Mark Byron, Ordered To Post Facebook Apologies To Wife, Will Not Go To Jail

After writing disparaging comments about his estranged wife on Facebook on November 23, 2011, Mark Byron, 37, was given the option to go to jail for 60 days and pay a $500 fine, or to post an apology on Facebook every day for a month.

CINCINNATI -- A man who made comments about his estranged wife on his Facebook page and was threatened with jail unless he posted daily apologies for a month won't be locked up even though he stopped making amends early.

Mark Byron agreed to begin posting the apology last month to avoid jail but later said the ruling violated his freedom of speech. He stopped posting the apology after 26 days, but Judge Jon Sieve, of Hamilton County Domestic Relations Court, determined Monday that he had posted it long enough, and Byron wasn't jailed.

Byron, of Cincinnati, said afterward that he was relieved not to be in jail, "but I was prepared to go to defend my free speech rights."

Byron's attorney, Becky Ford, said Monday that she has filed a notice of appeal in a state court.

"We believe that by scripting and saying what he had to post on Facebook, the court violated his rights to free speech," Ford said. "The First Amendment not only protects your right to speak, but it also protects your ability to remain silent."

According to the ruling, Byron, 37, had posted comments on his page in November, saying in part, "If you are an evil, vindictive woman who wants to ruin your husband's life and take your son's father away from him completely – all you need to do is say you're scared of your husband or domestic partner and they'll take him away."

The Byrons have been involved in ongoing divorce and child custody proceedings. Byron has said his wife and the court have prevented him from seeing his young son many times. The court maintains he is allowed to see him on a twice-weekly basis.

A June court order prohibited Byron from causing his wife physical or mental abuse, harassment or annoyance. She asked in December that he be found in contempt after learning of the Facebook comments.

Domestic Relations Magistrate Paul Meyers in January found Byron in contempt of a protective order because of his Facebook comments. He said Byron could avoid a 60-day jail sentence and a $500 fine by posting the apology – written by the magistrate – to his wife and all of his Facebook friends and paying her attorney fees. The same apology had to be posted every day no later than 9 a.m.

The ruling said several of Byron's comments were intended to "generate a negative and venomous response toward her from his Facebook friends."

Byron said Monday that, even if he didn't go to jail, "this is a really big deal" for hundreds of millions of people using Facebook.

"They could do this to anybody," he said.

Free speech and media experts have said that the case should concern other users of the social networking site.

Cincinnati attorney Jack Greiner, who specializes in free speech and media issues, said earlier that compelling speech through a court-written apology raises as many free speech concerns as prohibiting speech. He said Monday that the issue still causes concern but that he believes Byron might have difficulty appealing since he posted the apology and didn't go to jail.

The statement Byron posted had him apologizing to his wife for "casting her in an unfavorable light" and to his Facebook friends for "attempting to mislead them."

He says that in addition to standing up for his rights, he stopped posting the apology "because it forced me to make false statements."

The estranged wife's attorney, Joel Moskowitz, said he was disappointed that Byron did not get any jail time.

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Comments

[Sensitive Man]

09:33 AM on 03/23/2012

It's ridiculous that he would think his child should have a father after a divorce. Men are so oppressive with this parenting thing, refusal to pay alimony, etc.

Why on earth should he have any time with his child after divorce?

[LittlePurpleUSA]

02:49 PM on 02/27/2013

You're a parody right? I mean, you can't be serious.

Good job, man. You had me fooled. Even with the name: "Sensitive Man" lol good one.

[xiolin]

12:00 AM on 03/23/2012

What people don't realize here is that Divorce and Child Custody are an entirely different beast. In this story, there was an Order to not harass or annoy or mental / physical abuse the ex wife. That is different from preventing free speech; rather, it protects a person (male and female) from such things as harassing emails, texts, calls, drive-bys, etc, which usually happens during custody disputes. HAPPENS ALL THE TIME! Moreover, if a child can read something online, such as a Facebook posting that states something negative about the child's other parent, then that can constitute Contempt, but only if there is an Order in place. There's a fine line, of course, and nothing is etched in stone. So for everyone who is appalled by this story and you believe All are at risk for Contempt by posting your opinions on Facebook, rest assured it's only for specific court cases, and there must be an Order first.

[BobS76]

04:44 AM on 12/14/2012

She was under no obligation or force to read his comments, nor was he posting them on her page. If she read them it was willful and elective on her part.

[SteenyQ]

10:18 PM on 03/22/2012

This case should have been thrown out of court by the judge. I'm disappointed that the judge wasted tax payers money to devote so much time and effort on it. I don't support cyber bullying, but come on now..obviously the ex is a little butt hurt over the marriage ending and she's trying to do everything she can to make his life miserable. It's too bad people can't remain at least civil to one another during and after a divorce for the sake of the children.

[Hadtoregister]

09:25 AM on 03/22/2012

Funny, the guy didn't even mention he ex's name or direct the comments towards her when he wrote them. The ex found out through friends who annoyed her with the information. Byron is a good guy, the sad part is that his sentence and the actions of the ex and friends shows just how anal, puerile and unsophisticated people are today.

