When you need a license to pray in your own home.

Welcome to Forum 360.

The show with a global outlook but local perspective.

I'm Sally Henning.

Today we're going to be talking about this issue of are you allowed to pray in your own home without having to buy a license or pay for a permit?

We're here with Daniel Grant, who lives in University Heights.

It's a small town in northeast Ohio, and a few years ago, Mr.

Grant invited about a dozen friends to come to his home to pray with him.

The government of the city found out and issued a cease and desist letter to stop illegal activity, whatever that is, and took over and took other actions.

Mr.

Grand initially tried to obtain a license or a variance from the city to pray.

Then he filed in federal court.

Now the US Supreme Court has accepted his case.

It's called Daniel Grand versus City University Heights.

And we have Daniel Grand here with us.

And we also are fortunate to have as well, Mr.

Matthew Hoffman, who is one of Mr.

Grand's attorneys, who is counsel with the Alliance of Defending Freedom or ADF.

So welcome to Forum 360, both of you.

Now, this case is considered by some as one of the most significant of the term.

That the outcome may affect the First Amendment rights of a lot of people.

Mr.

Hoffman, may you comment on the significance of this case from your perspective?

- Absolutely.

This is a very significant case, underlying the premise that no one, no American, needs a permit to pray in their own home.

And this is an essential case for whether or not people can bring claims against, local governments that restrict that right.

So I think it has tremendous implications for religious liberty claims across the country.

- Well, Mr.

Grand, let's talk about how it affected you.

What happened after you invited about 12 friends, am I right about the number?

What happened to you and your family after that?

- Well, thank you for being here, and sharing my story with you.

I recall that I wrote an email to about a dozen friends who live within 2 or 3 blocks of my home and invited them to come over for the weekend, Friday and Saturday to pray in my house.

Relatively short period of time after that.

But matter of hours, I get a phone call from the mayor of the city and a cease and desist letter which said that if I was going to try to have anybody come to my house to pray, I would be operating a place of religious assembly without the appropriate permits.

And I could face prosecution for doing so.

- So, explaining a little bit about this, you're an Orthodox Jew.

- I'm an Orthodox Jew.

- And having at least ten people is significant.

Could you explain that?

- Certainly, in the face of Judaism, the men are required to pray in a quorum of ten men 13 years or older.

Bar mitzvah is considered an adult for that purpose.

And, we need ten people to make that quorum.

So we pray in groups of ten.

- So what were the illegal activities that the city wanted you to stop?

- Assembly, without a public assembly permit, you could say that's what they thought.

I was trying to make a synagogue in my house or something just because I wanted to have some Jewish people come over.

- Now, I'm not trying to be cute, but did you invite anybody over to use drugs?

- No.

- Anybody over to gamble?

- No.

- Did you invite anyone over to do any, what we normally think of illegal activities.

- None.

- And has the city ever even suggested such a thing?

- They suggested that I did some type of illegal activities, which was prompting the cease and desist order.

But not to the things that you mentioned.

No.

- Now, with respect to the regulations that a city has, it's normal that they would be concerned about fire regulations or parking.

Has that ever come up?

Is that a normal type of regulation that they do?

Is that type of thing an issue in this case?

- I mean, zoning regulations are there for a purpose, I'm sure, but it would really be like saying, you know, you're having ten people come over to read a book about the Constitution.

And that would be okay.

But if it was reading a book about praying to God, then it would be a problem.

It's the same conditions, the same people, the same room.

I mean, have you ever imagined anybody saying, like, yeah, I'm going to have ten people come to my living room.

Let me make sure the fire marshal is okay with that first.

I don't— I just don't see where it becomes something that the zoning code would really be imposing additional regulations or requirements for me, when all I'm trying to do is just have a group of people come over to my house like anybody else, for a secular gathering of equal type.

- Well, what other actions did the city take besides sending a cease and desist order?

Did they do other things that affected you and your family?

- Well, the cease and desist order was the step one.

They chilled my constitutional right to assemble and also to pray and my way of praying.

Preventing me from having people come over and they told me that I'd have to get a permit first.

So I took that route to comply unknowingly.

Just.

Okay.

