[citation needed] In March 2020, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that abortion providers were covered by a state order that required postponement of non-urgent medical procedures to preserve hospital beds and equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On March 30, 2020, Yeakel ruled that Paxton's action "prevents Texas women from exercising what the Supreme Court has declared is their fundamental constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus is viable".
[8] A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans on April 7, 2020, overturned Judge Yeakel's restraining order in Planned Parenthood v. Abbott to halt enforcement of the Texas governor's abortion ban issued as part of the COVID-19 crisis health mandates.
The Fifth Circuit stated that Judge Yeakel failed to apply the standard of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, a 1905 case that supports judicial deference to the political branches in times of a pandemic.
[9] On November 10, 2021, Yeakel ruled that Texas governor Greg Abbott's ban on mask mandates violates the Americans With Disabilities Act.
After his many associates testified of his schemes, a federal jury convicted Onyeri on 17 counts of fraud, theft, racketeering and attempted murder and sentenced him to life in prison.