Torture devices of the future will not be waterboarding but rather some person saying 'you look fat in those jeans.'

[star999]

08:01 AM on 03/22/2012

It's interesting to me that so many male respondents have left comments that were psychologically violent about their ex-wives. And yet studies have shown that the percentage of women abused by men vastly outweighs the women abusing men scenario. No one is saying that men with abusive ex's don't exist, not at all, I just think it is interesting that there are so many 'abused' males here saying emotionally violent things.

Slandering another person or making false statements in print has been a good way to get sued for many many years. Why should this be different? I think the point was that he was making statements that were factually false in an effort to 'mislead' others, as a way of being vindictive to his ex. That's not a free-speech issue.

[Morrisfactor]

04:27 PM on 03/22/2012

"And yet studies have shown that the percentage of women abused by men vastly outweighs the women abusing men scenario."

Incorrect. Over 300 studies show women/men abuse is about equal, with women slightly more likely to start a fight, a man more likely finish it with violence.

Claims that men are the only abusers are media chatter propagated by the DV groups eager to receive millions of dollars in government handouts, ie: VAWA.

Proving slander for personal beliefs about someone is nearly impossible, and if it were easy, then tens of millions of women in the US would also be guilty of slander, as they complain about their ex-husbands on a frequent basis.

[Grinling Gibbons]

06:17 AM on 03/23/2012

"Claims that men are the only abusers are media chatter "

Media chatter? Lol, that's a new one.

Statistics should never be used to distort the reality of the world as we know it. Men are far stronger than women, and far more violent. Yes some women are also violent. But the reality of the world as we all know it is that men commit most crimes, men commit most violence (of all kinds) and men are the ones who batter and kill in domestic situations. To pretend otherwise is to validate and enable the most violent men to feel that their behavior is justified.

I think, of all the experiences I've had discussing gender issues with men on HP, the thing that has most disillusioned me about men is the way MRAs use distorted domestic violence statistics to hide the reality of male violence. I understand that good men don't like being affiliated with a gender that has done so much damage in the world. But you don't get to rewrite history or biology just to salve your conscience.

Good men that I have known have always positioned themselves as heroes in the fight against abusive males. They embrace their wonderful physical strength to do good rather than evil. The distortions of MRAs can only be described as cowardly and despicable. It is the one thing that has given me a worse feeling about men than I had before coming here. It's truly reprehensible.

[Grinling Gibbons]

06:53 PM on 03/23/2012

"As usual, you only believe:

Men = Bad

Women = Good"

How ridiculous. Men aren't bad because some men batter and kill their families. Women aren't good because they're vulnerable to this kind of extreme abuse.

The only moral issue here is that some men, for ideological (and often emotionally disturbed) reasons, are trying to cover up a great evil by trivializing it with self serving false equivalences.

It's clear you had a bad marriage. In bad marriages, people are frequently very cruel to one another. However, we are grownups. We can't create "movements" to go inside marriages and tell people how to behave. What we can do is focus attention on male battering, put resource to work to give their terrified families security, and put laws in place to punish them properly. What we don't need are whiney MRAs trying to claim their wifes mean mouth is the equivalent of a man punching a woman in the mouth, or that a woman who slaps her husband in anger CAUSES him to beat her to death.

Seriously, Morris, I'm glad I've never met a man who would take the cowardly position MRAs constantly hide behind.

[Chris Sirhc]

09:19 PM on 03/22/2012

"And yet studies have shown that the percentage of women abused by men vastly outweighs the women abusing men scenario."

More recent statistics on IPV show considerably less gender bias.

From the federal National Institute of Justice:
"Approxima­­­tely 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States." That's less than 2:1.
http://www­­­.nij.gov­/­n­ij/top­ic­s/­crim­e/i­nti­ma­te-p­artn­­er-vi­olen­c­e/ex­ten­t.h­tm

From the federal Centers for Disease Control. " Each year, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes. Men are the victims of about 2.9 million intimate partner related physical assault." Again less than 2:1.
http://www­­­.cdc.gov­/­V­iolenc­eP­re­vent­ion­/pd­f/­IPV_­fact­­sheet­-a.p­d­f

[star999]

12:09 AM on 03/23/2012

The Centers for Disease Control, on their website, report that they have traced those statistics in several groups within the US. Some are more to 2 women abused for every one man. Some are as high as 3 women abused for every one man. I haven't seen any group statistic published by them that was less than 2 to 1. That shows, to me, a vast difference in the number of women being abused by men via the alternative.

The comment another poster made about DV groups simply wanting money is a nasty generalization, I feel, made by someone who obviously has had some experience or interaction with one or more DV agencies. And not in a good way. Personally, I think that DV agencies should be given more money to help the victims of abuse, be they women, men, or more especially: children.

The point that I made in my post was that the man in question published lies online about facts that were easily disproved. I'm not talking about his public complaints about his ex, although that goes to class(lack of) and character. I'm speaking of his lies about the lack of accessibility to his children, which were contrary to what was actually on the record. That is the type of public lying that gets you in legal trouble, as it did him. The judge had a homier solution that just warehousing him for contempt.

