Jenny O’Connell-Nowain talks to reporters following her Shasta County Superior Court appearance on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. She told the judge she’d rather go to jail than accept conditions of probation..
A Redding woman prefers going to jail rather than accept a sentence that she feels would suppress her freedom of expression.
Jenny O’Connell-Nowain, a social activist and frequent local protester, faces a maximum sentence of six months in jail when she returns to court at 9 a.m. on Jan. 28 before Judge Thomas Bender.
A jury in Shasta County Superior Court last month convicted Jenny O’Connell-Nowain of disrupting a Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting in November 2024.
O’Connell-Nowain was arrested by a sheriff’s deputy after she walked to the front of the supervisors chambers during the board session. She sat peacefully and cross-legged while holding a sign and, during a meeting recess, refused the deputy’s orders to leave.
The District Attorney’s Office had recommended a punishment of one year of informal probation and 30 days of community service with conditions requiring her not to disrupt public meetings and specifically mind herself at future Board of Supervisors meetings.
“I don’t want to promise something that I don’t think I can follow,” O’Connell-Nowain told reporters following her court appearance.
“I feel my freedom of speech is important to me and should be important to everyone else in this county because it’s not just my freedom of speech,” she said.
“If you trample my freedom of speech, you trample everyone else’s. … Anytime it happens to one person, it can happen to anyone. So I feel like it’s more important to take the sentence and keep going,” she added.
Jenny O’Connell-Nowain smiles following a 2025 court hearing inside the Shasta County Superior Courthouse. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
O’Connell-Nowain told the judge she understood the consequences of not accepting the DA’s office recommendation but couldn’t go to jail right away because she needed more of her prescription medication for a seizure condition.
Bender ordered her to go to a health clinic Tuesday for refills that she could bring to jail.
O’Connell-Nowain said she considers serving a jail sentence as a sort of vacation where she wouldn’t have to endure supervisors’ meetings, which she frequently attends.
“It’s a vacation,” she said. “My goodness. Have you been in that boardroom? It’s insane. Like at least this way, there’s some peace and quiet.”
O’Connell-Nowain said she’s been told she could buy a sketchbook and pencil at the commissary in order to “record my thoughts and feelings.”
Her husband, Benjamin Nowain, said on Facebook that time in jail gives his wife a chance to take a firsthand look behind the bars.
“The bonus is now she will get to report from the inside to see just how well our jail system functions,” he said.
“Part of why I want to go there is I want to find out what’s happening for myself, find out how I’m treated, find out if there’s things that should be done better, things that aren’t being done,” O’Connell-Nowain said.
“I want to record it all. I want to write down everything that happens to me while I’m there,” she said.
Meanwhile, O’Connell-Nowain said she’s thinking about appealing her conviction based on what she believes may have been unfair trial procedures.
###
If you appreciate award-winning journalist Mike Chapman’s reporting and photography, please consider becoming a sustaining subscriber of A News Cafe. Thank you!
