Posted on 02/10/2008 7:39:07 AM PST by Cagey
(AP) When 70-year-old Betty Perry was accused of neglecting her lawn, she became defiant.
Perry was arrested, handcuffed and briefly jailed in July for declining a ticket for failing to water her lawn.
She agreed on Friday to resolve her case by pleading guilty to a disorderly conduct charge and paying a $100 fine. She also faces six months of probation.
Perry was scheduled to go to trial Monday on a more serious charge of resisting arrest for refusing to give her name, accept a citation or allow herself to be handcuffed on her front steps.
"She ends up with a sentence that is very minimal and shouldn't intrude terribly on her day-to-day life," prosecutor Andrew Peterson said. "For our part, it accomplishes what we set out to accomplish from the very beginning."
Peterson said he was planning to drop the lawn neglect charge anyway because Perry has started taking care of her lawn. But it was important for the city to get a conviction for Perry's "dangerous and violent" actions following an officer's attempt to cite her, he said.
During a struggle with officer Jim Flygare, Perry fell, injured her nose, rolled onto her stomach and put her hands under her to foil a handcuffing.
Her lawyers didn't return phone or e-mail messages Friday from The Associated Press.
Update to your earlier story.
Next they’ll be going through people’s underwear drawers.
She took a plea? If a jury got this case, it seems to me they’d have sided with the scoff-lawn. I know I would have. Forced to water your lawn, by force of law?
Give this one the firing squad. /s
You have got to be kidding!
Does anyone recognize her attorney in the photo? She looks familiar.
Is that Gloria Allred?
Why don't we just leave her personal hygiene out of this.
Yep, bringing in the big guns on this one.
That is how it got to CBS News. Also it is Utah not San Fran
Due to water shortages, some places cite you for watering your lawn. I love the nanny state. Yes I do.
Is she on a water meter? Is she on a limited income? Is she a danger to society? She got arrested for this?! She should sue. I don’t care how much of an old crank she might be, her rights were violated.
Yep! I just looked it up.
LMBO! Wonder how much Allred charged her client for the photo op.
I can’t think to what advantage it is though. Maybe blast the biggest red state...Utah?
I smell green, and it's not this woman's lawn.
In other words: It's important for the city to show the other citizens peasants that they will arrest and abuse an 70 year old ladies rights to make a point, to fall in line
Disgusting, tar and feather on rail road out of town is the solution
Allred is like Jesse Jackson. If there’s a camera she’s in front of it all for her greater glory.
Exactly. She probably has this woman’s signature on a contingency fee contract for a civil lawsuit against the city.
Forced to water your lawn ... while there are persistant droughts.
Should have gone to the jury and had the law nullified.
I’m thinking rich mormon lady fights for the freedom to let her lawn die and brings in Gloria to fight the battle, probably a covenance case?
“Scoff lawn” Snicker
Wait . . . we're not supposed to do that?
Uh, I mean, that's disgusting.
Yep. In my municipality there is a $100 fine for watering your lawn.. the first time. $500 the second time... and if I remember correctly $2500 the third time.
We aren’t really in a drought... They just want to reserve the water for all the ‘fat cat’s’ golf courses. (6 existing, 1 more just approved for construction... all for an area with ~12,476 full time residents.)
“She did not get in trouble for disobeying the law of keeping up your property. She got in trouble for disorderly conduct, and disobeying a lawful order. She was definitely guilty. I would have sided with justice.”
Right on...it’s not like the officer could have simply left and MAILED her the ticket...
Should have tasered her a couple times too...
/s
If her lawn wasn’t in danger of bursting into flames, or harboring deadly snakes, or encroaching into others’ yards, leave the citizen alone!
BTW, Welkom to Amerika!
I question the “lawful order” statement.
The older I get, the more my social demographic contains old people and the more I have to deal with irrationally stubborn people who have lost the ability to understand what constitutes a society. When I met my current girlfriend, her yard was a total mess and she couldn’t understand why she didn’t get along with her next door neighbor who she shares a double wide driveway with. It took me a year to clear the brush, plant some hedges, trim the lawn, kill the gophers, and generally make it look like a human being lives there. Now she’s on speaking terms with her neighbor and we can count on them to keep an eye on the place when we travel, lend us a cup of sugar for baking cinnamon rolls and call 911 if one of us turns up on the casualty list.
People who don’t take care of their stuff should be brought to the inner knowledge that they are simply dirt bags with a lifeboat seat expectancy of becoming shark bait.
We are really declining into tyranny when the fascists can send you to jail for not watering your lawn in a state that is mostly desert.
Your point is well taken. I have lived through the nightmare of neighbors like you describe. But, I never wished, or thought, that they should be arrested for it.
If it’d been me, I would have done hard time on the greater charges just to make a point based on principle...
Their only regret was that she did not have a dog they could shoot.
“...disorderly conduct, and disobeying a lawful order.”
Normally, I try to decide these things on a case-by-case basis, like for instance, the disorderly conduct was on her own front porch, and the result of falling down on the ground, and keeping her hands away from the hand-cuffs.
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