After the Dalton city police officer, A. Selby, badge No. 3580, takes the oath, your line of questioning shows that he is an incompetent fact witness and cannot be relied on for the truth of the matter in the criminal case he filed against you of “license-suspended or revoked” in citation No. 498270 on March 21.
He doesn’t know what he is doing, and is a nincompoop as to the basic facts of his trade in law enforcement.
The following line of questions comes once you establish that the state has “rested its case.” That’s important, so State of Georgia and its agents cannot amend the charges later once the DA’s office gets wind of your line of questioning and your legal position.
Ask him for his name, rank and badge number. Here now are the questions I would ask him if it were me:
Officer takes stand
Officer, as witness and prosecutor, do you rest your case? [He has given already a cursory account of the Keelah Jackson arrest.]
Officer, is it your job to enforce the transportation law?
What is the transportation law that you cite in a traffic stop?
Did you cite that statute? [Yes. Georgia code 40-5-212.]
Look at your arrest document. Did you cite it? [In Keelah case, officer cited it on ticket.]
What generally speaking are the evidences of a person being involved in transportation? [I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter.]
What is a privilege?
Is driving a privilege? [Yes, of course.]
In Georgia law, what are the elements of a privilege? [Trade and occupation, but he won’t know this fact.]
On the date in question, did you determine of the accused what activity she was involved in that was an exercise of a state privilege?
At the time of the roadblock/stop, did you ask whether the accused was using the road for hire, for gain, for private profit?
What is the chief and first point in your job at a traffic stop? [The answer should be: Whether a car or truck user is involved in commercial activity and whether the car or truck is an instrumentality in commerce. The cop will say something to the effect of whether his personal safety is at risk, and how high the threat level is. This answer is irrelevant to the question of subject matter jurisdiction.]
Proofs of commercial activity
Did you ask the accused for copies of contracts?
Do you recognize the language referring to “any and all bills of lading, waybills, invoices or other evidences of the character of the lading being transported in such vehicle”? (Tenn. Code Ann. § 65-15-106)
Where in the law is this description found?
Did you use this law to demand these documents?
Did you ask the accused for bills of lading?
Did you ask to see waybills?
Did you ask for any manifests or passenger lists?
Did you ask to see invoices?
Passenger? Rider?
Did you ask the accused to see if she had passengers? [No passenger. She was alone in car.]
In a traffic stop, when more than one person is in the car, do you obtain evidence of the amount of money that person paid to be a passenger? [DA objects to question as irrelevant. But establish that commercial use involves freight and passengers]
Did you ask the accused to see and inspect the goods she had been engaged to hire subject to state regulation?
Did you determine if the accused was that day employed as a driver or operator of a motor vehicle carrying goods — or people — for hire?
Did you ask the accused to see the contract for her vehicle-for-hire activity?
Have you been trained to understand that all uses of the road, all travel, are transportation?
[If he understands question, he will say yes, that he has been informed that all travel is commercial and no one is outside the scope of state transportation law.]
Officer’s oath
Did you take an oath to uphold the Georgia and United States constitution?
Are you confident you can define or identify a constitutional right?
Do you respect the rights of the people you encounter as an officer? [Yes, of course.]
What do you do when you encounter a traveler in a car who is asserting a constitutional right to be there and to be there apart from any state privilege?
Is it possible, in your encounters with travelers, that a particular traveler is exercising a constitutional right? [He says he doubts it.]
In your understanding pursuant to your training, is a constitutional right something for which permission must be obtained before it can be exercised?
Is the exercise of a constitutional right a privilege? [Of course not, but he won’t know for sure]
Is the exercise of a constitutional right a right?
Do you see any difference between a privilege and a right?
Are all people on the road in the same legal classification, that of transportation?
Did you make an effort to determine whether Miss Jackson was exercising a constitutional right or exercising a privilege? [Not really — not sure]
On the day of you arrested Miss Jackson at your Dalton city police checkpoint, did you intend to stop her regardless of her rights and freedoms?
Did you make any comments to other officers expressing uncertainty about whether she was exercising constitutional rights? [What does arrest bodycam video show?]
Is it possible for someone to use the public road for personal, private purposes, to exercise constitutionally protected rights and for the exercise of personal necessities? [He is uncertain, not sure where you’re going with this — but he doubts it.]
Is it your job to protect that person exercising constitutional rights?
Is it your job to seize people and arrest them for the exercise — and in the exercise — of their constitutionally guaranteed rights?
Administrative notice evidence
Did Miss Jackson give you a copy of “administrative notice”? [Yes]
Did she indicate she is an inhabitant of the State of Tennessee exercising her rights of free movement? [Yes, something like that.]
Did you read the notice or take account of the material on the scope and limit of Tennessee’s transportation law directed at you in your official capacity? [He scanned it, but says he viewed it as irrelevant, meaningless, outside the scope of his job.]
If a person is subject to a transportation law of a foreign state, do you recognize that law and ensure a person is subject to that law by reviewing his driver license, proofs of insurance and vehicle registration? [Yes]
If a person is not subject to a transportation law of a foreign state, do you recognize that law and ensure that person is allowed to be let go quickly and easily, with your apologies for having waylayed that person in the exercise of her rights? [He will say he doesn’t understand the question.]
Restating the question: If a person driving a car under a Tennessee license has a valid license to operate the car as a motor vehicle — and that license is valid, as I say — do you routinely accept it as valid? [Yes. States agree mutually to accept driver licenses proffered from other states.]
If a person from Tennessee is traveling in Georgia under her constitutionally protected, God-given, inherent and unalienable rights, do you have authority to prevent, block, seize, arrest that person in the exercise of those rights when she travels to Georgia?
On what basis might you have that authority to seize someone exercising her lawful and harmless rights as an inhabitant of Tennessee?
MOTION TO DISMISS
Your honor, I move for dismissal of this case based on the incompetence of this witness in establishing subject matter jurisdiction. He doesn’t know the first thing
— about the basic elements of the charge.
— about the statute he allegedly is enforcing.
— the scope of his authority to properly enforce transportation law.
— and he acted against the rights of the accused carelessly, in bad faith — since he received administrative notice personally and as agent for City of Dalton, which has a duty to not convert the exercise of any right into a crime.
I move to dismiss.
Sue cop as oppessor, defend self in traffic court: Transportation Administrative Notice
