State v. Zimmer

I dissent. This case does not belong in a civil court, and the state should not have prosecuted it there. Once brought, however, the state had the burden of proving all the elements of the alleged offense. Both lower courts assumed, solely on the testimony of the priest, that the parish priest was the lawful possessor of the church property with the authority to exclude Zimmer indefinitely.1 This assumption was erroneous and an abuse of discretion. The majority opinion today compounds this error by making the same assumption, choosing instead to characterize Zimmer’s offer of proof as…