A Rochester, Minnesota, jury spent nine hours this month deciding whether a woman who screamed a racial slur into a stranger’s phone camera had committed a crime. Shiloh Hendrix walked on the count tied to the boy she’d cursed at and was convicted on the count tied to the man who filmed her. She now owes a $1,000 fine and 200 hours of community service and carries a 90-day jail term that the judge stayed rather than imposed. Her lawyer says he’s appealing.

I read a verdict the way I read a term sheet: what’s enforceable, and what’s posturing until somebody with standing challenges it. This one won’t survive appellate scrutiny, and citizens should want it to lose. Not because Hendrix said anything worth defending, but because the theory that convicted her can convict anyone who says something a jury doesn’t like.