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LAS VEGAS — The State of Nevada has put its weight behind the Nevada Policy Research Institute’s lawsuit on behalf of Victor Fuentes and his church, Ministerio Roca Solida (Solid Rock Church), Attorney General Adam Laxalt announced in a press conference Monday.

The Attorney General filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States, which the Institute’s legal arm — the Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation — has petitioned to request it hear the Fuentes case. During a press conference Monday morning, Laxalt explained why the State of Nevada is supporting NPRI’s request that the Court reconsider the lower court ruling that unlawfully forces victims of constitutional rights violations to forgo one right to vindicate another.

“For us, the most important thing was to make sure that Mr. Fuentes had his day in court, that he did not have to choose between fundamental rights,” Laxalt said, explaining that the rights the Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation is trying to protect are the very rights that brought Fuentes and other immigrants to the United States. “People come here to have opportunity and achieve their dreams. If we have a situation where the government is working against one of our citizens instead of with one of our citizens, it’s the perfect opportunity for the Attorney General to use the weight of our state to try to protect one of our citizens.”

On May 27, CJCL filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the Supreme Court asking the justices to reconsider the 2011 ruling in United States v. Tohono O’Odham Nation, which effectively forces the Solid Rock Church to choose between its rights to freely exercise religion and due process and its right to be compensated for a governmental taking of private property.

“Currently, under the law, Mr. Fuentes cannot actually try to protect all of his constitutional rights at once,” Laxalt told reporters. “Our system, for some reason, is making him choose between constitutional rights. We felt that was wrong. We felt that, as a state, we wanted to defend one of our citizens and make sure that he gets to defend all of his constitutional rights at once.”

The church sued the federal government after the government, acting contrary to the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, altered in August 2010 the historic flow pattern of the spring-fed stream that traversed the church’s private property since at least 1881, diverting the flow of water to a higher elevation just outside of the church’s property line.  In so doing, the federal government “took” vested water rights belonging to the church. Making matters worse, on Christmas Eve 2010, coincident to area rainfall, water from the newly diverted stream overflowed its government-engineered channel, flooding and damaging the church camp’s buildings and property with the very spring flow that was both illegally and unconstitutionally diverted away from the church’s property just four months earlier.

Last week, the CATO Institute and the National Association of Reversionary Property Owners filed a joint amicus brief with the court. Of the State of Nevada offering its support to the case, CJCL Director and Chief Legal Officer Joseph Becker issued the following comments:

We’re hoping that, with the help of the State of Nevada and national groups, the Supreme Court will consider this case and create a way for the Solid Rock Church, and all those who have had their rights violated, to be made whole. This is a substantial constitutional question. Congress cannot obliterate constitutional rights through jurisdictional statutes, which it has errantly done in this case.

Fuentes is on the receiving end of illegitimate government action and as a result, according to Laxalt, his “whole life has been damaged.”

“It’s appalling to think that someone would come from Cuba to America for all the rights we have as citizens and then to be in a place like Las Vegas and trying to help the community and have those rights potentially infringed upon,” Laxalt said.

More information:

• NPRI petitions U.S. Supreme Court to make church whole
• Amicus brief

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation today filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the Supreme Court of the United States, calling on the Court to reconsider a ruling that forces those whose rights are violated to forgo one constitutional right to vindicate another.

The Petition, filed by the legal arm of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, seeks to make “constitutionally whole” victims of multiple constitutional rights violations. The Supreme Court’s 2011 ruling in United States v. Tohono O’Odham Nation effectively forces CJCL’s client, Ministerio Roca Solida (Solid Rock Church), pastored by Victor Fuentes, to choose between his rights to free exercise of religion and procedural due process and his right to be compensated for a governmental taking of private property.

CJCL Director and Chief Legal Officer Joseph Becker explains:

At issue is whether Congress may confine Pastor Fuentes and his churchgoers, the victims of multiple constitutional rights violations, to seek redress in but one federal court even though no single federal court has jurisdiction to remedy each of the constitutional violations suffered.

The church is suing the federal government because, in August 2010, the government, acting contrary to the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution and without even securing Clean Water Act permits or satisfying FEMA regulations, altered the historic flow pattern of the spring-fed stream that traversed the church’s private property since at least 1881, diverting the flow of water to a higher elevation flow path — a channel “engineered” by the government just to the outside of the church’s property line.  In so doing, the federal government “took” vested water rights belonging to the church. Making matters worse, on Christmas Eve 2010, coincident to area rainfall, water from the newly diverted stream overflowed its government-engineered channel, moved toward its historic (and lower-elevation) path, flooding and damaging the church camp’s buildings and property with the very spring flow that was both illegally and unconstitutionally diverted away from the church’s property just four months earlier.

By misconstruing a jurisdictional statute that had been applied justly and properly for the 50 years prior, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2011 ruling in Tohono held that when constitutional rights violations emerge “from the same operative facts,” claims for relief may be brought only in one federal court, even though no single federal court has jurisdiction to remedy each of the constitutional violations.  The effect of which, forces the church to forgo one constitutional right in order to remedy or enforce another.

In petitioning the Supreme Court for Writ of Certiorari, CJCL and NPRI hope to restore a path for the Solid Rock Church and others who have had their rights violated to be made whole, even in those instances where the government violates multiple rights in “one factual swoop.”

Ironically, Pastor Fuentes came to the United States to escape oppression by an unaccountable government. In 1991, he swam seven miles from near his home in Santiago, Cuba, to Guantanamo Bay and gained political asylum.

Petition for Writ of Certiorari: http://www.npri.org/docLib/20150527_PetitionforWritofCertiorari.pdf

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