Today, dis­hon­est ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman appeared as a wit­ness in his own defense against the charges brought against him by Wash­ing­ton State Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son, who is try­ing to hold Eyman account­able for repeat­ed­ly and bla­tant­ly vio­lat­ing our state’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws.

After tak­ing his place in the wit­ness box, Eyman asked Judge James Dixon if he could take his mask off. Eyman, an extreme­ly vocal oppo­nent of mask wear­ing, claimed that wear­ing a mask dis­tracts him. Eyman attempt­ed to jus­ti­fy his request by telling the court he has Atten­tion Deficit Hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty Dis­or­der (ADHD).

Judge Dixon ini­tial­ly said yes, con­tin­gent upon on Eyman mov­ing his seat back and keep­ing a suf­fi­cient dis­tance from oth­ers in the courtroom.

But the state’s legal team object­ed, not­ing that there’s a pan­dem­ic rag­ing and that masks are one of the few ways peo­ple can reduce their risk of con­tract­ing or spread­ing SARS-CoV­‑2, the virus that caus­es COVID-19, while out in public.

Judge Dixon held that the state’s objec­tion was well tak­en, and direct­ed Eyman to put his mask back on while assur­ing the failed guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date that the court was will­ing to allow more fre­quent breaks in the proceedings.

Pub­lic health experts and doc­tors say there are only a few types of con­di­tions that would war­rant exempt­ing some­one from mask wear­ing require­ments, like facial defor­mi­ties that are incom­pat­i­ble with masking.

“Inap­pro­pri­ate med­ical exemp­tions may inad­ver­tent­ly has­ten viral spread and threat­en pub­lic health,” explained Dr. Mical Raz, a pro­fes­sor in pub­lic pol­i­cy and health at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rochester, in a July 10th com­men­tary.

Those who are tru­ly unable to wear masks at all for legit­i­mate med­ical rea­sons are advised to quar­an­tine at home, doc­tors say.

“These are the extreme patients where any change in oxy­gen and car­bon diox­ide could make a dif­fer­ence,” not­ed Albert Riz­zo, MD, chief med­ical offi­cer for the Amer­i­can Lung Asso­ci­a­tion, in an inter­view with Web­MD. But, he adds: “That’s also the pop­u­la­tion that should­n’t be going out in the first place.”

“A med­ical­ly nec­es­sary exemp­tion from mask­ing is con­sid­ered a dis­abil­i­ty mod­i­fi­ca­tion under the Amer­i­cans With Dis­abil­i­ties Act (ADA),” Dr. Raz says.

“Indi­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties have clear­ly defined legal pro­tec­tions under both fed­er­al and state law… A rea­son­able dis­abil­i­ty mod­i­fi­ca­tion might be a mask­ing exemp­tion, but this is not the sole rem­e­dy. Amid a glob­al pan­dem­ic, rea­son­able accom­mo­da­tions for mask­ing intol­er­ance can and should include avoid­ance mea­sures, such as curb­side ser­vices and delivery.”

Tim Eyman may find wear­ing a mask annoy­ing and irk­some. But mask wear­ing is essen­tial to reduc­ing the risk of con­tract­ing and spread­ing COVID-19.

Eyman’s unfound­ed request for an exemp­tion is a reminder of how incred­i­bly self­ish he is. He would rather jeop­ar­dize the health of peo­ple around him than be incon­ve­nienced by a “dis­tract­ing” face cov­er­ing. He does have the right to apply for a dis­abil­i­ty mod­i­fi­ca­tion under the ADA. But any mod­i­fi­ca­tion can­not and should not put oth­er peo­ple at risk of con­tract­ing COVID-19.

We all have to deal with unpleas­ant sit­u­a­tions at one point or anoth­er in our lives. For Eyman, this is one of those times, and he has no one to blame but him­self, for he is in a mess of his own mak­ing. If Eyman had­n’t stonewalled in the extreme going back sev­er­al years, this tri­al could have been held years ago, before the pan­dem­ic hit, and he would have been able to tes­ti­fy maskless.

Eyman’s tri­al, inci­den­tal­ly, is a bench tri­al. That means there is no jury for Eyman to per­form for. In this case, Judge Dixon the tri­er of fact as well as the tri­er of the law. Eyman is rep­re­sent­ed by the conser­vo-lib­er­tar­i­an for­mer State Supreme Court Jus­tice Richard Sanders, who often wrote dis­sent­ing opin­ions argu­ing that Eyman’s bla­tant­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al ini­tia­tives were constitutional.

After both sides have fin­ished mak­ing their case, Dixon will hear clos­ing argu­ments. Those could be pre­sent­ed either lat­er week or after the Christ­mas hol­i­day. Dixon has already ruled against Eyman at sev­er­al key junc­tures dur­ing the case, though he has not yet grant­ed the key relief that Fer­gu­son is seek­ing: a mul­ti­mil­lion dol­lar finan­cial penal­ty and a order bar­ring Eyman from engag­ing in future mon­ey machi­na­tions with­out the approval of anoth­er individual.