August 6, 2025 • 6 mins
1st Amendment attorney, Mark Weaver discusses his Op-Ed piece in the Cincinnati Enquirer about the brawl in Cincinnati
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
He is a First Amendment attorney in the state of Ohio.
He is a former Deputy Attorney General of the State
of Ohio. He's got a book called a wordsmith Work,
and he is on the Legacy Retirement Group dot com
phone line. It is Mark Weaver, Mark, good morning, Good
to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
How you ben doing well?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Absolutely, you've got an op ed piece in the Cincinnati
Inquirer at Cincinnati dot com having to do with his
mess in this brawl from what about ten days ago.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I think in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
It's become racial, unfortunately, as so many things become in
this day and age.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's kind of sad. It's a different discussion.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
But you've got the alleged victims here, I guess, shouting
racial slurs. You've got the alleged suspects here taking offense
to that and has beaten the crap out of these people.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We've seen the videos. They're hard to watch. And then
you've got.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
This Cincinnati Council City Council President Victoria Parks, who went
on Facebook and just went full score to earth and
said that these victims deserved it, that they were begging
for this beat down.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'll let you take it from here. What's the story.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah, low character behaviors should never be rewarded. If you
use a racial slur, that means you've got low character.
But the First Amendment's pretty clear. You're not allowed to
punch somebody who calls you a name. And this council
president you mentioned, Victoria Parks. She claimed falsely that this
is somehow a legitimate reason to punch somebody, because if
(01:35):
somebody calls you an in, I don't think the woman victim.
I think your first name is Holly. I don't think
she's been accused of a racial slur. But okay, maybe
somebody else has. Either way. You know, when we're kids,
our parents, you know, remind us sticks and stones may
break my bones, but words will never hurt me. But
the First Amendment says is, yeah, if somebody calls you
a name, that's bad. But they're allowed to call you
(01:56):
a name and you're not allowed to punch them, which
is why we're seeing people being charged with the felonious
assault and other serious felonies.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Victoria Parks actually used the analogy of you can't run
into a crowded theater and scream fire, because that was
at one point the exception to the First Amendment.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Is that not true anymore now?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
It was not in fact that that was the case
in nineteen nineteen where they used that metaphor, and you
can't falsely yell fire, is what the justice said, but
that was overturned in a case that came out of Cincinnati, Ohio.
It's usting that's not the standard anymore, and it hasn't
been the standard for decades, but people still love to
refer to it. The standard is what's not proper speech
(02:40):
is if you say something meant to incite public lawlessness,
you actually want to, and then you're likely to, and
even then the person is not allowed to punch you.
It's just that you could be in trouble yourself for
saying something like, let's all go bust those windows. Here's
some rocks. Well, that's speech right there. That's probabrobably a
crime under that. You know the current standard, but it
(03:04):
still doesn't allow someone to punch you. And so in
this case, the Supreme Court has been very clear racial
slurs are mean, they're offensive, but they're legal to use,
including whatever people call hate speech, which is kind of
an overused term nowadays, but to the extent that hate
speech can even be defined, A unanimous Supreme Court has
(03:26):
said it's fully protected by the First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, I never really understood hate crimes or hate speech.
I understand the intent there by labeling them as such,
but I mean, at the end of the day, they're
just crimes. Whatever the motivation behind them is in a
lot of instances is inconsequential. Speaking with Mark Weaver, first
Amendment attorney in Ohio, so let me play devil's advocate.
(03:53):
If I'm a defense attorney from some of these suspects,
I'm going to go I'm going to say, well, who
wouldn't want to punch someone right in the kisser if
they got called, you know, one of the worst possible
names you can call somebody involving race. There's got to
be some defense there, right, I mean, there's got to be.
You know, my client was emotional, they were called a name,
(04:13):
and they took action.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
They regret it, but that's what happened.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
It's not a legal defense, but it's what we call
a jury nullification defense. You hope the jury will maybe
not find your guy guilty, not because the law says
they can, yeah, but because they're kind of angry about it,
because the law is rather clear you cannot punch somebody
because they said something mean to you. If that were true,
(04:39):
there'd be lots of punchings every day all across the
country with no legal remedy.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
The other issue too, Mark, in this situation, I think
there's been four or five. I think five arrests have
been made now in this situation, which is fantastic, and
I hope that these people will get prosecuted to the
full extent of the law. One of the other disturbing
parts of this whole story, Mark, is that only one
person in a group of you know, sixty seventy eighty
people called nine to one one during this fight. Everybody
(05:07):
else had their cell phones out, not to call somebody
for help, but to video it.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, this is a vicious time in American history where
people would rather become famous by getting the video of
an attack than by stepping in and helping somebody. And
some of the politicians have called this a fight. This
is not a fight. When somebody's on the ground and
a crowd swoops in and starts kicking the person on
the ground, that's not two people squaring off on a fight.
(05:35):
That is a full blown felonious assault. People need to
go to prison for doing this. That is not a
fair fight, and bystanders need to step in and do
responsible things, which is to pull people away who are
kicking the skull of somebody on the ground.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So we okay, hate speech, racial slurs, whether you agree
with it or not, those are protected under the First Amendment.
You know, what about violent speech like you know, I'm
going to come over there and I'm going to knock
your teeth in as a threat a threatening speech?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, threat is an exception to the First Amendment. You're
not allowed to make threats. You could say, hey, Homer Simpson,
I hope somebody beats you up someday. Well, that's not
a threat. But hey, Homer Simpson, I'm coming over there
with a baseball bat right now. I'm going to bash
your head in. That's a threat. That's a crime. So
the First Amendment does not protect actual threats.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Interesting, what do you have against Homer Simpson, Mark, that's
my question.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I just use him as an example because he's unlikely
to assume me. That's why I use Umber Simpson as
an example.