What is it?

I thought it was a quick little administrative permit at the window.

You pay $10 fee or something, and they'll give you a piece of paper, like a yard sale or something like that.

But it really wasn't.

It was a very drawn out process.

It was a very lengthy ordeal.

It took even, you know, a couple of months to even get to that stage to have that public hearing with a couple hundred people that showed up for that meeting.

And it was an arduous process to be basically tabled.

And we ultimately withdrew the, the application because we realized that it wasn't necessary what they, what they were asking us to do.

We weren't required to do it by law.

- So, Mr.

Hoffman, what is the law that you filed in for the Daniel file for to be enforced?

What are the rights that he's asserting?

- There's multiple constitution and statutory violations here.

So, primarily First Amendment as Mr.

Grand said, free assembly, free speech, free exercise of religion.

And then there's the Religious Land Use and Institutional Persons Act, also known as RLUIPA, which was a law passed by Congress to prevent exactly this type of discrimination in local land use decisions by cities.

It basically enforces the Constitution's free exercise mandate against cities who are trying to require permits to pray, and gives people like Mr.

Grand, whose rights have been wronged in avenue in federal court to vindicate their fundamental freedoms.

- So were there other things that they did besides, besides a cease and desist, such as, asking your neighbors to spy on you and things like that?

- Yes.

- Is that what happened?

- Well, after a very tumultuous hearing that lasted for over three hours, that hearing was tabled for further information to be provided for by me.

They asked me for more plans, and they wanted the police department to come check for previous noise or air complaints or things of that nature.

They wanted the fire department to come to make sure that there were a proper means of egress and wait loads and different calculations, etc.

They wanted a city engineer to come and also do some sort of surveying to determine whether or not my home can be used as a place to have ten people come to my living room.

So I said, fine, I'm just going to try to go along with whatever they're asking for.

And in doing so, they tabled the hearing for that evening, and a week went by and I wasn't hearing anything back from them as to, like, how to communicate with any of these departments.

So I reached out to the mayor's office, and the mayor himself responded and said, you will not be allowed to supplement your application.

You rested your case in chief.

Nothing else you're going to be able to give us will be even determined or listened to were added to your record.

I said, but then how am I supposed to provide you the documentation that you asked me for in the first place?

And they didn't really have much of an answer other than we're just not going to accept it.

So once that happened, I realized that there was a level of futility in continuing with this application.

Not only that, upon discovering the chapter 1274 of the University Heights Codified Ordinances, section F, it talks about people being able to sleep in that new place.

If I were to get this permit that they wanted me to get, it would have converted my home to a bona fide church or religious building, which would have meant I could not have any sleeping arrangements there.

So the irony is, if I would have obtained this permit that they wanted me to obtain to pray in my home, it would no longer be my home.

- You would not be allowed to sleep there?

- I'd have to move.

- So what happens if somebody invites ten people over to watch Ohio State football?

Or if somebody invites someone over to watch basketball and they have ten people coming over?

What, is the number the problem?

Does the city have position with respect to... - They haven't ever stated a single number or come up with a calculation based on square footage as to, you know, for every 200ft you're allowed one person.

So if you've got 2000ft², you can have ten.

If you have 4000ft², you can have 20.

- That's not the issue.

- They haven't raised the number.

So we don't know what their issue is as far as a number where they say the same thing to me if it were three people trying to pray, we're not sure.

- There was once a TV show called ‘Mork and Mindy.’ - Sure.

- And on that show, there was a character by the name of Exeter, and he was worshiping football.

He was worshiping O.J.

Simpson called it the juice.

- Nanu nanu.

- You know, if someone decides that football is a religion, are they going to be banned unless they have a permit?

- Well, according to the previous mayor in University Heights, Michael Brennan, yeah, I think they probably would have a problem.

- Okay.

- Did you have issues with neighbors being asked to to spy on you?

- So after we had that hearing and we withdrew for the reasons I had mentioned to your audience, we came to a point where they wanted to have a follow up meeting anyway, despite the fact that I would not be attending.

And at that meeting on March 23rd of 2021, the mayor said, essentially, let there be no confusion any congregating at this man's house, Mr.

