From KERA News:
Tarrant County Commissioners Court meetings give members of the public an opportunity to speak directly to their elected officials.
Some people take advantage of that opportunity frequently, and Ryon Price is one of them.
He’s the senior pastor at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth and part of an activist movement to lower the number of deaths at the county jail.
Price was talking about one of those deaths at the meeting on July 2 when his allotted three minutes ran out.
Over the course of about eight seconds, County Judge Tim O’Hare warned him twice to stop speaking, then ordered sheriff’s deputies to remove him from the room.
Deputies gave Price a pink trespass warning slip and told him not to come back to the building for a year, he told KERA the week after.
Returning would constitute a crime.
“People exceed their allotted minutes by a few seconds all the time,” Price said. “I am not aware of anyone else having been banned over such a minor infraction.”
Pastor Ryon Price stands in the gym that will be used as a shelter for unhoused families Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth. This temporary shelter replaces the Salvation Army shelter during construction.
Yfat Yossifor / KERA
Price was one of multiple people O’Hare kicked out of the July 2 meeting. Two told KERA they got trespass warnings that effectively ban them from speaking at Commissioners Court.
Price was trying to finish his thought when he went over his time, he said. He called his punishment “out of proportion.”
“I think that if you risk going just a second or two — or in my case, eight seconds — over, and lose a fundamental First Amendment right, then yeah, I think that it’s deeply troubling,” he said.
Enforcing the rules
People who sign up to speak at Commissioners Court must follow certain rules.
Speakers can comment on a topic of their choice, but their time is limited to three minutes, according to the rules of decorum. They must behave in an “orderly and appropriate manner” or be ordered to leave. Insulting the “honesty and integrity” of the court or a court member is not allowed. Neither are racial, ethnic or gender slurs.
Possible punishments include the cancellation of a speaker’s time, removal from the courtroom, a contempt citation or “other civil sanctions and criminal charges.”
The full rules of decorum for Tarrant County Commissioners Court.
Courtesy Tarrant County
While the government can put rules in place for public comment, the punishment for breaking those rules should fit the crime, said Peter Steffensen, an attorney and the assistant director of SMU’s First Amendment Clinic.
“I would even go so far as to say that even if you broke a rule and go a few seconds over, I think that’s something that really the court should kind of forgive and forget,” he said.
The bar should be higher for just kicking someone out of a meeting, never mind banning them, Steffensen added.
“I think if your conduct is disrupting the meeting so badly that no business can be done, then that strikes me as a level of conduct where it would be reasonable to say, we’re asking you to leave,” he said.
O’Hare’s office did not respond to multiple requests for an interview about how he decides to enforce meeting rules.
A Tarrant County spokesperson also did not respond to a request for an interview about whether it’s part of county policy to ban people for rule violations like going over time.
In an emailed statement, Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Robbie Hoy acknowledged the public’s right to speak at meetings, “so long as they follow the reasonable rules and decorum of the Court.”
“Each situation is different and all circumstances of the disruption is taken into account when a Criminal Trespass Warning is issued by law enforcement,” Hoy wrote. “It is customary for CT Warnings to last one year, but can last 2 or more.”
Bans from public meetings aren’t unheard of. Last year, the Fort Worth City Council banned two frequent commenters, Adrian Smith and Bob Willoughby.
Smith and Willoughby’s bans lasted a few months and were the result of “cumulative infractions and disruptions,” according to the Fort Worth Report. They had been asked to leave or forcibly removed from council chambers more than five times in 2023.
Adrian Smith (left) and Bob Willoughby (right) protest their ban from Fort Worth City Council Aug. 29, 2023 outside of City Hall.
Rachel Behrndt / Fort Worth Report
Commissioners Court meetings have been contentious the past few months. After O’Hare told his colleague Commissioner Alisa Simmons to “sit there and be quiet” at an April meeting, some members of the public accused him of “incessant bullying.”
Supporters of O’Hare and Simmons clashed at a May 7 meeting where multiple people were kicked out.
O’Hare had Janell Johnson removed from a meeting on June 4 during her comments about the death of her brother Anthony Johnson Jr. in county jail custody. She raised her voice and addressed O’Hare directly. Two jailers have since been indicted for murder in Johnson’s death.
Johnson spoke again at a later meeting without incident.
Janell Johnson, sister of Anthony Johnson Jr., was removed from public comment during the Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting June 4, 2024.
Tarrant County / KERA
Laurie Duke, a stay-at-home mom and former teacher, also got kicked out of the July 2 Commissioners Court meeting for going over her three minutes, but she said she didn’t face the same punishment as Price.
In an interview, Duke said that was her first time speaking at Commissioners Court. She had one sentence left and thought she’d be allowed to get it out.
“I had something to say. I made an effort to get there, and they need to know it’s not easy for people,” she said. “It’s a privilege. I feel privileged to even be able to make it there.”
Unlike Price, Duke didn’t get a trespass warning, she said. She grabbed her two kids, and deputies escorted her to the elevators and pushed the down button.
When bans aren’t doled out evenly, they give the impression that people are being punished for the content of their comments, Steffensen said.
“I think it’s important to have clarity in the rules and specificity in the rules, so that the public is less concerned that these rules are going to be enforced in arbitrary ways,” he said.
Long or indefinite bans
Lon Burnam doesn’t know how long he’s banned from Commissioners Court. The former state representative also got a trespass warning on July 2, but not for speaking over his time.
Burnam went up to O’Hare after the public portion of the meeting ended, to confront him for the way he spoke to Simmons, he said.
Simmons tried to ask county staff a question while O’Hare banged his gavel and told her she was out of order.
“I wish I hadn’t lost my temper over it, but it’s kind of an Old South guy thing,” Burnam said. “You defend a woman and her right to be heard. Particularly if she’s representing half a million people.”
By his account, Burnam went up to the commissioners’ bench and told O’Hare he doesn’t respect him.
“He ordered me out just two or three sentences into my comment,” Burnam said. “Somebody said I broke a rule by moving the podium that people come to speak at, but it’s moved all the time. How would I know that rule?”
KERA asked O’Hare for his recollection of the conversation but did not receive a response.
A speaker addresses Tarrant County Commissioners Court Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023 at Tarrant County’s main government building in downtown Fort Worth.
Miranda Suarez / KERA
Burnam got his trespass warning delivered to his home a week after the meeting, he said. He shared a picture of the sheriff’s deputies who delivered it, one of them holding a copy of the warning. The paper lists O’Hare as the person who warned Burnam he was trespassing.
Burnam didn’t get a time frame for how long he’s banned, he said.
For Price, he said deputies told him he’s banned for a year, but that’s not in writing on his trespass slip.
If punishments happen, they need to be clear, Steffensen said. Long or indefinite bans are “deeply concerning.”
“There’s always going to be those people that show up to your meetings and want to be able to say their piece, and that is not a bug. That’s a feature of the system,” he said. “People are supposed to be able to have their say and be able to provide input into the way that government functions.”
