Court Declines To Hear Appeal In Amish Beard-Cutting Case

The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of appeals in Cincinnati has declined to hold a hearing by the full court on overturned hate crimes convictions involving beard- and hair-cutting attacks targeting Amish. A three-judge panel voted 2-1 in August to throw out hate-crime convictions in the case. Prosecutors could also appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sixteen men and women were convicted after five 2011 attacks in apparent retaliation against Amish who defied or denounced the authoritarian style of Samuel Mullet Senior, who lead a community in eastern Ohio.