In a scrap with her next door neighbors that drove both sides to seek relief in court, Stacie Brown was ordered to stop bothering them with vulgar or inappropriate words or pictures on the back of her barn.

She thought she was still well within her First Amendment rights to display an upside-down pentagram, a five-pointed symbol familiar to Masons, magicians, Wiccans, Satanists and others.
The judge, however, was not amused, nor was he interested in debating the limits of Brown’s free speech and religious freedom rights. In a May 26 hearing on Brown’s injunction against harassment on her neighbors, Superior Court Judge Pro-Tem Craig A. Raymond told her, “this isn’t a free speech issue ... . What we have here is a continued and repeated series of harassing acts by you culminating in a violation of a specific order.”

Raymond sentenced Brown, 25, of Cactus Forest, to five days in jail for contempt of court. She was further ordered to pay $550 in incarceration costs no later than July 30.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona commented that the judge’s decision was probably correct:

“Without reviewing court transcripts, it’s difficult to assess whether Ms. Brown raised legitimate First Amendment concerns, especially considering the allegations involve disputes between neighbors. However, we’re a nation of many religions and political perspectives. I’m sure the judge took this into consideration before ruling on whether her constitutional rights were being threatened,” according to Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the ACLU in Phoenix.

But Brown has no doubt her constitutional rights were violated. “If it was a cross, this would’ve never come up,” she said this week.

A local person who holds the pentagram dear had the same opinion: “If she had painted [her barn] with a cross, that would not have been an issue,” said Beverly Taylor-Barton. (Actually, Brown did have crosses at one point; they were upside down, painted on the building.)

Neither would it have mattered if she had painted a peace sign, a Star of David or an Egyptian Unk, Taylor-Barton said.

“The judge assumed the pentacle was a negative — that’s an absolute wrong.”

Taylor-Barton is a Wiccan high priestess who wears a pentacle (the pentagram with a circle around it), has one hanging over her front door, has one carved into a tree in her front yard and has one hanging from her rearview mirror.

She said the five points stand for earth, air, fire, water and spirit. “We honor that; without those four elements and spirit, we could not survive.”

She and her friends embroider pentacles into baby blankets for their babies’ protection. “If you live with it, it’s a very positive symbol.”

According to the Skeptic’s Dictionary (www.skepdic.com), the pentagram is used as a magical or occult symbol by the Pythagoreans, Masons, Gnostics, Cabalists, magicians, Wiccans, Satanists, etc. In many symbolizations, the top point represents either the human head or a non-human spirit. To invert the figure is considered by some as a sign of relegating spirit to the bottom of the metaphysical heap, according to the Skeptic’s Dictionary.

Others take inversion to be Satanic and on par with alleged mockeries such as inverting the cross or saying the Mass backwards. Still others find nothing particularly diabolical about inversion and use the inverted pentagram without fear of accidentally invoking the forces of evil, according to the Skeptic’s Dictionary.

Brown, with the help of family members, friends and other volunteers, cares for approximately 25 dogs and sometimes other animals as well at her BFE Animal Rescue and Sanctuary on Orville Road. She is also an exotic dancer in the Valley.

In an interview with the Florence Reminder, Brown said she believes in a “higher power” and is not a Satanist, but does approve of some tenets of Satanism, such as “not everyone deserves to be loved.

“... I don’t love my neighbor right now — they’re [ticking] me off. They want to turn the desert into an HOA.”

At the May 26 hearing, she attempted to bolster her contention that the pentagram was indeed of personal religious significance to her.

“The pentagram was put up there for my religious purposes. We had intended on having seances out there,” she told the court, according to a court transcript. “We had already bought black robes to do so, but after they — after they put this flower stuff up, I was like, you know what, I’m done, let’s paint it over.”

Brown said the neighbors planted oleanders, which she believes will be poisonous to her dogs, on the property line.

Elsewhere in the proceedings, Brown seemed to admit the pentagram was intended to annoy the neighbors: “The only reason I put the pentagram up there ... is because I feel like the defendants are ... they’re like poking and prodding me, you know. It’s like a little kid with a stick....”

