Jenny O’Connell-Nowain stands outside Shasta County Superior Court on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, after a jury found her guilty of disrupting a Board of Supervisors meeting last year. The jury deadlocked on a second count and it was dismissed. Photo by Mike Chapman/A News Cafe.
A Redding woman who protested during a Shasta County Board of Supervisors session last year was found guilty Thursday of disrupting a public meeting.
A jury of seven men and five women announced the guilty verdict on the fifth day of Jenny O’Connell-Nowain’s trial in Shasta County Superior Court. Jurors deadlocked on a second charge of delaying a peace officer.
Jenny O’Connell-Nowain engages in an act of peaceful civil disobedience during a November, 2024 Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting. Photo by Doni Chamberlain for A News Cafe.
A sheriff’s deputy arrested O’Connell-Nowain on Nov. 7, 2024, after she walked to the front of the supervisors chambers. She peacefully sat there while holding a sign but refused the deputy’s orders to leave.
The protest led to a board recess and nearly an hourlong delay during the night meeting while the board chambers were cleared and O’Connell-Nowain eventually was taken into custody.
The audience was told to wait in the glassed-in foyer while members of the press were unlawfully forced out.
O’Connell-Nowain faced a second charge, also a misdemeanor, of delaying a sheriff’s deputy, but the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision. As a result of the deadlock, Superior Court Judge Thomas Bender declared a mistrial on the second count.
The jury reported its vote on the second charge was 11-1, without specifying a guilty/not guilty breakdown.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Sarah Murphy, who appeared Thursday in place of her counterpart Emily Mees, said the DA’s office wouldn’t seek a retrial on the second count and the court dismissed it.
Bender set sentencing on the first count for 9 a.m. on Jan. 14.
Protester not backing down
After court, O’Connell-Nowain, 41, was unapologetic and said the conviction won’t deter her from protesting in the future.
“I will probably end up back here and I’ll probably continue to receive more charges. But you know, John Lewis had what, 14 on his record before he died,” she said.
Lewis, a civil rights activist and former congressman who died in 2020, was famously known for protesting racial segregation in the 1960s and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.
O’Connell-Nowain said she’ll continue fighting for the First Amendment “and for us to be allowed to voice our opinion without being arrested until it’s no longer considered illegal.”
“Isn’t that what our Constitution is about? (It’s) about not being afraid to voice your opinion to the government,” she added.
Redding attorney Michael Borges, who represented O’Connell-Nowain pro-bono, championed her First Amendment right of free speech.
Borges said O’Connell-Nowain had a right “to have her voice heard.”
In the trial, Borges cited the First Amendment right to address the government, saying O’Connell-Nowain had an “individual right to free expression.”
“I still believe this is a content-based restriction of speech. That’s still my belief,” Borges said after the verdict.
O’Connell-Nowain started her protest when former supervisor Patrick Jones questioned an outside grant that was accepted by the Elections Office.
“I’m not going to listen to this anymore,” O’Connell-Nowain responded as she went from the audience to the front.
One of the videos played during the trial recorded then-Board Chairman Kevin Crye stating “people didn’t get enough attention as kids, so we’re going to recess for five minutes” as O’Connell-Nowain and her husband, Benjamin, sat in front of the dais.
Benjamin Nowain and Jenny O’Connell-Nowain sit quietly in an act of peaceful protest during a November, 2024, Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting. Photo by Doni Chamberlain for A News Cafe.
Soon after, Benjamin got up and left.
Borges called out Crye’s remark as “shameful.”
“It seems pretty clear (from) Mr. Crye’s own words that he thinks little of Miss Jennifer O’Connell-Nowain, which I think is shameful, as you heard me say during closing (arguments). It’s absolutely about content,” Borges said.
Witnesses give testimony
Jury selection took place last Wednesday, Dec. 10, followed by testimony Thursday and Tuesday. The case went to the jury late Tuesday afternoon and jurors spent all day Wednesday and part of Thursday morning deliberating.
