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It "was a little past 11 a.m. on an August day in 1998 when Janice Barton, 45, was leaving the Peppermill Restaurant in the Lake Michigan shoreline community of Manistee, with her mother and daughter," reported Michael G. Walsh of the Muskegon Chronicle, back in August 2000. "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."
According to witnesses, Barton, who does not understand Spanish, told her mother: "I wish these damned sp!#@ 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 down her license plate number. Almost two weeks later, Barton was charged with disturbing the peace. But when she appeared in court Oct. 13, 1998, the charge against Barton was changed to "insulting conduct in a public place" under a city ordinance -- similar to ordinances now widespread in the area -- which simply declares, "No person shall engage in any indecent, insulting, immoral or obscene conduct in any public place." In court that December, Barton testified that she believes immigrants should speak English when in the United States. But the jury agreed with the judge that Barton's words were "fighting words" -- not the kind of speech protected by the First Amendment -- and convicted her of the misdemeanor. Judge Brent Danielson initially sent her to jail for 45 days, but eventually released her after only four. Judge Danielson said: "This isn't just some generalized stupid speech where someone is just engaging in fascist xenophobic logorrhea. This is directed at someone. It's -- you don't say words like this when someone is present, like this, unless you are either intending to hurt them, to injure them, or you are intending to engage in some kind of a physical altercation. This is a restriction on a free speech that's especially to be guarded in Michigan." |
