BY JOHN HOPKINS
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Sylvia Stayton, who was convicted of obstructing official business after feeding parking meters while an officer tried to write tickets, may emerge the winner in her battle with the city.

It took some digging, but her attorney has found an Ohio appeals court ruling that overturned another meter-feeder's conviction in the 1970s.

Cincinnati attorney David Scacchetti filed a motion Wednesday in Hamilton County Municipal Court for his client's acquittal. Mrs. Stayton faces 90 days in jail and a $750 fine when she is to be sentenced Feb. 21. A hearing before Judge John West on the acquittal motion also is scheduled that day.

Mr. Scacchetti is basing the motion on the case of Robert Cavalier, who was cited in the late 1970s by an Oxford officer who caught him placing pennies in expired meters.

Like Mrs. Stayton, Mr. Cavalier was convicted of obstructing official business.

But an appeals court disagreed with the notion that the meter-feeder hampered the officer's duty of ticketing cars.

The ruling stated: Mr. Cavalier's ''conduct very well may have annoyed (the) officer, and may even have been calculated to cause annoyance, (however) that conduct cannot be said to have obstructed the officer in the performance of his duty.''

The case was discovered after a retired attorney in Florida - upon hearing about Mrs. Stayton's case - remembered the Oxford case, Mr. Scacchetti said.

Mrs. Stayton, convicted earlier this month, was acquitted of disorderly conduct.

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