{"id":54931,"date":"2020-05-17T00:21:19","date_gmt":"2020-05-17T05:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=54931"},"modified":"2020-05-17T00:23:21","modified_gmt":"2020-05-17T05:23:21","slug":"54931","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=54931","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Actually the prosecutor probably determined that further <del>prosecution<\/del> persecution would be detrimental to his political future.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/charges-dropped-against-florida-pastor-who-held-church-services-despite-coronavirus-restrictions\">Charges dropped against Florida pastor who held church services despite coronavirus restrictions<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"ArticlePage-articleBody-firstLetter\">P<\/span>rosecutors in Florida have dropped misdemeanor charges against a Florida pastor who defied the state\u2019s stay-at-home order to continue church services.<\/p>\n<p>Evangelical megachurch leader Rodney Howard-Browne of the River at Tampa Bay Church had the charges of unlawful assembly and violating quarantine orders during a public health emergency dropped Friday. Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said the arrest was appropriate that it only came \u201cafter repeated efforts to gain cooperation in other ways were not successful.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"Enhancement\">\n<div class=\"Enhancement-item\">\n<figure class=\"Figure mb-1 mb-sm-3 mb-md-1 article-lead-photo data_invisible\" data-align=\"left\">\n<div class=\"Figure-container\">\u201cIn deciding whether to criminally prosecute violations of stay-at-home orders, compliance is our North Star,\u201d Warren said, according to the <i>Tampa Bay Times<\/i>. \u201cEach case is unique, and each one will be assessed based on the facts and the law. But, in general, if the person who was arrested poses no ongoing threat to public health, then our tendency will be not to prosecute the case beyond the arrest.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Warren said that since the pastor was arrested, he has \u201cmaintained responsible social distancing\u201d and has engaged with community leaders about how to move forward during the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cOur office has determined that further prosecution or punishment would not provide increased protections for our community and is not needed to achieve any additional change in Pastor Howard-Browne\u2019s behavior,\u201d he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Howard-Browne\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/florida-megachurch-pastor-arrested-for-violating-coronavirus-restrictions-with-in-person-services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">was arrested<\/a> in late March after he repeatedly flouted Florida\u2019s social distancing restrictions and continued to hold crowded church services&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Actually the prosecutor probably determined that further prosecution persecution would be detrimental to his political future. Charges dropped against Florida pastor who held church services despite coronavirus restrictions Prosecutors in Florida have dropped misdemeanor charges against a Florida pastor who defied the state\u2019s stay-at-home order to continue church services. Evangelical megachurch leader Rodney Howard-Browne of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=54931\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law-order","category-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54931"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54934,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54931\/revisions\/54934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}