A Coralville resident goes on trial this week, facing charges from a protest last fall.
University of Iowa Police charged Tara McGovern with a serious misdemeanor for blocking an Iowa City intersection and a simple misdemeanor for ignoring commands from police to exit the street. Six other people were arrested in connection to the protest last October. McGovern is the only one who didn't take a plea deal.
Under Iowa Code, the penalty following conviction for a serious misdemeanor “shall be a fine of at least” $430, but the fine cannot exceed $2,560. The court “may” order imprisonment not to exceed one year.
Jury selection is scheduled for Tuesday morning. Associate District Judge Jason Burns will hear the case.
The incident
The story revolves around an intersection outside the University of Iowa’s Iowa Memorial Union.
On Oct. 16, the UI’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom hosted a lecture by Chloe Cole. Cole is a California-based activist who lived for years as a transgender boy before transitioning to identify as a girl. Republican politicians including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have pointed to Cole’s story to advocate against the use of puberty blockers and other gender-affirming care particularly for minors. The medical establishment including the American Academy of Pediatrics has reaffirmed that gender-affirming care is in the best interest of children.
Many people showed up to the Union to hear Cole speak; many more showed up on the streets of Iowa City to protest the speaker.
Over a hundred people gathered along Madison Street, chanting and marching in protest. Over the course of the evening, protesters began crossing the intersection of Madison and Market streets in sufficient numbers to effectively block traffic. In social media and police body camera footage, police are seen asking protesters to not block the road. In the criminal complaint filed against McGovern, the UIPD's Ian Mallory wrote that traffic was disrupted for nearly 20 minutes during what he called "an unlawful assembly."
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While University of Iowa Police Department officers did physically attempt to move protesters out of the street, there were no arrests made that night.
The charges
A month later, the University of Iowa Police Department contacted seven participants, all of them transgender or non-binary.
“If you could give me a callback, please, I’d like to discuss some things with you. I have some paperwork I need to turn over to you,” Mallory said in a voicemail McGovern provided to IPR News.
Most of the seven received two charges: a simple misdemeanor for interfering with police and a serious misdemeanor for disorderly conduct related to obstructing the street. The latter used to be a simple misdemeanor, but in 2021, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a billinto law — the “Back the Blue” bill — in response to the 2020 George Floyd protests that had people in towns including Iowa City marching through the streets daily. The bill raised penalties for several charges associated with protests.
“The community is permitted to exercise their first amendment rights in outdoor areas of campus as long as it complies with reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, and as long as the conduct is lawful, and does not impede access to a facility or use of walkways, interfere with vehicle traffic, or disrupt the functioning of the institution,” UI Campus Safety Chief of Staff Hayley Bruce said in an email.
The trial
Seven people were charged by UIPD. But Tara McGovern is the only one to refuse the Johnson County Attorney’s plea deal, which would have reduced the charge down to a simple misdemeanor for ignoring orders from police.
Instead, a jury will decide this week whether the facts of the case support McGovern's innocence in either charge.
“I don’t believe that anybody at that protest did anything wrong,” McGovern said. “And I don’t want to plead guilty to something that isn’t wrong.” They argue the law’s penalties were increased to stifle protests like the one from October. “Too quickly these things get swept away and not examined. And then people with less power end up being hurt by these systems.”
Prosecutor Jacob Behnke, an assistant Johnson County Attorney, asked Judge Jason Burns to prevent McGovern's defense from arguing that the jury may disregard the laws of the state of Iowa. Sometimes called "jury nullification," this occurs when jurors believe the defendant is guilty but exercise the jury's power to acquit. Behnke also asked the defense not be able to reference the fact that all those who were charged were transgender or non-binary, arguing their identities are irrelevant to determining McGovern's innocence.
