Posted on 06/13/2022 7:53:40 AM PDT by grundle
An Alabama man who planted flowers on the gravesite of his fiancee and was arrested at the direction of the woman’s disapproving father was found guilty of littering this week.
About a month after Winston “Winchester” Hagans got engaged, his fiancee, Hannah Ford, was killed in a three-car crash in January 2021 that shattered what was supposed to be the happiest time of their lives. To honor the 27-year-old, Hagans placed a planter box full of fresh flowers and photos of the two of them on her grave in Auburn, Ala.
But earlier this year, Hagans was arrested on a charge of criminal littering. City officials had reassured him that he could put the planter at Ford’s gravesite unless there was a complaint. Then he discovered that a complaint had been filed — by the Rev. Tom Ford, his fiancee’s father.
“The police don’t enforce the law unless the owner of the plot tries to do something about it,” Hagans told The Washington Post earlier this year, adding that his late fiancee’s father did not approve of their relationship.
Hagans was convicted Thursday on one count of criminal littering and ordered to pay about $300 in fines and court costs, the Opelika-Auburn News reported. The 32-year-old man was also given a suspended jail sentence of 30 days that will remain suspended as long as Hagans does not place any more flowers or planter boxes on his fiancee’s grave.
(Excerpt) Read more at webcache.googleusercontent.com ...
“That’s it! And which way did you lean on the incident?”
The legal side.
The girl is dead. Who are they trying to protect?
And doesn't cemeteries normally remove dead flowers and whatnot that people put on graves? Wouldn't they have eventually done this for *THAT* grave if the father hadn't made an issue out of it?
And why couldn't they have just quietly done their normal process of garbage collection on this particular grave and not make it into an incident which reflects badly on everyone?
This thing has the potential to come back and bite Reverend Ford in the butt. His behavior strikes myself, and apparently others as very "unChristian."
“You’ve got a deed that says ‘no boxes.’ You’ve got a gentleman who’s been told ‘no boxes’ by a city lawyer in uncontroverted testimony. You’ve got a gentleman who says – and this is frankly where I lose my patience – ‘I don’t care what the rules are and what the law says, I’m going to do what I want.’ Well, he’s not. It’s a clear case of a violation of this deed,
I’m sick and tired of lawless scum.
Of course not. I'm originally from my mother's womb, but I haven't been back since I was born.
This is supposed to be a conservative website. It’s amazing that many people who *think* they are conservatives don’t believe in private property rights.
Also the rights of parents trump the rights of boyfriends. Had this guy married the girl and he bought the burial plot he could plant all the flowers he wanted.
**Have you seen the color of the soil in Alabama? Those folks think dirt is supposed to be bright orange.**
Spoiled brat coaches, parents, and players in public school systems spend a LOT of taxpayer money getting special red/orange dirt so their kid can pretend he/she is playing on a surface like the college and pro players do.
In time past I’ve hauled the stuff as far as 600 miles (AL to OH), and at the current diesel prices, the shipping cost is probably beyond ridiculous..... for dirt.... to play a game on.
I was only covering for a driver when I made those runs. I told my boss I would move on if I had to do it full time.
“I also dare say if you took that display to a thousand people and asked them if it was “litter”, 999 of them would say “no.””
Legal decisions should be voted on by the public instead following the law?
Is BLM's dead fiance buried under the lawn?
If you asked them to “please do not do that”
I would not ask them. I would let them grieve in their own way. If I didn't like their display, I would ask the cemetery caretakers to just remove the display in the normal manner they remove stuff people leave on graves. I would not make a big stink about it.
Of course i'm not some pretentious reverend "Doctor", so I don't have the "high and mighty" syndrome.
Agreed 100%. There’s more than a few pretend CINOs on FR. To me, they’re similar to leftists who insist that your property is the community’s property. Most recent example is people on FReepers claiming it’s their “right” to put a Biden sticker on a gas pump for a station they don’t own or don’t have permission to do. Nothing but a CINO.
“Respecting an adult’s decisions about who she wants to be with is “touchy feely nonsense”?”
The touchy feely nonsense is you thinking the family has to forever agree with her decision. If your adult daughter ran off some pimp, would spew foolish babble like that? “She chose to go live with a pimp. We need to respect that. She’s an adult”.
Way to go dad. Pissing on your daughter’s memory.
Once again, you are dodging the question.
You are responding "as if" *everybody thinks like you.*
The "legal side" is entirely a matter of who you want to ask. One judge will say "this", and the other judge will say "that."
I thought I showed that to you by pointing out "litter" can mean whatever the judge says?
I'm on the "legal" side too. A man shooting an unarmed man without reasonable cause should go to prison and possibly be executed depending on the particulars.
Long ago my Uncle told me that the bible requires the rulers to enforce justice in the killing of one man by another, in order to prevent the family of the victim from taking the law into their own hands.
Allowing someone to be killed without having to answer for it by the law, is a recipe for anarchy.
Reading thru the article though and you discover that after about 3rd or 4rt time Ford asked that no more boxews be placed but hagans continued until hagans did it a 10th time. That’s when the Father issued the complaint. It changes the circumstances somewhat.
Still Ford needs to work in his heart and should have recognized Hagan’s love for his daughter was genuine and should have had at least some sort of civil conversation with the young man. We don’t know the whole story but Ford has a pride and a forgiveness issue. Hagans himself may have a pride issue against the girl’s Father despite his grief and needed to stop sending the boxes. Apparently Ford had asked him to stop sending the previous boxes but Hagans wouldn’t.
The other issue is the daughter’s willingness to marry the man despite her own Father’s wishes. Now they were both in their late 20’s and she particularly had a rising career in politics, yet saw no downside in having Hagan’s as a husband despite her own Father’s negativity.
More to the story and I’m curious about the strange accident that took out a rising Republican starlet. Reminds me of the Governor’s daughter’s boyfirend in Georgia that also was taken out by a strange “accident”.
**I grew up with the King James, and so it is my goto for quoting the bible.**
Same here. I think people sometimes just want an excuse to not read the Bible. I have a lexicon, and Strongs Exhaustive Concordance if I need a comparison with other versions.
How do you feel about those people who helped slaves escape, or those people who helped Jews escape from the Nazis?
Were they "lawless scum"?
Cause God only knows, we *MUST* enforce the law! It is far more important than lives or human decency.
“It’s amazing that many people who *think* they are conservatives don’t believe in private property rights.”
Leftists believe “feelings” trump rights. They FEEL that people should not own guns. “Well we should be extra considerate of their feelings and let them do what they want, come into our houses and let them take the evil guns away...”
“Also the rights of parents trump the rights of boyfriends. Had this guy married the girl and he bought the burial plot he could plant all the flowers he wanted.”
Right, he can turn HIS entire house and property into a huge shrine. THAT IS HIS RIGHT.
The article further down says Hagan kept doing up to 10 times even after the Dad asked him multiple times to stop. Then the complaint was made. It changes the storys complexion.
What you are doing here is called "moving the goal posts", and alternatively is the "straw man" tactic.
Nobody is objecting to private property. So far as the law is concerned, the Father has a right to be a nasty person.
He should not have been, and I daresay it may cause him troubles in the future.
The Judge should have done the right thing and talked to the young man and then dismissed the charges.
What he put there isn't "litter", and it is a ridiculous misapplication of the law to claim it is "litter."
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