He is a First Amendment attorney in the state of Ohio.
He is a former Deputy Attorney General of the State
of Ohio. He's got a book called a wordsmith Work,
and he is on the Legacy Retirement Group dot com
phone line. It is Mark Weaver, Mark, good morning, Good
to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
How you ben doing well?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Absolutely, you've got an op ed piece in the Cincinnati
Inquirer at Cincinnati dot com having to do with his
mess in this brawl from what about ten days ago.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I think in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
It's become racial, unfortunately, as so many things become in
this day and age.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's kind of sad. It's a different discussion.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
But you've got the alleged victims here, I guess, shouting
racial slurs. You've got the alleged suspects here taking offense
to that and has beaten the crap out of these people.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We've seen the videos. They're hard to watch. And then
you've got.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
This Cincinnati Council City Council President Victoria Parks, who went
on Facebook and just went full score to earth and
said that these victims deserved it, that they were begging
for this beat down.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'll let you take it from here. What's the story.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah, low character behaviors should never be rewarded. If you
use a racial slur, that means you've got low character.
But the First Amendment's pretty clear. You're not allowed to
punch somebody who calls you a name. And this council
president you mentioned, Victoria Parks. She claimed falsely that this
is somehow a legitimate reason to punch somebody, because if
(01:35):
somebody calls you an in, I don't think the woman victim.
I think your first name is Holly. I don't think
she's been accused of a racial slur. But okay, maybe
somebody else has. Either way. You know, when we're kids,
our parents, you know, remind us sticks and stones may
break my bones, but words will never hurt me. But
the First Amendment says is, yeah, if somebody calls you
a name, that's bad. But they're allowed to call you
(01:56):
a name and you're not allowed to punch them, which
is why we're seeing people being charged with the felonious
assault and other serious felonies.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Victoria Parks actually used the analogy of you can't run
into a crowded theater and scream fire, because that was
at one point the exception to the First Amendment.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Is that not true anymore now?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
It was not in fact that that was the case
in nineteen nineteen where they used that metaphor, and you
can't falsely yell fire, is what the justice said, but
that was overturned in a case that came out of Cincinnati, Ohio.
It's usting that's not the standard anymore, and it hasn't
been the standard for decades, but people still love to
refer to it. The standard is what's not proper speech
(02:40):
is if you say something meant to incite public lawlessness,
you actually want to, and then you're likely to, and
even then the person is not allowed to punch you.
It's just that you could be in trouble yourself for
saying something like, let's all go bust those windows. Here's
some rocks. Well, that's speech right there. That's probabrobably a
crime under that. You know the current standard, but it
(03:04):
still doesn't allow someone to punch you. And so in
this case, the Supreme Court has been very clear racial
slurs are mean, they're offensive, but they're legal to use,
including whatever people call hate speech, which is kind of
an overused term nowadays, but to the extent that hate
speech can even be defined, A unanimous Supreme Court has
(03:26):
said it's fully protected by the First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, I never really understood hate crimes or hate speech.
I understand the intent there by labeling them as such,
but I mean, at the end of the day, they're
just crimes. Whatever the motivation behind them is in a
lot of instances is inconsequential. Speaking with Mark Weaver, first
Amendment attorney in Ohio, so let me play devil's advocate.
(03:53):
If I'm a defense attorney from some of these suspects,
I'm going to go I'm going to say, well, who
wouldn't want to punch someone right in the kisser if
they got called, you know, one of the worst possible
names you can call somebody involving race. There's got to
be some defense there, right, I mean, there's got to be.
You know, my client was emotional, they were called a name,
(04:13):
and they took action.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
They regret it, but that's what happened.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
It's not a legal defense, but it's what we call
a jury nullification defense. You hope the jury will maybe
not find your guy guilty, not because the law says
they can, yeah, but because they're kind of angry about it,
because the law is rather clear you cannot punch somebody
because they said something mean to you. If that were true,
(04:39):
there'd be lots of punchings every day all across the
country with no legal remedy.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
The other issue too, Mark, in this situation, I think
there's been four or five. I think five arrests have
been made now in this situation, which is fantastic, and
I hope that these people will get prosecuted to the
full extent of the law. One of the other disturbing
parts of this whole story, Mark, is that only one
person in a group of you know, sixty seventy eighty
people called nine to one one during this fight. Everybody
(05:07):
else had their cell phones out, not to call somebody
for help, but to video it.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, this is a vicious time in American history where
people would rather become famous by getting the video of
an attack than by stepping in and helping somebody. And
some of the politicians have called this a fight. This
is not a fight. When somebody's on the ground and
a crowd swoops in and starts kicking the person on
the ground, that's not two people squaring off on a fight.
(05:35):
That is a full blown felonious assault. People need to
go to prison for doing this. That is not a
fair fight, and bystanders need to step in and do
responsible things, which is to pull people away who are
kicking the skull of somebody on the ground.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So we okay, hate speech, racial slurs, whether you agree
with it or not, those are protected under the First Amendment.
You know, what about violent speech like you know, I'm
going to come over there and I'm going to knock
your teeth in as a threat a threatening speech?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, threat is an exception to the First Amendment. You're
not allowed to make threats. You could say, hey, Homer Simpson,
I hope somebody beats you up someday. Well, that's not
a threat. But hey, Homer Simpson, I'm coming over there
with a baseball bat right now. I'm going to bash
your head in. That's a threat. That's a crime. So
the First Amendment does not protect actual threats.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Interesting, what do you have against Homer Simpson, Mark, that's
my question.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I just use him as an example because he's unlikely
to assume me. That's why I use Umber Simpson as
an example.
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