Free speech cases in Lawton and Norman reveal how a toxic national discourse trickles down onto local politics.Despite superficially similar biographies, it would be hard to imagine two Oklahomans more different than Matina Davis and Mike Reynolds. Yet in the span of a year, each was arrested for vi olating a century-old law that had not been enforced in decades and might be unconstitutional.Reynolds is a self-described walking trigger-warning with clear sympathies for conservative politics; Davis avoids party labels, despite holding a degree in political science.Reynolds, 55, is retired law enforcement; Davis, 52, is a disabled veteran.In recent years, both Reynolds and Davis ardently embraced social media to create or exploit platforms of citizen journalism in order to combat perceived local corruption; both became thorns in the sides of local authorities.Davis was arrested in December 2023 when she posted text online — originally supplied by Google’s AI Overviews, she said — that falsely indicated that Lawton city prosecutor Alan Rosenbaum had once been indicted by a grand jury. the latest Free Speech in Crisis by JC Hallman April 2, 2025April 1, 2025 Thirteen months later, Reynolds was served with a search warrant and arrested after posting public documents about Cleveland County sheriff’s deputy Billie Dyson, who had been involved in a series of peculiar vehicular accidents.Both were charged with violating Oklahoma’s 1929 false rumors law, which made it a crime — not a civil offense — to willfully, knowingly, or maliciously communicate false rumors or reports of a slanderous nature.Oklahoma City attorney Andy Lester, who chairs the bipartisan Oklahoma Free Speech Committee, established in 2022 to review speech policies in higher education, finds it troubling that an individual could be arrested for posting materials online.“It’s certainly concerning when one sees that one has been arrested for printing a story, in a Facebook blog or something like that,” Lester said. “As someone who has dealt with free speech issues over the years, I find it concerning, sure.”As national politics has come to be characterized by threats to journalists, whistleblowers, and anyone who vigorously exercises their right to free speech, the actions of two Oklahoma courthouses, 80 miles apart, issuing warrants on an old, dormant law that once made speech a crime, may pose a new threat to freedom in America.A Weird LawIn January 1929, Gov. Henry Johnston used his state of the state address to announce an effort to curb a plague of rumors crippling Oklahoma’s governmental agencies.Every rumor should be investigated, Johnston said. But care should be taken to ensure that charges were investigated fairly.Rumors may have been Johnston’s undoing. Within weeks of his address, he was served with 11 articles of impeachment. He was convicted of only one — general incompetence — but it was enough to remove him from office.The sole impression left by Johnston’s tenure may be the passage, later the same year, of Oklahoma’s false rumors statute, a measure that appeared designed to ensure that rumors were not spread wantonly.Individuals who violated the criminal statute were guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine of up to $500 and 120 days in county jail.The law was enforced sporadically over the next decade.In 1930, a court clerk was charged for saying a political opponent had been arrested for immoral conduct; in 1931, a Briartown man was arrested for saying a local deputy lost an arm in a poker game shooting; a 1939 case in which a woman named White was accused of slandering a girl named Monks — details were withheld — was thought to be the first such case in LeFlore County in 20 years, suggesting that some version of criminal libel predated the 1929 law.Defamation laws trace back to England. After the American Revolution, criminal prosecutions for libel continued both locally and nationally, according to a comprehensive history compiled by Eric P. Robinson, published in 2023 by the Free Speech Center of Middle Tennessee State University.In 1798, federal sedition laws targeted those who defamed the country; when the laws expired a few years later, federal prosecution of criminal libel came to an end.State prosecutions continued on the argument that the First Amendment applied only to the actions of government and government actors.In time, states began to pass laws to protect true statements — you cannot be prosecuted for stating a fact — but the Supreme Court upheld criminal libel in decisions stretching from the 1930s to the 1950s.The worm turned in the 1960s. Following another Supreme Court case, New York Times v. Sullivan, libel and defamation have been prosecuted as civil offenses.Criminal libel laws were repealed or struck down in 38 