[supersinglefather]

11:45 PM on 03/21/2012

This guy was going to get jail time for posting on his facebook? I wish I had gone for one of these "emotional harassment" orders...my ex would have gotten life ...without possibility for parole, LOL.

[Chris Sirhc]

10:14 PM on 03/21/2012

Divorce researcher Robert Emery and legal scholar Elizabeth Scott call for raising the bar for evidence of IPV in divorce/custody cases. pp 53-54
http://lsr.nellco.org/columbia_pllt/9200/

Raising the standard applied to evidence supporting claims of family violence will assist courts in separating legitimate allegations from those that are marginal. This reform would retain the presumption disfavoring for custody a parent who has engaged in domestic violence, but would limit its application to cases in which a parent’s allegation is supported by substantial corroborating evidence. This evidence could include medical or police reports from recent or past incidents or the testimony of witnesses. But courts would be barred from applying this presumption solely on the basis of a parent’s uncorroborated allegation; nor would they permit clinical testimony that the claimant is credible. Neither judges or MHPs should not be asked to choose between the competing accounts of the parents: They are simply not qualified to perform this task. The requirement of corroborating evidence may exclude some legitimate claims of family violence, but the permissive evidentiary standard that prevails under current law encourages strategic behavior that ultimately may lead to judicial skepticism about family violence claims in general. Moreover, research suggests that these claims often are supported by corroborating evidence. Thus, the proposed evidentiary restrictions may not exclude many legitimate claims.

[JavaSavant]

08:37 PM on 03/21/2012

I think his "free speech" claim is BS.

1) He violated a court order prohibiting him "from causing his wife physical or mental abuse, harassment or annoyance".

2) He was given a choice of punishment. He could go to jail (for violating the court order), or he could post a daily apology.

He did not have to choose the option to post a daily apology. If he went to jail after stopping the postings, it would NOT have been for not posting an apology (I hate double negatives), but for violating the original court order. He OPTED for the postings, instead of going to jail. His free speech rights were never in jeopardy.

You could try to claim that it is just a matter of semantics. If he didn't post an apology, he would go to jail, therefore he would go to jail because he didn't post an apology.

However, context is everything, and this situation did not come out of the blue. He violated a court order. If they did not give him the choice of the apology, he would have just gone to jail. They gave him an option that avoided jail time, which they did NOT have to do.

[BrokenCrown]

10:15 PM on 03/21/2012

Your right.. No one should ever antagonize on anyone on facebook! They should be jailed for doing so! No one should ever speak out about their feelings! They have no right to do that! Find me a law that states people have a right to freedom of speech!! This is BS!

[Morrisfactor]

11:20 PM on 03/21/2012

Java-

Such a court order should never have been issued.

If restricting the opinion of one's ex spouse becomes against the law, do you have any idea how many women in this country would fall into #1 for trashing their ex-husbands?

1) She violated a court order prohibiting her "from causing her ex-husband physical or mental abuse, harassment or annoyance".

Millions and millions of women would find themselves in the same boat. I've heard them complaining about their ex's more times than I could ever count.

[BRONXTHRUEXP]

07:46 PM on 03/21/2012

Byron's posting on Facebook regarding evil,vindictive women is spot on & in a free & open society (last I checked),he can post any goddamn thing he wants on a social networking website.

[Jeff Bunting]

04:52 PM on 03/21/2012

Maybe someone could visit violence on this guys spouse so she can figure out what real violence is vs what it isn't.

[Jeff Bunting]

04:51 PM on 03/21/2012

I would have done (something I wont write here) to my ex-wife and her attorney.

[mikiao]

03:26 PM on 03/21/2012

Has a forced apology ever made anyone feel better? Ever?

Best case scenario; you say something to hurt my feelings, I get mom to force you to apologize, and now I feel smug because you were embarressed. I don't feel better because you aplogized, I feel better because you were forced to do something. That's just sick.

[zevonia]

11:57 AM on 03/21/2012

"The estranged wife's attorney, Joel Moskowitz, said he was disappointed that Byron did not get any jail time."

That is a lawyer who is only thinking about how to pad his next bill and not about real justice. Divorce lawyers are the worst lawyers out there.

[walleymr]

11:55 AM on 03/21/2012

why not just outlaw str8 marriage?

[SirCoolBreeze]

11:03 AM on 03/21/2012

Awwww, the poor alleged wife beater got fed up with reality....tough...

[Ed Baker]

11:43 AM on 03/21/2012

Where does it say that?

[SirCoolBreeze]

01:06 PM on 03/21/2012

" A June court order prohibited Byron from causing his wife physical or mental abuse, harassment or annoyance. "

Right there, in English, in the article you apparently never read...D'oh

(smirks)

[AC Guts]

02:44 PM on 03/21/2012

That goes both ways. Awww, the poor vindictive overly sensitive ex-wifey got her feelings hurt on facebook......tough... ITS FACEBOOK GROW UP!

[SirCoolBreeze]

03:15 PM on 03/21/2012

he showed his uncontrollable rage already...D'oh!