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Defiant Dallas salon owner gets out of jail thanks to Republican pile-on

Shelley Luther mug shot.

Courtesy photo/Dallas County Jail

A Dallas salon owner who defied a stay-at-home order designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, got out of jail thanks to an intervention from the governor and the Supreme Court of Texas.

Shelley Luther, who was at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center in Dallas, was sentenced on May 6 when she re-opened her salon despite a state-wide order saying salons must be closed. She was also fined $3,500, plus $500 for every day her salon is open until May 8, when all salons and barbershops are allowed to reopen in Texas.

Her act of defiance attracted attention from a rogue's gallery including Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton, The Masked Singer contestant Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and a group of open-carry fellas who showed up at her salon armed to the teeth to "defend" it.

After she made a spectacle of tearing up her cease-and-desist letter from Dallas County, Luther became a cause du jour from "Open Texas" advocates, one of whom helped set up a GoFundMe page, which has raised more than $500,000. The case has also drawn national attention.

Once Abbott caught wind, he modified his order to eliminate jail time and the Texas Supreme Court — judges Nathan Hecht, Paul Green, Eva Guzman, Debra Lehrmann, Jeffrey Boyd, John Phillip Devine, Jimmy Blacklock, Brett Busby, and Jane Bland, most of them his appointees — stepped up with a letter ordering Luther to be released.

Dan Patrick jumped on board, stating, "I'm covering the $7K fine she had to pay and I volunteer to be placed under House Arrest so she can go to work and feed her kids."

Luther has two college-age children and lives in a home valued at $.5 million. She also received a PPP grant.

Paxton chimed in, speculating that whoever sentenced Luther to jail must be doing it as "another political stunt in Dallas."

Palin showed up at Luther's salon for a photo op with the staff while on her way to visit her daughter in Austin.

Huckabee tweeted "God bless TX Supreme Court for ordering Dallas salon owner released as Abbott bans jailing citizens for lockdown violations. Now lock up that idiot judge who must have thought he was in China!"

But another more rational Twitter user referenced "affluenza," the defense used by Burleson teen Ethan Couch, who killed four people while he was driving drunk.

"In Texas we have a 'special' law," TXSleuthUSA tweeted. It's for people who have 'affluenza.' They don't get same punishment as most people get. I'm pretty sure a barber in South Oak Cliff, in Dallas, might not get same deal."

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Texas shocks as America's No. 3 least safe state in 2026 report

Photo by Hiroshi Kimura on Unsplash

Texas ranks as the 48th "safest" state — out of 50.

While no state is invulnerable, some do more to protect their residents than others. And a new study has declared Texas one of the five least safe states in America.

WalletHub's "Safest States in America (2026)" report examined all 50 states for their emergency preparedness and for residents' personal and residential, financial, workplace, and road safety. Factors that weighed into the rankings include specific crime rates per capita, the share of the population that is uninsured, road quality ratings, workplace injury statistics, and more.

Texas ranked at the bottom of the list as the 48th "safest" state — or the third least safe state. It's joined by several other Southern states, like Mississippi (No. 50), Louisiana (No. 49), Florida (No. 47), and Arkansas (No. 46).

According to WalletHub, Texas specifically ranks third to last in the nationwide "emergency preparedness" category, which was determined based on the prevalence of climate disasters causing $1 billion or more in damages from 1980-2024, and the loss amount resulting from those disasters.

The Lone Star State also ranked 40th (or 10th worst) across three safety categories: personal and residential safety, financial safety, and road safety. The report additionally found that Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents nationally.

Texas' "workplace safety" was the state's highest-ranking category, landing 30th nationally.

Additional rankings that determined Texas' overall safety include:

No. 30 – Assaults per capita
No. 32 – Fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 full-time workers
No. 32 – Sex offenders per capita
No. 35 – Murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita
No. 36 – Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel
No. 41 – Loss amounts from climate disasters per capita

According to the report, the five safest states in America are all located in the Northeast. Vermont leads as the country's safest state in 2026, followed by Massachusetts (No. 2), Maine (No. 3), New Hampshire (No. 4), and Connecticut (No. 5).

Though every state has varying levels of safety, WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo asserted that the safest places in the U.S. categorically invest in protecting their residents. Top-ranking states have low crime rates and diligently maintain their road infrastructure, and other states that prioritize their residents' safety have "strong economies and job markets that prevent people from falling into dangerous financial situations."

"[The safest states in America] have high levels of occupational safety and disaster preparedness, too," Lupo said. "In addition, states are made safer by efforts that individual residents take, such as forming a neighborhood watch or working in firefighting and EMT jobs at high rates."

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