states.Oklahoma was not one of them.Knowingly Share v. Knowingly FalseIn 1980, a Comanche County man named Pegg put a bumper sticker on his Trans Am that claimed a former co-worker was a prostitute. He had once paid for the co-worker’s services, he said.Pegg was charged and convicted under the false rumors statute. Pegg v. State is the last instance anyone can remember of the law having been fully prosecuted — and appealed.Pegg lost at the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, but Oklahoma City attorney Aaron Easton, who represents Davis, said the opinion in the case may be pivotal for the charges his client faces in Lawton, also Comanche County.Oklahoma law had it upside-down, Easton said. The standard for libel as a criminal offense was lower than the standard for a civil offense.“The elements of a criminal slander are far easier to meet than a civil suit — far easier,” Easton said. “Part of being liable on the civil side of things is that you share knowingly false information. The criminal statute is knowingly share false information.”In other words, you know a thing is false, or you know that you’ve shared it.That’s the rub. In ruling against Pegg, the OCCA added a tweak: even the criminal statute should be interpreted to mean not just knowingly share, but knowingly false.Easton admitted that this sort of legal hair-splitting could be difficult for a jury to parse. Nevertheless, he reiterated his confidence in the ultimate outcome of Davis’ case.“If we lose, we will 100% appeal it,” Easton said.A Lawton SquabbleIt would take a scholar to fully unravel the nasty battle that has been waged in Lawton since 2023.Suffice it to say, a number of local business leaders and politicians found themselves squaring off against activists like Davis, who were of lesser means but highly motivated.Davis was not originally from Lawton, and her interest in politics predated her arrival. In 2008, she ran for mayor of a small Texas town.“My life has been a series of battles,” Davis said, describing the struggles that followed her military service. “As a disabled veteran, I’ve fought against ulcerative colitis, chronic pain, anemia, and the invisible wounds of mental health challenges.”In 2017, Lawton looked like a fresh start. Davis enrolled at Cameron University, and though it wasn’t easy, she completed a degree in political science.Schoolwork required her to attend city meetings.“One meeting, in particular, ignited a fire in me,” she said.The CEO of a local organization requested $1 million from the city, Davis said. The problem was, the CEO’s spouse was the city manager. It smacked of a conflict of interest.Davis began posting about it online, and the exchanges that followed were never polite.The conflict put Davis into the orbit of Eleanor McDaniel, another activist from nearby Cache who was waging similar fights from different angles.Both Davis and McDaniel wound up tussling with Amber Woommavovah, wife of Mark Woommavovah, the then-chairman of the Comanche Nation.Davis and McDaniel didn’t like it that Woommavovah had referred to herself as the First Lady of the Comanche Nation.Woommavovah said that the online attacks she received had resulted in death threats and having dog feces spread over her car.“At what point does freedom of speech interfere with somebody’s safety?” she said.It’s a fair question. Crude speech is protected — as with strikers on a picket line or protestors outside an abortion clinic — but incitement to violence has never been protected speech.Jail is WrongThere is no evidence that either Davis or McDaniel called for violence, and for her part, Davis said that she too had been followed and intimidated. Police cars had been stationed outside her home, she said.Matina Davis (Courtesy Photo)Never previously arrested, Davis wound up subject to several actions. There was a trial over an unrelated incident. Nevertheless, Davis ran for mayor of Lawton in 2024. She received 120 votes.Woommavovah recalled the moment she’d had enough. She asked a friend, a Judge Advocate General attorney, for advice.The JAG lawyer suggested Oklahoma’s false rumors statute.Woommavovah admitted that she reached out to Lawton city prosecutor Alan Rosenbaum but denied having suggested using the obscure law. “I’ve never met Mr. Rosenbaum—I have never met that man,” she said. Rosenbaum had his own beefs with Davis. She had publicly called him corrupt; she said that he had committed prosecutorial misconduct, and she said he was Lawton City Manager John Ratliff’s partner in crime.All subjective assessments, Easton said of his client. Not statements of fact.Davis recalled the moment she realized Rosenbaum was coming after her. She searched for his name on the internet, and Google told her — wrongly — that he had once been indicted by a grand