CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., June 13, 2019 — Jon Luman has a hearing or trial today in the court of sessions Judge Lila Statom, a jurist who has at heart more the best interests of commercial government than the individual men and women in Hamilton County — or so it has appeared thus far.
By David Tulis / 92.7 NoogaRadio
In awaiting his hearing from a May 30 arrest, Mr. Luman is disseized of his black and green Chevrolet work truck and his tools and has been told by deputy sheriff Sgt. Carson that he cannot receive his property back unless he eliminates its status as consumer goods and private property and converts it into a motor vehicle by registering it that way with county clerk Bill Knowles.
Because the car has been used privately by this private citizen, Sheriff Jim Hammond wants it to be used commercially. That is to say, Mr. Hammond wants the car to be used ONLY in commerce, thereby making it subject to a proper use of Tenn. Code Ann. Title 55, the shipping and transportation statute.
The car’s use as private property means Sheriff Hammond’s attack against Mr. Luman is an improper use of the law, a continuing and courageous project of the holder of that highest office in the county.
Sheriff Hammond, like his delegate and agent David Roddy, chief of police of City of Chattanooga, uses Title 55 promiscuously, imposing the shipping rules upon everybody on the road, whether businessmen, lawyers, doctors, soccer moms, teachers, salesmen, musicians, architects or accountants.
The hearing today is another attempt by state actors in commercial government to pretend that there is nothing remarkable their bold pretense. They pretend there is no private use of the people’s roads, the people’s right of way, the people’s freeways, even. Such use they outlaw by the trade and business of law enforcement, of which ordinary people in Chattanooga have grown weary.
Operators vs. users
Every user of the road is an operator of a motor vehicle, and that every user of the road whether in car or truck is acting in such a way making him liable for performance in a taxable privilege.
The taxable privilege is this: Use of a car or truck as a motor vehicle, in commerce, as a commercial motor vehicle and carrier (either public or private carrier), subject to police power in the public interest.
The courage of public servants is nothing short of impressive. Both city and county have been subject to transportation administrative notice since the early part of 2018. Since Feb. 20 for Chattanooga, since March 1 for the county (via Sheriff Hammond).
In numerous discussions with the affable and sardonic Mr. Luman, I have emphasized the need to pick apart Sgt. Carson’s rebuttable presumption that he, Mr. Luman, on the day in question was not a mere traveler, but a driver and operator.
What makes this prosecution especially egregious is that sheriff Hammond has been under my transportation administrative notice for 469 days, having been given personal service of this public document prepared by me, a legal researcher and broadcast journalist at the CBS Radio News affiliate, and put into his hand as a notice about the limits of administrative jurisdiction.
Hammond big claims for administrative law
The mistake sheriff Hammond is making is on the nature of Title 55, which is administrative law. Such law is applicable to those subject to state regulation by application and permission. Said law at Title 55 is not applicable to private users and people exercising their rights.
No administrative law can trump a constitutional right nor the exercise of a constitutional right. No necessity of any state agency can in any way obliterate or nullify the right to exercise ANY God-given constitutional right. It’s that simple in American law, though everyone in the Chattanooga area is scurrying to pretend that in fact we have lost the right of travel, or the right of free communication (movement is ourselves, our papers and effect is a form of communication, just think about it).
Mr. Luman is a laconic and well spoken carpenter in his 60s, residing in or Red Bank with his wife, Jean, and under severe oppression. Mrs. Luman is not too happy to what is happening to her husband.
He has insisted almost all of his adult life that he is not subject to the state except when and/or if he commits any criminal act which would make him subject to the police and the state. Though he is not at practicing Christian, this is the biblical position about how to understand Romans 13 and the proper place of the civil magistrate.
No man is subject to the judge unless he has committed a crime. In a common law society, in a biblical society, the police have no authority to touch anyone except those who commit a crime. There is no civil government in biblical law unless there is a crime; society and the people are free to develop their families, works, fields and trades at liberty, under God, subject to God’s law of equity.
