113512P.pdf   06/04/2012  United States  v.  Amina Farah Ali
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  11-3512
   U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota - St. Paul   
   [PUBLISHED] [Gruender, Author, with Murphy, Circuit Judge, and
   Ross, District Judge]
   Criminal case - Criminal law. In an appeal of defendant's criminal
   contempt citations, where she violated a pre-trial order in her criminal
   case by failing to stand when the court convened and recessed, defendant
   may not challenge the contempt citation based on her first failure to rise
   because she knew of the order and failed to make a formal challenge to it;
   after the first failure to rise in violation of the order, defendant 
   challenged the pretrial order on the grounds of her religious beliefs and, 
   having raised the defense of free exercise of religion, she was entitled to 
   risk contempt convictions in order to avail herself of the right to expedited
   appellate review; in analyzing defendant's objections to the order, the 
   court only applied a First Amendment analysis and never evaluated whether the
   pretrial order was the least restrictive means to achieve a compelling state 
   interest as required by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act; as a result,
   the matter must be remanded to the district court for it to evaluate
   whether the pretrial order was the least restrictive means to maintaining
   order in the courtroom.