announced he will loosen restrictions for barber shops and hair, nail and tanning salons, saying the state was ready for a phased reopening of businesses.
Abbott’s order last week allowed retail stores, malls, movie theaters and restaurants to reopen at 25% of their normal occupancy. Pointing to the state’s increasing COVID-19 testing capabilities, lowering rates of infection and steady hospitalizations, Abbott announced the next phase of his reopening plan Tuesday.
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Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/07/texas-gov-greg-abbott-jailing-salon-owner-shelley-luther-too-far/3087849001/
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