HASTINGS — In a clash of conservative traditions and society’s modern laws, two Amish men may spend 90 days in prison for refusing to pay fines over the use of an outhouse.
District Judge Michael Zungali on Thursday ordered Sam Yoder and Andy Swartzentruber to serve 90 days in the Cambria County Prison beginning July 21. The men had refused to pay $1,000 fines each for violating state sewage-disposal laws at the sect’s Barr Township school.
Zungali imposed the sentences after repeatedly urging the men to accept a community-service option as punishment instead of going to prison.
The judge said the community service could be done at the county-owned Duman Lake Park near Nicktown, for Barr Township or somewhere else that would not violate Amish religious principles.
But the men - obviously upset at the thought of going to prison - said that they felt they had no choice but to stand by their religious convictions.
Paying fines or accepting community service “are not the way our forefathers did it,” Yoder told the magistrate.
Swartzentruber said that he had made a lifelong commitment to “the Bible and God” at his baptism and did not intend to violate that now.
“I (believe) the sewage laws not be right. I’m going to take my religion,” he said with his head bowed.
They had been convicted of illegally dumping sewage from two outhouses at the Amish sect’s schoolhouse and not having a permitted sewage disposal system. The county sewage agency said the sewage was collected in buckets instead of a legally emptied tank and the waste then dumped on the land.
Swartzentruber is the landowner where the school is situated, and Yoder is an elder in charge of the school.
But of their sentences - and possibly their convictions on the summary criminal charges - may be appealed.
The two men said that while they are barred by religious principles from filing an appeal or hiring a lawyer to represent them in a court battle, they told news reporters they would accept help from others.
A Westmoreland County man - Oliver Smith of Derry who has befriended them - says that he will pay for an appeal on their behalf.
Smith conferred with Ebensburg Attorney James Stratton, an assistant public defender, who attended Thursday’s hearing at the request of the magistrate. Stratton spoke with the Amish men and about 10 other men from the Amish community who were there to support them, but he did not appear on their behalf during the sentencing.
Afterward, Stratton said that if Smith determines that Swartzentruber and Yoder will allow the appeal to be filed, he will do so.
Stratton said he has assisted Yoder on real estate matters.
The two men said they were concerned about facing another set of charges for not making changes to the outhouses. Yoder said, “We do need help to try to get this worked out.”
The sewage enforcement agency has said that it, too, would like to get the situation resolved rather than take the step of seeking a court injunction to close the school or filing new charges against the men.
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