Rachel Shelton and her attorney made the announcement at a news conference outside Springfield’s city hall.
As mandatory mask orders continue to creep across the nation, a woman from the city of Springfield, Missouri, Rachel Shelton, went public with her plans to sue the city and its eight council members after their recent passage of an ordinance that requires residents to mask-up in public.
Shelton and her attorney, Kristi Fulnecky, a former city councilwoman, seek a temporary stoppage of the ordinance on the grounds that it violates Shelton’s constitutional rights – right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment and freedom of expression and religion under the First Amendment, the Springfield News-Leader reports:
“The police have better things to do than going in and trying to enforce this ordinance,” she said. “You have to have a compelling reason, and this is not a compelling reason.”
“Your health is not my responsibility,” Shelton said. “Your emotional well-being is not my responsibility.”
According to the latest numbers reported out by the Springfield-Greene County COVID-19 Dashboard, the health department has confirmed 1007 cases out of 33,951 tests, for a positivity rate of 2.9%. There have been 9 confirmed deaths attributed to COVID-19, for a case fatality rate of 0.8%. There have been 61 hospitalizations, for a case hospitalization rate of 6% – out of a total area population of just under 300,000 people.
The health department does not make the ages of its reported ‘COVID-19’ deaths readily available on its website, however, the most recent death reported in Greene County was a man in his 80s with underlying health conditions. It was only the second death reported in the area for the month of July.
Updates:
- Missouri court records have been updated to confirm that case #2031-CC00880 – Rachel Shelton v City of Springfield MO et al was filed in Greene County’s Circuit Court on July 22, 2020. The case was assigned to Judge Michael J. Cordonnier in Division I on July 27, 2020.
- The case has since been re-assigned to multiple judges in the Circuit Court because they have all recused themselves.
- On August 20, 2020, the case was removed to Federal Court, where Judge Douglas Harpool later rejected the plaintiff’s motion to temporarily suspend the mask ordinance.
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