In today's Walton Reporter is a must-read story about the case of Jeanie Groat, a Walton resident who is serving a two-week jail sentence for disorderly conduct, after cursing at an official at a horse show in 2010.
According to the Reporter, the charge stemmed from an F-bomb-laden argument between Groat and Jeannette Moser-Orr, then an official with Delaware County 4-H, after Groat's daughter was disqualified from the event she was competing in. Moser-Orr filed a complaint, and Groat was arrested.
In November of 2011, Groat was convicted of disorderly conduct for the incident by Walton village judge Richard Gumo, and sentenced to 15 days in jail. News of the case was picked up by NPR's Morning Edition, who noted that another judge -- Delaware County judge Carl Becker -- had suspended the jail sentence. But the stay was only temporary, and Becker's decision was overturned by another county judge.
Since then, Groat's case has been wending its way through the appeals system. In April, the Watershed Post spoke with Groat's lawyers David Lapinel and Andrew VanBuren, both of whom said that Groat's sentence was unusually harsh. At the time, Lapinel and VanBuren were hoping the New York State Court of Appeals would overturn the lower court's sentence.
"There was never disorderly conduct, and even if you assume it was, the sentence imposed is completely out of sorts with anything I've ever seen," VanBuren said. "It's unusual that a person who's convicted of disorderly conduct goes to jail. There's usually a fine or a surcharge associated with any such minor offense."
VanBuren also said he felt that Groat's conviction violated constitutional protections on free speech.
"She was advocating for her daughter, she thought her daughter was being treated unfairly, and she voiced her displeasure. How can that not be a First Amendment issue?" VanBuren said. "She did not incite a riot, she did not disturb the peace. How can that not be a First Amendment issue?"
Complicating the issue, Lapinel and VanBuren said, was the fact that a key witness in the case -- a young girl who overheard the altercation between Groat and Moser-Orr -- was the daughter of Gumo's court clerk.
Groat's arguments apparently fell on deaf ears; according to the Walton Reporter, the New York Court of Appeals declined to hear the case in September.
Other cases of disorderly-conduct arrests for swearing have attracted media attention around the country. In 2001, a man who swore at a park ranger at Yosemite National Park was convicted of disorderly conduct, in a case that was later overturned by a federal appeals court. This May, a judge dropped charges against a Georgia woman who was charged with disorderly conduct after she swore at police, in a case that her attorney called "a First Amendment victory."
It's not the first time Groat has made the local papers. Here she is in the Daily Star in 2001, in a story about parenting advice for children who have trouble getting enough sleep:
Jeanie Groat of Walton said a bedtime routine helps get her four children — ages 6-10 — to bed at a decent hour.
They read the Bible, read some stories and, she said, the kids are usually in bed by 8:30 p.m.
And again in 2002, in a story about the Groat family raising turkeys to pay for school supplies:
Jeanie Groat said she tries to incorporate lessons learned from raising the turkeys into the children's curriculum. They learn about how the birds are hatched, read books that incorporate stories about raising animals and even use them in math lessons.
On Wednesday, October 16, before being led from the court in handcuffs, Groat spoke to the Walton Reporter's Lillian Browne.
"Does this mean that anybody who says this word can go to jail? Where do we draw the line?" she asked.
