Slur 'sophomoric,' not criminal, judge says
A former Warren Township High School student who used a racial slur in a conversation with one student that was overheard by a second was found not guilty of disorderly conduct Monday.
At the end of an hourlong trial, Lake County Associate Judge Patrick Lawler said Curtis Hiett's remarks were odious but not criminal.
Hiett was charged after a Sept. 25 conversation in which he used the slur when answering a question about why he had hung a noose in his car.
"Certainly the court finds the defendant's statements disgusting. They are morally reprehensible," Lawler said. "But they do not rise to the level of criminal conduct, and are in fact sophomoric."
Hiett's problems began when fellow senior Amanda Reeves said she had heard Hiett had displayed a noose in his car and was going to get in trouble with school officials.
She testified Monday she asked Hiett about the noose as they were walking toward the tennis courts. Hiett responded by saying he "disliked" people he described with a disparaging term for blacks.
Reeves said she did not hear Hiett's original response and asked him to repeat it, which he did.
Reeves said she was "surprised" to hear Hiett use the term, and it "disturbed her a little."
Fellow student Miranda Perez said she was walking in the same group and overheard Hiett's responses and was "bothered" by them.
Gurnee Police Detective Frank Tuggle arrested Hiett after he questioned Hiett about the noose. Hiett admitted he made one out of a shoelace and hung it from the rearview mirror of his car until school officials ordered him to hide it.
Tuggle said he asked Hiett what the noose meant to him, and Hiett responded he believed it to be a symbol of the lynchings of several years ago.
Lake County Assistant State's Attorney Jill Rector argued that because the students knew of the noose displayed in Hiett's car, his responses to Reeves' questions went beyond the right to free speech.
"His words were offensive, and in the context of the noose hanging in his car were even more offensive," Rector argued. "She (Reeves) was alarmed and disturbed by what she heard."
Defense attorney Michael Ori argued neither the girls who testified nor Tuggle ever saw the noose but had only been told about it.
Ori said connecting the noose to Hiett's expression of an unpopular opinion was an attempt to criminalize his opinion.
"She (Reeves) never saw the noose; she does not know how big it was, and she does not know what it was made of," Ori said. "She does not know anything about the noose except what she was told, and that is insufficient to alarm and disturb her."
Lawler said he could not find Perez was alarmed and disturbed by Hiett's remarks, which is the legal standard for speech to establish disorderly conduct.
He said he heard Reeves testify that she was disturbed to hear Hiett say what he said, but it did not alarm her.