Patrick McGee filed a brief on Aug. 19 outlining two main arguments against the disorderly conduct conviction of former Student Senate President Megan Marzec.
Megan Marzec, former president of Ohio University's Student Senate, isn't done fighting.
Marzec is moving forward with her appeal of her disorderly conduct conviction from earlier this year.
In a brief filed Aug. 19, Marzec’s attorney Patrick McGee presented two arguments against the ruling, stating that Marzec and her co-defendants, Kyle Tussing and DJ Amireh, were denied due process and there was not sufficient enough evidence against them.
“The charge and the ruling, it’s very clearly forms of oppressions,” Marzec said. “We really can’t have this charge become a precedent in Athens."
The conviction came after OU’s Student Union held a protest in January against rising tuition costs. Marzec and the two other defendants were arrested in April and sentenced to thirty days in prison by Municipal Court Judge William Grim.
Grim offered the defendants the option of avoiding jail time if they stayed on good behavior for a year and completed 30 hours of community service in 60 days.
{{tncms-asset app="editorial" id="d7cd4768-e881-11e4-99b5-230bde510115"}}
“At the trial, the State proved that the defendants had marched in the street in protest that covered three sides of an Uptown block in Athens,” McGee said in the brief. “The state did not prove that the march had hindered traffic or the rights of others as required by the ordinance.”
The brief also cast doubt on the testimony of APD Officer Nick MaGruder, who claimed there were cars behind the protesters that were being impeded.
That statement, according to the brief, was uncorroborated by the other two officers that testified.
McGee also claimed that without testimonies from the drivers of the vehicles, it was not possible to argue that they were impeded.
“Really what's important in the appeal in specific is if we can’t fight this sort of oppression and repression in a small town the progression of political expression … will be forced to a halt,” Marzec said.
@wtperkins
wp198712@ohio.edu
