Case tests city's speech ordinance
By Michael G. Walsh, The Muskegon
Chronicle, Saturday, August 12, 2000
MANISTEE... It was a little past 11
a.m. on an August day in 1998 when
[Janice] Barton, 45, was leaving the
Peppermill Restaurant in this Lake
Michigan shoreline community with her
mother and daughter. As Barton and her
family tried to make their way through
the crowd, a man - in Spanish - asked
his wife to make room for them.
Barton, who does not understand
Spanish, told her mother: "I wish
these damned 'spics' would learn to
speak English."
Carol Benitez, one of the Spanish
speakers and an off-duty Manistee County
Sheriff's deputy, followed Barton
outside and copied her license plate
number...
Almost two weeks later, Barton was
charged with disturbing the peace. But
when she appeared in court Oct. 13,
1998, Barton was charged with
"insulting conduct in a public
place." In court that December,
Barton testified that she thinks
immigrants should speak English when in
the United States....
The district court jury agreed with
the judge that Barton's words were
"fighting words" - not free
speech - and convicted her of the
misdemeanor.
.... The housewife was sent to jail
for 45 days, but released four days
later after her attorney worked out an
unusual deal: The jury verdict would be
vacated and she would plead guilty and
be freed - as long as she dropped all
appeal rights...
[1] Note there is no suggestion that Ms.
Barton (female! middle-aged!! accompanied by her
daughter and mother!!!) actually attacked or
even threatened to attack anyone.
[2] In fact, amazingly, everyone agrees that
any potential violence would come from the
Hispanics. The advocates of Ms. Barton's
conviction actually assert this:
"John Roy Castillo, former
director of the Michigan Department of
Civil Rights and the Detroit Human
Rights Department [whatever that is],
said Barton's comment not only was
offensive, it likely could have sparked
a fight.... "I'm nonviolent, but I
might have confronted her and who knows
the personality of that person,"
said Castillo, who is of Mexican
descent."
In other words, because today's immigrants
come from a violent political culture with no
tradition of free speech, an American must go to
jail.