Only two witnesses were called to the stand: Shasta County Counsel Joseph Larmour, who was present during the protest, and sheriff’s detective Charles Edwards, who arrested O’Connell-Nowain when he was on the patrol staff.
O’Connell-Nowain said she considered testifying from the stand but scrapped the idea.
“The reason why I didn’t (testify) is because the DA played my speech from when I was sitting and I was like, there’s nothing more to say,” she said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Mees described O’Connell-Nowain’s protest as premeditated on her part.
The prosecutor cited the Board of Supervisors’ rules of order that says audience members “shall” remain sitting in the seats provided or stand against a back wall during meetings.
In her closing statement, she argued that O’Connell-Nowain intentionally violated the rules, adding that a sign that O’Connell-Nowain held while standing up prior to her sit-down protest restricted the view of people sitting behind her.
One sign that O’Connell-Nowain displayed read: “Patrick Jones resign.”
Another sign she brought to the meeting said “Joanna is the true Patriot” in reference to Joanna Francescut, the former assistant registrar of voters whom a majority of the board rejected as a successor to former clerk and ROV Cathy Darling-Allen.
Once the protest started and Crye made his disparaging remark, Larmour testified that the board “lost control of the room.”
“There’s no way the board meeting could’ve continued,” Mees told the jury.
Borges argued some audience members caused the disruption by their reaction to what was going on.
He also brought up the fact that O’Connell-Nowain literally did what she was told. She sat on the carpeted floor – but not a seat – after both Crye and Jones told her to sit down.
In the sequence of events, Larmour told Crye to give O’Connell-Nowain a warning before Crye officially called for a recess.
Uneven enforcement of rules
Another point that Borges made during the trial was Chairman Crye’s uneven enforcement of the rules such as when audience members speak out of turn without punishment.
Borges described to the jury a similar board protest that happened two months later. An audience member named Dawn Ashmun walked to the front of the chambers and sat on the carpet during the board meeting on Jan. 7, 2025, but wasn’t arrested.
Dawn Ashmun meditates as Supervisors Corkey Harmon, Kevin Cyre and Chris Kelstrom look on.
Ashmun stayed on the floor with her eyes closed but didn’t have a sign. She later got to her feet when Crye asked her to move so a group photo could be taken.
Ashmun said she was objecting to Crye’s selection as chairman, which she believed had been predetermined ahead of the board meeting.
On that occasion, Larmour described Ashmun as “not making the meeting impossible” and the board meeting was allowed to continue.
“She (Ashmun) sat almost as if she was meditating,” Larmour said from the stand. “It was almost as if she wasn’t there,” he added.
The board allowing Ashmun to stay when O’Connell-Nowain was arrested amounted to an uneven enforcement of the rules, Borges said.
Testimony showed O’Connell-Nowain at one point sitting with her hands in the air and wrists together. Detective Edwards testified that O’Connell-Nowain had told him to “arrest me.”
Edwards said he asked O’Connell-Nowain at least three times to follow his orders.
“I was just trying to get her to stand up and exit,” he said.
Mees said O’Connell-Nowain willfully delayed the deputy’s duties by refusing to stand and leave the room.
Edwards said he helped her to her feet, took her away with other deputies and booked her into jail.
Shasta County Sheriff’s Office deputies surround Jenny O’Connell-Nowain in the dark and arrest her for exercising an act of civil disobedience by sitting on the board of supervisors chambers floor during a Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting in November of 2024. Photo by Doni Chamberlain for A News Cafe.
Civil disobedience
After court, O’Connell-Nowain summed up her feelings about peacefully protesting.
“If you know how civil disobedience works, you keep pushing it until you get the answer. And even a negative response is a response,” she said.
“So this (guilty verdict) was a negative response. It doesn’t mean that anything changes. It means you keep pushing forward until you get the response you want.”
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