Eaton v. City of Tulsa

In answering a question on cross-examination at his trial, in the Municipal Court of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for violating a municipal ordinance, petitioner referred to an alleged assailant as “chicken shit.” In consequence he was prosecuted and convicted under an information that charged him with “direct contempt,” in violation of another Tulsa ordinance, “by his insolent behavior during open court and in the presence of [the judge], *698to wit: by using the language 'chicken-shit’ . . . .” The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, in an unreported order and opinion, affirmed.

This single isolated usage…