The punk-rock singer who was ticketed for calling the Castle
Rock Police “f—ing pigs” at a June 28 town-sponsored concert was
represented by an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union
at an Aug. 27 hearing.
Daniel Recht, an ACLU attorney working pro bono, represented
20-year-old Daniel Lewis in the Castle Rock courtroom before
Magistrate Louis Gresh.
“It’s a classic First Amendment case,” Recht said. “He was
standing on a soapbox, expressing his discontent with the law
enforcement tactics of the Castle Rock Police. Nothing garners more
protection than political speech, crass as it may have
been.”
Lewis refused a plea bargain offered by the town attorney for a
deferred sentence, which would have required him to plead guilty in
exchange for having the charges eventually dropped after a period
of good behavior. Lewis pleaded innocent and requested a jury
trial.
Referring to his six-page motion filed with the court Aug. 15,
Recht asked Gresh to drop the charges on the grounds that they are
unconstitutional.
Gresh refused and said in his 18 years at the municipal level he
had never allowed a written motion, only spoken motions.
Gresh then transferred the case to another judge. No jury trial
date had been set at press time.
Lewis performed June 28 as a guest singer with the band
Dysarranged at the town’s grand opening of the new skate park at
Metzler Community Park. The town scheduled multiple bands to play
after receiving demo CDs from them. The bands were told to watch
their language.
Before one of the last songs of Dysarranged’s set, Lewis stood
up on the stage and said, “This song is dedicated to the Castle
Rock pig department. I hate all of you f—ing pigs.”
Town event organizers pulled the electrical equipment, and
police escorted the band off stage.
Lewis earlier had been warned to tone down his
language.
A town statute dealing with disturbing the peace says that “It
shall be unlawful for any person or group of persons to maliciously
or willfully disturb the peace and quiet of any neighborhood or
family, or public building or public street or sidewalk, or
business establishment, by loud or unusual noises, or by tumultuous
or offensive language, threatening, traducing, quarreling,
challenging to fight or fighting within the Town.”
The six-page motion Recht tried to submit resembles several
other defenses recently used by the ACLU of Colorado. The other
cases involved someone who was punished for using the F-word. The
motion documents the history of the word, focusing primarily on
proving the word is part of mainstream culture.
“Since the 1970s the use of the word in R-rated movies has
become so commonplace in mainstream American movies that is rarely
noticed by most audiences,” Recht says in the motion. “A search of
Internet Web sites suggests [the word] is a more commonly used word
than mom, baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet
“The question is one of constitutionality and whether the state
can criminalize the speech in question,” Recht says.
“Freedom of thought, speech, expression and ideas are the very
concepts upon which America’s liberty is founded… . Police officers
are specially trained to deal with vulgarities and situations when
others may be verbally abusive toward them and thus [the word] was
found [in other court cases] not likely to provoke a violent
response.”
Although many found Lewis’ remarks to be inappropriate, Recht
argues in his motion that the government cannot regulate such
speech.
“Some people may believe [the word] is always inappropriate. But
in all but a very few circumstances, the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution prohibits our government from making the
determination,” he says.
Recht has a private law firm, Recht & Kornfield, P.C. in
Denver.