Grand’s house of any kind will constitute a breach of our zoning codes, and we encourage all the neighbors in the town to keep an eye for any suspicious activity, like Jewish men walking to his house.

- You've been tuned into Forum 360.

Today we’re talking with Daniel Grand and also his attorney, Matthew Hoffman, one of his attorneys, I should say.

And we're talking about, do you need a license to pray?

So anything that, any kind of congregation was in dispute, at least at that point.

- Fully prohibited, and the city will use all its means necessary to prosecute you.

If we find out that you’ve had any kind of gatherings whatsoever, Mr.

Grand.

- Did the mayor ask your neighbors to spy on you?

- Yes.

- Did you observe any cameras being set up by anyone?

- Yes, actually, one neighbor right next to me put up four cameras that were inside his house, faced out of his windows, pointed directly at the happenings of my home.

Not to be like, well, those are just somebody's security cameras.

Security cameras are put on the outsides of your house and they point down your alleyways and your corridors, etc.

These were not that.

These were pointed up toward away from the street, but toward my house was tucked behind his house, pointed directly at me.

- Did the police come and actually inspect your house?

- The police and the billing department.

- And what did they look for when they came to your house?

- Well, I had a person sitting outside in front of my house who was driving, a friend of mine who visited me from Israel.

And my friend came inside and his driver was sitting in the car, and his driver had a Yamaka on, Jewish skullcap, if you will.

And the police drove by twice in a 40 minute period and asked the man to get out of his car.

Present identification.

Explain what he was doing there.

Was he there for the shule, or the Yiddish word for school, or dwelling, or for assembly, or a synagogue or prayer room, whenever... It's just a colloquial turn that means a place to pray.

“Shule.

Are you here for the shule?” “Are you here for the shule?” The man was harassed outside of my house merely for being Jewish and they were spot patrolling.

They had unmarked cars patrolling after hours that were following what was going on in my house.

They had hired a private surveillance detective, a PI, to follow me around and actually see where I was going, and what I was doing to go anywhere interesting.

- Did you go anywhere interesting?

- I normally do, but it's private.

- So, talk about the legal process that you went through.

- Sure.

So after about 15 months or so of a good faith effort to work with the city and try to get them to arrange some sort of agreement that they would leave me alone, I wouldn't need their permit.

I can have people to pray and shouldn't be a disturbance to the town, etc.

They just stalled.

They didn't reply to one set of the orders we had at the time for nearly one year.

And they kept that cease and desist order in force and told me all that time that, you know, if you violate it, it still remains in effect as we stand this very day.

It has never been rescinded by the city.

And they told me that if I violated, they will use that as a method for filing a charge against me for violating the zoning code, but also for violating the cease and desist order itself and press criminal charges against me for doing so.

So I didn't want to live with that.

So I said, okay, we have to do something.

I initially filed a lawsuit in 2022, again, trying 15 months to be cooperative and get along and work it out with them.

They wouldn't budge.

So we filed a lawsuit and we went to the Federal District Court, Northern District of Ohio, eighth district.

And we were going to get our decision rendered, 4 or 5 months before Rosh Hashanah.

- The Jewish New Year.

But the judge held it 4 or 5 months for no reason till the night of Rosh Hashanah.

That's when she issued the judgment.

Her name was Brennan, just like the mayor's name.

And she went to John Carroll University, which is right across the street from my house so she's very familiar with the place.

We feel like she should have recused herself.

But that's another story for another day.

- So you lost in the local court.

Then you appealed.

- Well, the federal court.

- The federal court, right.

The local federal court.

And then you appealed to the Sixth Circuit.

- The Sixth Circuit, United States Court of Appeals.

Yeah, which is in Cincinnati.

And appealed there.

And they found that you hadn't exhausted your administrative remedies or something like that.

I'm not sure if it was exactly on exhausting administrative remedies, per se.

I think that it had to do with him upholding the lower court's decision, which was, you know, supplemental jurisdiction and subject matter jurisdiction, and that they felt that the case was not right.

It was really about the ripeness issue, which you could say is similar to exhausting administrative remedies, but that might be an error in their judgment.