jury.That was the crux of it. She didn’t know it was false when she cut and pasted the text, she said.Rosenbaum failed to respond to several requests for comment.Woommavovah sought and was granted protection orders against McDaniel and Davis. McDaniel was found to be in contempt of her order when she posted online the date of a hearing on the matter. She was arrested, jailed briefly, and fined.Neither protection order resulted in criminal charges, and Woommavovah withdrew the order against Davis.Alan Rosenbaum (Courtesy Photo)But Davis spent a few hours in jail too, after she was arrested for spreading the false rumor about Rosenbaum, who set about prosecuting a crime of which he was also the victim.Despite the messy history, not even Woommavovah believes that Davis should be sentenced to a jail term for a speech act.“I don’t agree with it,” Woommavovah said. “I think jail is wrong.”A Curious CoincidenceSince January, Mike Reynolds has been at the center of an equally tangled drama in Norman.Before taking a position as a security supervisor with Oklahoma City Public Schools, Reynolds worked in law enforcement for 21 years in Cleveland County, the same jurisdiction that would serve him with a search warrant and arrest him.In April 2024, Reynolds created a Facebook page called Conservative Cornerstone to support candidates in local elections. Later in the year, he changed the name to Wilder News.He wound up with something of a following, and despite an intent to shift his focus to national elections, he found himself on the receiving end of a flood of local tips.“I felt like a small voice shouting in a crowded room, but the impact was real,” Reynolds said.Frustrated voters who felt unheard or feared repercussions had a lot to say about what was happening in Cleveland County. Either directly or indirectly, the tips almost always took aim at the tenure of Sheriff Chris Amason, who has been widely characterized as embattled and beleaguered.Wilder News posted documents and stories that described mishandled money, prisoner deaths, incomplete investigations, and details about the recent case of a Cleveland County sheriff’s deputy who murdered his wife, also a deputy.In January, a trusted source passed along documents acquired through an open records request, Reynolds said.Several weeks before, on Christmas morning, another sheriff’s deputy, Billie Dyson, had left the scene of two accidents; her patrol car hit a parked vehicle, then destroyed a neighbor’s brick mailbox.Reynolds knew Dyson. They had worked together for a time at OKCPS before she left for a nursing career.Reynolds heard nothing more of Dyson until he learned that she had turned a quiet holiday into a private demolition derby, as he described it on a January 13 post on Wilder News.The following morning, according to police documents, Dyson called Chief Deputy John Szymanski, in tears. The post had revealed her home address and phone number. In a signed statement, she said that she feared for her life.Police began to investigate. Wilder News was anonymous, but it didn’t take long to figure out that Reynolds was behind it. There was no warning for what came next. Reynolds was at work when three OKCPD officers walked into his office. He thought they were there for a meeting, but they arrested him. They were professional about it but treated him like a violent criminal, Reynolds said.He would be charged with two crimes — one was violating the Oklahoma Computer Crimes Act, which made it a crime to publish identifying information about public officials. The original affidavit, however, stressed that at a minimum, Reynolds could be charged with violating Oklahoma statute 21-821.The false rumors law.“Never in my life would I believe this level of enforcement towards free speech would happen in America,” Reynolds said.A Doxx for a DoxxMarilyn Williams, clerk of court of Cleveland County, knew there was something wrong the moment Szymanski and another officer walked in to file papers for the warrant for Reynolds’ arrest.The clerk who normally filed criminal cases was on break, so Williams handled it herself.It was a probable cause affidavit; Cleveland County Special Judge Cory Ortega had signed it, but no one from the district attorney’s office appeared to have been involved.