YOUNGSTOWN — The 7th District Court of Appeals has affirmed the contempt-of-court ruling and 10-day jail sentence imposed by Judge Carla Baldwin of Youngstown Municipal Court against Youngstown police officer Thomas Wisener for refusing to wear a mask in that court Feb. 23.

After a hearing March 18, the judge found Wisener in contempt. Then she had him taken to the Mahoning County jail.

But an attorney for the Ohio Patrolman’s Benevolent Association took the issue to the 7th District Court of Appeals that day, and the court ordered a stay of execution of Wisener’s sentence pending the outcome of an appeal. Wisener was released that day.

A call late Monday to Wisener’s attorney, Dan Leffler of the Ohio Patrolman’s Benevolent Association to ask whether Wisener will appeal the ruling, was not returned.

But Leffler did file a motion Monday asking Baldwin to set an “execution-of-sentence date” in the case, presumably a date for Wisener to report to jail or other sanction. No new hearing date was listed.

The contempt-of-court began with Wisener appearing before visiting Judge David Fuhry on Feb. 23 for a preliminary hearing to testify, if necessary, in a criminal case involving Wisener as a police officer. Court officials said Wisener refused to wear a face covering.

A “show-cause” hearing was scheduled for Wisener for March 18, this time before Baldwin.

A show-cause hearing is the accused person’s opportunity to “show cause for why he should not be held in contempt of court,” a court official said.

Baldwin found Wisener “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” and sentenced him to 10 days in jail and a $250 fine, according to a journal entry in the case.

In filings in the appeal, Leffler stated that Wisener quoted from the Gospel of Matthew on March 18 during the contempt-of court-hearing, saying the Bible tells him in Matthew Chapter 22 to “love the Lord God with all my heart, with all my soul and all of my mind.”

It stated that “Wisener testified that since God has given him a genuine and strong-held conviction, failure to follow it would prevent him from loving the Lord my God with all of his heart, all of his soul and all of his mind.”

The filing states that Wisener’s beliefs also are found in in the book of Titus, which references, “…God, who never lies…” It stated that “as a Christian, Wisener believes he was called to emulate the character of God (Jesus Christ), which means that he should not communicate what he believed was a lie, that wearing a mask will protect other people or that it will save their life.”

The filing also quoted the book of Timothy, which says, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love of self control,” interpreting this to mean “having no fear,” adding, “Wisener believes he cannot fully love and submit to God if he lives in fear of a virus.”

The appeals judges wrote that a factor they considered was whether Wisener demonstrated that his religious beliefs “had a relation to masks,” and the mask mandate had a “coercive effect against him in the practice of his religion.”

The ruling, written by Judge Carol Robb and affirmed by judges Gene Donofrio and David D’Apolito, stated that the record shows that Wisener “is personally against wearing a mask for unrelated reasons,” and he “did not show his desire to refrain from wearing a mask was ‘more than a personal or philosophical belief.'”

Wisener did not tell Baldwin at his March 18 hearing “the connection between his religious belief or practice and the mask mandate,” the ruling states. “It was not explained how how the courthouse mask order ‘infringes upon (Wisener’s) constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.'”

The court ruled that under Wisener’s argument, “any personal annoyance or opinion would become a religious belief negatively affected by a regulation, if a person’s religion requires him to love or be true to God and he is subject to a regulation he does not personally believe should have been issued.”