This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

I remember Bob Hawkins, my LDS priest quorum adviser from many years ago, telling a story about his days as a BYU Police officer. It was early Saturday morning and he had been called to the grassy grounds in front of the Provo LDS temple. There an elderly woman was sitting in her large car, wheels spinning in the mud but unable to leverage her car over the curbed entrance to the temple fields.

She had an open bottle of whiskey wrapped in a brown paper bag sitting on the seat next to her. After he asked for her identification, she fumbled through her purse and produced her temple recommend, then slurring out her words to inform him that her husband had passed away the previous day, and she needed very desperately to get to the temple.

She lived nearby and so Bob Hawkins, who would later become a remarkable Air Force officer, took her home and had her car safely impounded.

Like the elderly woman, Susan Hunt is struggling to get somewhere meaningful in the midst of profound grief. Her son, Darrien Hunt, was an African-American man shot and killed by police officers in 2014. She is disputing the enforcement of an alleged settlement with the city of Saratoga Springs. Several media portrayals suggest that, similar to the elderly woman, she is spinning her wheels in the mud by refusing the settlement. But Ms. Hunt sees it differently, and I am inclined to agree with her point of view.

I do not know enough to agree with her on whether the shooting of her son was justifiable. But I know enough to agree that the space and right to question the policies, procedures and methods of the police department may well be warranted. And I would hope that the forced attempts to bar her right to free speech on the subject (which the city of Saratoga Springs is attempting by enforcing a speech clause in the settlement) are scrutinized with standards proportionate to the importance of this critical right.

It is true that she appears to have agreed to a general, mutual "non-disparagement" speech clause in a proposed agreement over the phone with her own attorney which, unfortunately, some media reports have implied as being sufficient for legal recognition and for enforcement of all its subsequent specific and final terms. And there were communications about the acceptability of certain settlement amounts, as is always present in civil cases, but which are usually privileged by confidentiality. Just as these media reporters do not practice law, neither do I. I am simply a citizen concerned enough with the issues to read through the court briefs and examine the exhibits, which are publicly available.

But unlike the reporters, my examination leads to different observations: I do not see that Ms. Hunt had the opportunity to carefully read, hear or acknowledge all of the specific contents of the speech clause before assenting to it. It is not clear to me that she even knew of the specific restrictions in the clause or that they were even completely formulated when she spoke to her attorney.

And because the city of Saratoga Springs is seeking to sanction Ms. Hunt for the way she has mentioned the very existence of the speech clause — a specific term that does not seem to have been articulated to her when she spoke to her attorney — I wonder how she can be held to it. Would not the violation of a condition for which one could be sanctioned be important enough to require its articulation before any genuine agreement to it can be recognized?

I also know that the grief Ms. Hunt is experiencing can help her to focus her faculties and heighten her senses on issues that we may not take the time to consider, but which may well end up affecting us in very important ways eventually. Even as other aspects of her life might suffer, I do not agree that she must acquiesce into silence to move forward. I suspect that she knows her experience involves larger issues, reverberating nationally, yet pertinent locally, and that if her cause discourages injustice, her confrontation and struggle with it will have proved essential to healing. I feel great sorrow for Ms. Hunt, but even more importantly, I hope I get to hear what she has to say on this issue because her very struggle to say it is meaningful for all of us.

John Wight is a publications consultant in Utah Valley.