From Justice William Crain's opinion today (joined by Justices Scott Crichton, James Genovese, Jay McCallum, and Jefferson Hughes III) in State v. Spell, dealing with a prosecution for actions on March 31, 2020; the court basically applies the U.S. Supreme Court's similar decisions in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo (2020) and Tandon v. Newsom (2021):
The executive orders identify the government interest as the protection of the public "from the threat of COVID-19." More specifically, the gathering limits were imposed "[i]n an effort to reduce and limit the spread of COVID-19 in Louisiana and to preserve the health and safety of all members of the public." Similarly, the stay-at-home order sought to "preserve the public health and safety, and to ensure the healthcare system is capable of serving all citizens in need."
Both orders, however, have numerous exceptions to their mandatory provisions. Order 30, which prohibited gatherings of 50 or more people, imposed no limitations whatsoever on "normal operations at locations like airports, medical facilities, shopping centers or malls, office buildings, factories or manufacturing facilities, or grocery or department stores." Order 33, which prohibited gatherings of 10 or more people, recognized most of the same exceptions in Order 30. The stay-at-home mandate incorporated pages of exceptions for "essential" job functions, numbering well over 100 and ranging from manufacturing animal bedding to working in a company cafeteria. More generally, and similar to the order in Roman Catholic Diocese, the list also includes all jobs supporting or enabling transportation functions, and all workers involved in chemical manufacturing and distribution.
We focus first on the exception for gatherings at "office buildings." The state has not demonstrated a material difference, nor can we discern any, between the risk of transmitting the virus in a gathering of people in an office building and a gathering of people in a church building. Both may involve prolonged gatherings of people in close proximity. Yet under both executive orders, an unlimited number of people were allowed to remain in a single conference room in an office building for an unlimited period of time, all in close proximity, talking, eating, and engaging in any other "normal operations" of the business.
However, if ten of these individuals left the conference room, walked across the street to a church, and entered an otherwise empty sanctuary building for a worship service, they were subject to criminal prosecution for violating Order 33. Similarly, if their job was deemed "essential," their presence in the conference room would fall within an exception to the stay-at-home order; however, their presence in the sanctuary would be criminal. The same observations can be made for gatherings at other exempt venues, such as factories and manufacturing facilities, where people may gather in close proximity to work or socialize for extended periods of time; and airports, where people are funneled into crowded boarding gates where they can wait for hours for a flight.