- So that new appeal to the Supreme Court.

So, Mr.

Hoffman, how tough is it to get into the Supreme Court?

- It is extremely difficult.

The Supreme Court hears thousands of petitions every year, but they only grant review in a very small subset of those.

It's very difficult, even for some of the top law firms to get petitions reviewed by the Supreme Court.

But Mr.

Grand drafted his petition all by himself.

And the... - Really?

Yes, he drafted his initial petition all by himself and did a fantastic job.

He did such a great job that the Supreme Court asked the city to respond to it.

And then that's when we were able to come alongside Mr.

Grand with another law firm and help them out, to secure the Supreme Court reviewing that lower court judgment.

And, you know, to go back to our previous discussion, the Sixth Circuit had said that the case was unripe because Mr.

Grand hadn't followed through in the permitting process, even though he suffered that hours long hostile hearing, with many people questioning and saying they didn't want their neighborhood to become Jewish.

They didn't want, you know, people gathered to pray in this neighborhood even after suffering that, the court below thought that their case was not ripe.

And even though Mr.

Grand hasn't to this day been able to hold a prayer group in his house on the Sabbath, ever since, you know, that time the cease and desist letter was issued many years ago.

- Was anything done about the people who made remarks at the hearing saying they didn't want a Jewish neighborhood, was anything said about them by the city?

Was there any action taken to sanction?

Such language or even to criticize them, or was it just tolerated?

What was... - You know, I think that the overall tenor of the hearing was hostile from the neighbors.

I think what's more important is the city's action in just dragging out this process, requiring more and more information, but then saying, oh, wait, you cannot submit your application, then directing the police to surveil Daniel's house.

You know, Mr.

Grand, there's also the issues of the city not collecting your trash and in retaliation for this, you know, just this petty campaign of harassment.

- Not picking up your trash?

- That's correct.

The city— - So over Mr.

Grand, simply asserting his right to pray, you know, with a group of ten friends.

You know, like you said, if you want to watch Ohio State Buckeyes play with, you know, 20 people in your own living room, there's no need for a permit for that.

But all of a sudden, when you start to pray, which is constitutionally protected activity, you need a permit, it's really incredible.

So even after all that the city wouldn't budge and engage in this campaign of harassment.

And that shows, you know, there's ongoing First Amendment injury that Daniel cannot meetings has to pray.

And this case is ripe.

And we're glad that the Supreme Court has agreed to review it.

- So you wrote the petition to go to the Supreme Court yourself?

- It’s a pro se petition.

Yeah, I went to law school.

- So how does it take you to do that?

- 90 days.

- Wow.

- Most of it.

- How complicated is that?

Just to, to the logisitics of filing with the Supreme Court.

What's involved with that?

- I don't think it's complicated as much as it is arduous.

And if you're not really versed in it and don't really have much guidance, it can be difficult.

But I don't think the process is that hard.

I think you have to follow with a question presented or multiple, you know, that you believe the court would want to answer and you have to apply it to essentially how your case and the trajectory of your case unfolded in the lower courts, and perhaps explain why the rationale used by the lower courts is something that is either mistaken on a basic level or on a major level.

You may want to throw in some support from some scholars, and you may want to throw in some other cases that basically follow the logic line of the Supreme Court's overall thinking, and show the disparity between how the lower courts had come up with maybe their own concept, if you would, unique to the Supreme Court's holdings or misinterpreted, in this case, Williamson County finality, from Williamson County Township of 1985 or Supreme Court case, etc.. There's a few other little things you want to do, but, essentially it's just a matter of filing the brief, then you have to bring it to like a Supreme Court press or council press.

These groups that help you to typeset it properly and to package it— - Has to be the right size fonts.

- There's booklets that have to be printed.

They have to be in a certain size, parameters, pagination, all these different things.

- What’s it cost just to file it?

- To the ballpark depending on somewhere between 3 and $8000.

- Just for the printing.

- The printing part.

Yeah.

The filing part is less.

The filings I made with the court is, I think, $300, I think.

- Mr.

Hoffman, is this from your research?

Is this happening in other places in the country where people are being blocked from praying in their home?

