Thirteen-year-old convicted in steel-wheel case
By Jean Caspers-Simmet
simmet@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 03/18/2010 10:40 AM
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OSAGE, Iowa — A 13-year-old Mennonite from Orchard was found guilty of violating Mitchell County's Road Protection Ordinance No. 41 Friday by County Magistrate DeDra Schroeder following a trial earlier in the day. He was fined $10, plus $63.50 in court costs.
Attorney Colin Murphy of Mason City said his client has 10 days to decide if he will appeal. He will review that option with the family.
Citations for failing to use a reflective slow moving vehicle sign and violating a state law that forbids driving steel wheel vehicles on highways were dismissed by Mitchell County Attorney Mark Walk in return for the boy's guilty plea to not having a safety chain connecting his tractor and trailer. He was fined $93.75 including court costs.
The citations were for a Jan. 30 incident in which the teenager was driving a tractor and pulling a trailer on Stillwater Road while doing an errand for his family.
Murphy filed a motion to dismiss the charge of violating Ordinance No. 41 earlier in the week on grounds that that the ordinance is unconstitutional because it violates his client's right to practice his religion, which is protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Free Exercise Clause of the Iowa Constitution.
Murphy also challenged the ordinance's constitutionality because it is irreconcilable with Iowa Code Section 321.442, which outlaws steel wheels on highways, because the county ordinance prohibits what the state statute authorizes by way of exceptions and, therefore, is unenforceable. State law makes exception for farm machinery that doesn't damage the roads, for tire chains required for safety and for studded snow tires from Nov. 1 to April 1.
The boy's family are Old Order Groffdale Mennonites. Their church requires that members' tractors and other self-propelled farm implements have steel wheels.
"I am saying that this violates (his) sincerely held religious beliefs," Murphy said.
He asked that the court hear the motion prior to trial.
Schroeder ruled the trial could proceed and scheduled a hearing on Murphy's motion for May 7. Murphy objected twice to Schroeder's decision during Friday's trial.
The Mitchell County supervisors passed the ordinance in September because they said steel wheels were damaging county roads.
In a response to Murphy's motion to dismiss, Walk argued that the Iowa Supreme Court has said that a plaintiff must have suffered an "injury in fact" to have sufficient standing to bring suit.
"At this time the defendant has not suffered an injury in fact," Walk said. "He has been charged; he has not been convicted. Until convicted he has not suffered an injury in fact."