“Did I know something was incorrect? Yes, I did.”Marilyn WilliamsThat wasn’t unheard of, but it sure looked like they were skipping a step. “When he filed it, what I thought was, he’s not doing it correctly,” Williams said of Szymanski. “The court clerk’s job is ministerial, so however it’s presented is how we file it. Did I know something was incorrect? Yes, I did. As soon as he walked out the door, I called our civil ADA and said we have a freedom of speech issue.”There was something else, too. The name on the documents bugged her: Mike Reynolds. There were lots of Mike Reynoldses floating around, but after a moment, she realized she knew this one, from his time in Cleveland County. Williams and Reynolds were friendly acquaintances.Perhaps that’s why she noticed something else.They wanted to prosecute Reynolds for doxxing, for revealing personal information about Dyson, whose employment was terminated because of the accidents described in Reynolds’ post. But now Reynolds’ own personal information had been made public.Marilyn Williams(JC Hallman/Oklahoma Watch)In the documents they filed, Reynolds’ birthday, social security number, and home address had not been redacted.Szymanski refused to comment on an ongoing investigation, apart from saying that in his career he had frequently sought warrants without involving the DA.On February 12, the office of the district attorney in Norman recused itself from Reynolds’ case. A spokesman for the DA’s office refused to specify whether their refusal to bring charges was due to Wilder News’ criticism of their office or the fact that the sheriff’s department had sought a warrant without them.The matter was referred to Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who on March 26 dismissed the case.“The court has been informed that the OK Attorney General has reviewed this matter and declined to file charges,” read the summary order from Judge Ortega’s office.The Future of SpeechIn a story of two prosecutions, two things remain uncertain.First, it is not clear that those invoking the outmoded false rumors law truly hope to win their cases. Procedural peculiarities suggest another motive: to chill free speech.“Plenty of people want to speak up but fear similar retaliation,” Reynolds said. “The fact that they’re going to such lengths to silence me for publishing public information makes it clear — I’m getting too close to something they don’t want out.”Oklahoma Free Speech Committee chair Lester has been retained by the Cleveland County commissioners in connection to the sheriff’s department. Nevertheless, Lester offered a stern warning against allowing liberties to slip and agreed that it is sometimes the duty of citizens to fight back.“Sometimes, that’s what you have to do,” Lester said. “Sometimes government actors do what they’re not supposed to do. They’re human beings, too. Sometimes they do it mistakenly, and sometimes they do it on purpose.”Second, it remains unclear whether two prosecutions of the same defunct law within a year indicate a trend triggered by the national dialogue.Lester didn’t cotton with that suggestion but said authorities needed to toughen up.“They should get a thicker skin,” he said. “People have a right to say mean things about government officials. They don’t have the right to defame them, although it’s going to be a lot harder to prove a defamation case if you are a public figure.”Easton saw it differently but refused to speculate as to whether the influence was conscious or unconscious.“It is my opinion that there has been some tacit approval coming down from President Trump’s office that this is an OK use of your position,” Easton said. “I think it’s giving tacit approval for people in those positions to say, yeah, I am important, I have this position for a reason, let me use this, I am a victim here.”Davis’ case remains outstanding; her trial is scheduled for May.The charges against Reynolds were dropped on March 26, but his battle may not be over.Reynold’s lawyer, Tracy Schumacher, intends to pursue compensation for the damages Reynolds received to his livelihood and reputation, for the indignity of being sent to two different jails, and for the invasion of his privacy and the stress the episode produced.Schumacher said that it was important for Reynolds to continue his fight against Amaso and Szymanski.“The damages my client suffered are unreasonable because any citizen that exercises their right to free speech and brings to light misconduct of government, and then is allowed to be plucked out of their job and thrown in a county jail, and their private data gone through on their cell phone — that should equal something,” Schumacher said. “And the sheriff and his deputy need to pay for that.”Two clumsy prosecutions, one now poised to cost taxpayers money, may indicate a need for change. Lester agreed that there was a viable alternative close at hand. The role of the Oklahoma Free Speech Committee could be expanded to grapple with speech issues across the state, including the old law now at issue in Norman and Lawton.“I don’t think there’d be anything bad about that at all,” Lester said. JC Hallman is a Tulsa-based contributor to Oklahoma Watch. Contact him at jchallman@gmail.com.The post Free Speech in Crisis appeared first on Oklahoma Watch. ...read more read less