- Unfortunately, this is a widespread problem.

Our brief cites many aspects across the country of situations in which, local authorities will either delay on applications for religious uses or try and shut down people from praying in their own home.

Over, you know, concerns about noise or the quality of the neighborhood that are invalid considerations when it comes to protected religious activity.

So unfortunately, this is a widespread issue.

And if decisions, like the Sixth Circuit here are allowed to stand, then, I mean, that kind of allows these things to exist across the nation and allows cities and other local governments to violate people's rights without consequence.

- When do your briefs have to be in?

- Well, we've already filed the merits brief, and we're waiting for the city's response.

And then we have a reply, which will be due basically mid-November.

Oral argument is scheduled for December 9th, which is a Wednesday.

- They’ve already schedule that.

Now, when it comes to oral arguments, how long will you have for each side to speak?

- Each side gets 30 minutes.

And we had an amicus brief that was filed on behalf of the United States Solicitor General's office, who requested ten minutes of our 20 minutes, and we granted that request of theirs.

So.

- So would you explain what an amicus brief is?

- Sure.

When you file a petition of any kind, there are outside parties that aren't members of the lawsuit that maybe this person did something to that person.

He brings that person to court.

But a third person says, I have something I want to say related to what's going on with these two people.

They call it a friend of the court.

And an amicus is really just a friend of the court.

And they'll write a supplemental brief, something that will give more information or clarify and specificity certain aspects.

And they usually have some sort of relationship to those things, like a First Amendment foundation that collects money to help support First Amendment freedoms across the country.

For example, they might file a brief and say, our interest in this case as an amicus to the court, friend of the court is this is a First Amendment issue.

So we had, in the marriage round, 28 amicus briefs filed on our behalf.

We had 55 members of Congress who wrote a congressional amicus brief.

We had the Solicitor General's office, which was very profound.

And we had 13 states in the Commonwealth of, I believe it was, oh, Kansas, one of the states I can't think of right now.

- And this happened... It's unusual to have so many amicus briefs filed in a case.

- We had a very high number of amicus support here which is a great thing to see.

It shows the importance of this case, the fundamental principles that no one needs a permit to pray and their religious freedom issues here.

So it's a very high number.

We're glad to have their support.

We're glad to have the support of the United States on this important issue as well, showing really how crucial it is in having these religious freedom guarantees and combating anti-Semitism, and in fighting for foundational freedoms across the country.

- So if a young person were to ask you, Mr.

Grand, whether what they can do to be involved in helping out with such First Amendment issues what would you say to them?

- I would say that you've got to stand up for what you believe in and follow your faith.

And if your faith dictates that you stand up for people trying to suppress prayer, then you do that.

And if you can't do it alone, you get help.

You go to your pastor, your minister, your rabbi, whoever it might be, and you let them know that I want to be part of this effort to make sure that our rights to pray as free citizens is not taken by the government.

- How long have you lived in University Heights?

- I moved there in 2017.

- Did you ever contemplate that such a thing would happen?

- No.

- Oh, by the way, we’ve had the University Height’s prior mayor on this show, and we sent an invitation to their council to appear as well.

But we haven't heard back from them quite yet.

Well, that's, it's a very interesting thing, isn’t it?

What you’re going through.

Much harder than you expected it would be, isn't it?

- No, I think it is exactly the way that God wants it to be.

And I'm happy to be his messenger here.

You've been turned into Forum 360 today.

Our special guests include counsel Matthew Hoffman, who and his client Daniel Grand, who are working on... How would you explain your case?

- I would explain the case as standing up for religious freedom in our country and preventing local governments from prohibiting people from exercising their constitutional right to pray in their home.

- Mr.

Hoffman, would you add to that?

- I would add just simply that no one needs a permit to pray, and we're fighting to vindicate that fundamental right when it's infringed by local governments.

You've been tuned into Forum 360.

On behalf of Forum 360, I'm Sally Henning.

Forum 360 is brought to you by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Akron Community Foundation, Hudson Community Television, the Rubber City Radio Group, Shaw Jewish Community Center of Akron, Sisler McFawn Foundation, Electric Impulse Communications, and Forum 360 supporters.