Buncombe County Superior Court Judge Tommy Davis instructed the jury not to consider the constitutionality of the charges against Coit and Bliss and denied their motion for dismissal on First Amendment grounds.

“In your opening statements you seemed to imply to the jury that they were going to decide whether or not their constitutional rights were violated,” the judge told the defendants, according to the Citizen Times. “They are not going to decide that. I am going to decide that.”

It looks like a good ground for appeal. A judge making a decision in a jury trial.