Utah Woman Charged With Lewdness For Being Topless in Her Own Home

Announcer: PYX 106 Quinn & Cantara.

Quinn: 1-800-LAW-1010, 1800law1010.com, Paul Harding from Martin, Harding & Mazzotti. Happy Thanksgiving, a little early, but we’re not going to talk to you probably.

Paul: No.

Cantara: Paul, what kind of pie guy are you? Pumpkin? Pecan? Apple?

Paul: Yeah. So, you know, coconut cream.

Cantara: What?

Paul: If I were to just pick one pie. It’s odd, and it’s hard to find at Thanksgiving dinner, but apple’s certainly number two.

Cantara: You must get the hairy eyeball from your family. Who orders coconut cream with Thanksgiving?

Quinn: I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of that. Good for you.

Paul: It’s hard to find, yeah.

Quinn: I like the unique pie from Paul Harding.

Cantara: You know the laws, is that even legal?

Quinn: Yeah, don’t you get the same amount of time in the lock up for key lime pie at Thanksgiving?

Cantara: All right. So Paul’s going to help us out with this story we’ve been following, and you guys may have seen over the weekend, but a Utah woman has been charged with lewdness in her own home after her stepchildren walked into her room and saw her bare breast. The way I think I read it was is her and her husband, like, working in the house or the garage. He took his shirt off. She did the same. The stepkid showed up, and she thought this would be a good time…

Paul: Teaching moment.

Cantara: As a feminist, this would be a good teaching moment, and I guess, their mother got mad, and that’s where the lawsuit stemmed from. Did I set that up right?

Quinn: Here’s the quote from her really quickly, just so we get it specific, explained that she considered herself a feminist and wanted to make a point that everybody should be fine with walking around their house, or elsewhere, with skin showing. To me, that doesn’t sound like any kind of big deal.

Cantara: But it’s in Utah.

Quinn: Yeah. Okay, there you go, Paul.

Paul: I think that sort of, kind of plays out. We’re in Utah, super conservative. We’ve got this statute on the books, and we have some unique statutes on the books here in New York that were maybe written 100 or 150 years ago, haven’t been cleaned up.

This may be one of them, but, of course, the connotation behind that is, really, it’s always, you know, what’s the motivation? You know, is it based on what we know, of this case, she just, you know, has this work environment. She’s got some kind of a spackle all over her. She takes her shirt off and the stepkids come in. Now what? We have step kids, as you pointed out. We have, right, ex-wife [inaudible 00:02:10], and that sort of is what I think is prompting this.

Cantara: If I’m arguing it…I’m arguing that it’s the ex-wife having a bone to pick, or a chip on her shoulder about the husband.

Paul: Certainly part of it. You know, the kids got back and said, “Oh, by the way…” you know, and they told the story. But, you know, when you look at this stuff, it’s always going to be a question of what’s the facts around this. You know, and if we have a situation where there is more of a pornographic kind of display going on, well, we may have a violation.

Here, in New York, you know, indecent exposure, or lewdness, you know, as long as you’re in your own home, and, you know, there is going to be different rules here. I mean, if you’re out in your lawn and you decide you’re just going to go buck-naked and run around, know you can be held liable even though you’re on your own land. If you’re in your window and you’re displaying yourself, you can be held liable, believe it or not, here, even in New York. But wandering around your garage with your shirt off as a female, you would not.

Quinn: Just one quick, right, just rewind quickly. So I can’t go into my window and display myself, or is it if I get seen in my window and I’m not necessarily purposely displaying myself?

Paul: It is intent. Sure. If you just happen to have your bedroom near the window and you do that, but if you’re kind of putting out a bit of an exhibition, and there’s a bit of a crowd, and you’re kind of playing up to the crowd [crosstalk 00:03:30].

Quinn: If it looks like the red light district.

Cantara: If you’re kind of playing up to the crowd. So Tilli Buchanan is her name, and her argument is is what Paul said. She’s in the privacy of her own home. Her husband was right next to her in the exact same manner, and he’s not being prosecuted. My only question for you, Paul, is would this be any different if these were her own kids?

Paul: Sure. I mean, her own kids seeing this, I don’t think we would…number one, wouldn’t have gotten reported. Two, such more of a natural feel to it. There’s a national movement, you know, called Free the Nipple movement. It really has gone, you know, Colorado and California to a bunch of different states.

And they’re the group who are gonna come in and support her and actually bring a claim against the authorities here in Utah, not only try to get the law changed, but try to get her some financial compensation for what she’s going through. So, this thing is not going to leave the news.

Cantara: She could go to jail. She could face fines, and I think, I assume it would be pretty terrible. She’d have to register as a sex offender for 10 years.

Quinn: Yeah, it doesn’t seem right.

Cantara: By the way, I follow Free the Nipple on Facebook.

Quinn: Oh, you do?

Cantara: I’m totally into them.

Quinn: Nice. That’s…what’s her name? Bruce Willis’s…Rumer Willis is behind that group, I think, right?

Cantara: She’s part of that group. All right. Well, we’re going to keep an eye on this, Paul, but I think it comes down to location, location, location. Right?

Paul: It sure does. It always does, yes.

Cantara: Utah, very conservative.

Quinn: Thanks, Paul. 1-800-LAW-1010, 1800law1010.com, Paul Harding from Martin, Harding & Mazzotti.

Cantara: Have a great Thanksgiving, Paul.

Paul: And you, too, guys.

Quinn: Enjoy that coconut cream pie.

Cantara: Yeah, what?

Announcer: Quinn & Cantara in the morning…