The neighbors with whom Brown feuds asked not to be quoted for this story, not wishing to exacerbate the situation.

Two other neighbors said they support Brown, but they also asked not be identified by name.

One said he came to the May 26 hearing to testify for Brown about a neighborhood access road the feuding neighbors had blocked, “but I was never even called. ... She (Brown) went in hoping to resolve the issue on the road, and it turned out to be all about the pentagram.”

Problems begin

Brown said she originally got along fine with the neighbors; they even adopted a dog from her shelter. Problems began when she confronted them about clearing their land, which she said increases dust in the neighborhood.

These tensions led Brown to allegedly call out to the wife on Jan. 4 to “Go back to New Jersey” along with calling her a vulgar name. Brown denied yelling this at the neighbor. She said she was yelling at her dogs to be quiet, but the neighbor “called the cops and said I was yelling at her.”

Nevertheless, Brown painted virtually the same profane message she’d been accused of yelling on the side of her barn.

The neighbors then obtained a protective order from Justice Court. The neighbors’ testimony reportedly included that people on Brown’s property had a gun trained on them. Brown said that’s ridiculous; at worst, there were two kids playing with wooden guns. At any rate, all her information about their charges is secondhand, she said.

“I’ve never had a chance to hear these people’s allegations in court.”

Brown was ordered to cover up the expletive on her barn — which she did with tapestries of vintage pinup model Bettie Page. These were ruled unacceptable on Feb. 16 in Justice Court. The order required that she cover the offending wording “with an alternate barrier/ cover that does not depict/ contain any offensive, harassing or otherwise inappropriate words/ images/ symbols.”

So at last she painted over the offending message — this time with an upside-down pentagram.

Court records show Brown also received an injunction against harassment in March, ordering the neighbors to have no contact with her, not to photograph anyone or anything on her property or pet any of her animals.

Brown said she eventually allowed some of her shelter volunteers to splatter paint over the pentagram as a way to celebrate the end of the school year. She said she was also tired of the tension with her neighbors and was ready for the pentagram to be gone.

But a couple of days later on May 26, Judge Pro-Tem Craig A. Raymond sentenced her to five days in jail, to begin immediately. She asked for 24 hours to arrange care for her dogs and a child who was with her, but was denied.

“He did not listen to me. ... He put me in jail for a pentagram that wasn’t even up. I was not allowed to present any evidence.”

When her neighbors presented photos of Brown’s pentagram, they were apparently in violation of Raymond’s own order in March not to photograph Brown’s property. “I don’t know if he even realized that,” Brown said.

The Florence Reminder called Raymond seeking comment, but it was Deputy Court Administrator Stephanie Jordan who returned the call. Asked if a religious symbol on private property was constitutionally-protected speech, Jordan replied, “You would think so,” but said there was more to the judge’s decision. I was more about Brown “being in continual violation of the order,” than just the pentagram itself, Jordan said.

Why was it necessary for Brown to be sent immediately to jail, when people sentenced for felonies are often allowed to report to jail the next day?

“I’ve known it to go both ways. I can’t tell you what’s typical,” Jordan said. “It depends on the judge, it depends on the circumstances. A lot of things come into play.”

As for Brown and other neighbors who had hoped to present evidence of the blocked road, “she needs to come in with her own civil suit against those things,” Jordan said.

Brown said she barely ate or slept at all during her five days in jail, but “it wasn’t a horrible experience, actually. ... It made me slow down and remember the things that are important. It was really good for my patience.” She said she’s proud it was for contempt of court and “not for being a criminal.”

It didn’t however slow her down enough to make her want to stay out of court. Brown said she’d like to see Raymond disciplined for ruling in violation of her rights, and the neighbors who are persecuting her spend five days in jail as well. “These people get increasingly weirder and they’re using the justice system to harass me.”

She said she won’t give up trying to win a ruling to reopen the access road. “We’re still going to battle over that road.” Neither is she through with pentagrams. She said she’ll paint one on top of her garage, visible only from the air.

“I feel like my constitutional rights have been violated. I need to stand up for myself.”