Emmanuel Liberus John v. Board of Commissioners of Lake County, Indiana, et al.

This case presents the following questions of exceptional national importance:

1. Whether a county government’s enforcement of non-tax assessments through tax foreclosure procedures against a house of worship used for taxexempt religious activity constitutes unconstitutional government entanglement in religious affairs in violation of the First Amendment?

2. Whether a religious leader has standing under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to challenge government action that, under color of state law, deprives him of personal liberty and protected property-related interests secured by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, where the deprivation arises from the seizure and sale of a house of worship used solely for religious ministry?

3. Whether lower courts err by declining to apply strict scrutiny when government action directly burdens religious exercise through the seizure and sale of a house of worship?

4. Whether a local government may circumvent constitutionally protected religious tax exemptions by recharacterizing mandatory charges as “fees” and enforcing them through tax foreclosure mechanisms against houses of worship?