In blow to Gov. Whitmer, Michigan Supreme Court says barber can remain open

The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a lower court had erred when it shut down a local barber pursuant to the state governor's coronavirus lockdown, ordering that the haircutter can remain open for now and paving a possible path for the barber to have his suspended license re-instated. 

Owosso barber Karl Manke reopened his shop at the beginning of May in defiance of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's lockdown orders. Whitmer has said that she will allow barbershops and salons to re-open on June 15. 

The state subsequently suspended Manke's license, with a state appeals court ordering a preliminary injunction against the barber. But the state supreme court's seven justices yesterday declared unanimously that the judges at appeal had erred in not coming to an unanimous conclusion regarding the injunction. The court had also failed to allow for oral arguments and a full briefing of the case. 

The case has been remanded back to the appeals court for plenary consideration. "It is incumbent on the courts to ensure decisions are made according to the rule of law, not hysteria," Justice David Viviano wrote. "One hopes that this great principle — essential to any free society, including ours — will not itself become yet another casualty of COVID-19." 

Though Whitmer has continued to keep numerous businesses in her state closed, she has lately been seen marching in crowded protests in Detroit. 

In the decision, Viviano in a footnote quoted a sequence from Robert Bolt's 1960 play A Man for All Seasons, in which Sir Thomas More argues in favor of equal application of the laws regardless of who benefits from them.

"I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake," More says in the play.