Judge Statom has met with the arguments of the right of communications before. Most recently, she heard the analysis of this liberty by a deep-voiced welder and family man in Ringgold, Ga., Gregory Parker. In his hearing on May 6, Mr. Parker insisted on asking the right questions to a Chattanooga police officer, Andrew Doub.
In my discussions with Mr. Luman, I encourage him to make arguments in his hearing in three forms. The argument before his interrogation of the witness, the argument of the interrogation itself, and then at the end another argument saying what he has accomplished by showing that officer Carson doesn’t know what he is doing in destroying the officer as credible fact witness.
Officer Carson obtained no factual evidence that Mr. Luman was exercising a regulable state privilege, and that there is thus no subject matter jurisdiction on the part of judge Statom. If the officer cannot show\ facts that Mr. Luman is hauling goods or people for hire, there is no case, there is no injury, the peace and dignity of the state have not been violated, and there is no cause of action.
Crime? What crime?
These points are very clear in Mr. Luman’s mind, but as he is a man of great intelligence he wishes that he could make some discussion about his status as a free American and a member of the public in the state of Tennessee. I have urged him not to make a big deal about his constitutional guarantees and who he is and his legal standing. These points are beside the point, irrelevant.
His task is to rip apart the cop’s testimony. I recommend to Mr. Parker a close reading of the questions I and Levi Thurston develop in two essays on this website. These lines of inquiry help establish the claim of private use and that the defendant has actually cause no offense at all
Is state injured by free users of roads?
It is clear to me and to Mr. Luman: Judge Statom will get no factual basis to convict him or to send the case to the grand jury. With proper questioning, Mr. Luman will be able to show the state was in no way injured by his free use of the road.
That question of the state’s showing itself injured is an insightful one, and I hope Mr. Luman maintains enough control of his material to get these questions before the deputy. How, indeed, is Tennessee injured by his plate, “Private Traveler[;] Not For Hire”? Where is the harm to itself, to the deputy, to the people, to the corporation that is the state itself?
Judge Statom, I suggest, needs to get several things clear in her mind. Are there liberties and freedoms that are retained by the people? Can the people exercise the rights of religion, the rights of politics, of the rights of bearing arms, the rights of the press, the rights of abortion (so called), the rights of free association, the rights of self-improvement, the rights to pursue occupations of common right — can the people exercise these liberties if they cannot get from Point A to Point B at liberty?
Is it possible for the state to prohibit all movement of people’s by cars and trucks except as part of a privileged activity? How so, when in Tennessee jurisprudence privilege is ALWAYS connected with a calling, trade or occupation? Since when is getting into a sedan for a trip to Chester Frost park of necessity a privilege?
When did the General Assembly rule that the transportation statute must be broadened to people in the private sector? What is the scope of Title 55? Is the set of a 871 pages in my hard-copy edition in the Tennessee code annotated inclusive of everybody on the road? Or is it, more reasonably, only on commercial users, movers, shippers, logging trucks, dump truck operators, cement mixers, bus companies and the like?
How do private people not involved in business become subject to the state and the perfectly aligned federal transportation statue? If there are free people not subject to Title 49 in the U.S. code who do not have USDOT numbers painted on the doors of their cars, under what authority are these people carrying on in their cars and trucks?
Certainly Mr. Luman has liberties of movement apart and state permission. Does the state have hegemony and exclusive authority over the use of free ways and the people’s roads? Could it be? Mr. Luman — left only with the use of a bicycle, scooter, horse or a good pair of shoes (though not either of the two pairs of shoes in his truck, in a Hammond-approved wrecker service compound)?
The oppression of Mr. Luman should come to an end today in court. He will obtain satisfaction, and he demands an end to harassment. I suggest we ask almighty God to prosper and encourage this man.
His job today is to pick apart the testimony of the officer, to show no authority, and thus no subject matter jurisdiction by the court.
Here are the two essays I mention above. These essays let us launch police stop and police abuse reforms right here in our hometown. The shakeup statewide starts here, and with people like Mr. Luman.
