A Woman Challenges Seattle's New Morality Ordinance
Rose Tetler, convicted as a 'disorderly person,' pleads double jeopardy while her husband is charged with living with her.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Rose Tetler, who was found guilty of being a disorderly person and who secured an arrest of judgment on the ground of the insufficiency of the complaint, was given her second trial before Judge Glasgow yesterday. It was agreed between the prosecuting attorney and the defendant that the state should offer its testimony and that the woman should make her defense. Her attorney moved for an acquittal on the ground of his client having been once placed in jeopardy, contending that the statute which allows a defendant to be held for a new complaint refers to felonies and not to misdemeanors. Judge Glasgow took the matter under advisement and will render his decision at 10 o'clock this morning. The case of the husband, Solomon Zetler, will be tried tomorrow morning. He is charged with being a disorderly person in that he lives with the woman knowing her to be such and conniving therein. These cases are being tried under the new disorderly person ordinance.
“He is charged with being a disorderly person in that he lives with the woman knowing her to be such and conniving therein.”
The case illustrates how late-19th-century cities policed morality through broad 'disorderly person' ordinances, often targeting women suspected of prostitution. Rose Tetler's double-jeopardy argument and her husband's prosecution for cohabitation show the legal machinery built around vice enforcement. The tensions—over sex work, surveillance, and what counts as a crime—are still with us.
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