Issue isn't free speech.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a person who makes a fool of herself refusing to obey a police officer is just a fool, and not a martyr to the cause of free speech.

A unanimous Oregon Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that Rose Mary Illig-Renn did not have a free speech right to refuse to climb down from the bed of a pickup truck that police officers wanted to have towed. The high court upheld a state law that makes it a crime to disobey a lawful order from a police officer.

Newspapers never back away from legitimate free speech battles, even when it requires supporting positions that people may find objectionable. But no common-sense assessment of the Illig-Renn case reveals a genuine free speech issue.

Here's what happened when the case first unfolded in 2000. Illig-Renn was a passenger in a truck that a Clackamas County sheriff's deputy stopped at about 2 a.m. because the rear license plate light wasn't working. After running checks on the driver and Illig-Wren, Deputy John Zbinden learned that they both had suspended licenses and neither could produce any proof of insurance for the vehicle.

Zbinden, confronted with no legally licensed drivers and a potentially uninsured vehicle, did what any sensible police officer would do in a similar case: He called a tow truck. At this point, Illig-Renn began to freely exercise her extensive command of profanity as she climbed into the bed of the pickup and planted herself by the back window.

Deputy Zbinden told Illig-Wren to come down from the truck. Illig-Wren responded with more profanity and verbal abuse. She screamed that she wasn't coming down and that Zbinden was just going to have to arrest her. After giving her three more opportunities to get out of the back of the truck, Zbinden granted Illig-Wren's wish and snapped the handcuffs on her.

At trial, public defender Tammy Sun, who represented Illig-Wren, attacked the state law that made it a crime to disobey the lawful order of a police officer. Sun argued that the wording of the statute was unconstitutionally broad and could infringe on the free speech rights of lawful protesters. If the language of the statute was unconstitutional, it could not be used as the basis for a lawful police order.

The Oregon Court of Appeals agreed with Sun and in 2004 struck down the state law. Attorney General Hardy Myers appealed to the state Supreme Court, which overturned the Court of Appeals and allowed the original charges to be reinstated.

The Supreme Court made the right call in this case and in the process didn't diminish Oregonians' free speech rights one iota. Illig-Wren's obscenity-laced refusal on four separate occasions to obey Deputy Zbinden's legitimate order to climb down from the pickup truck had nothing whatsoever to do with free speech.

Moreover, nothing in the language of the statute impinges on constitutionally protected political expression. The Supreme Court noted that if police were to use the law to arrest lawful protesters, the protesters could challenge the constitutionality of their arrests based on the facts of their case.

Protection of free speech rights entails acceptance even of expression that is clearly offensive. But Illig-Wren crossed the line when she combined her own offensive speech with an unreasonable refusal to obey a lawful police order.