Since I am enroute to the courts building today (Aug. 21, 2020), I’m following up on my earlier correspondence with you [Coty Wamp, counsel, Hamilton County sheriff’s office] regarding your department’s courageous rejection of Tenn. Code Ann. 40-7-103, arrest by officer without warrant.
By David Tulis / NoogaRadio 92.7 FM
The threat by five of your officers to arrest me for standing quietly in a public building is clear indication that you are ignoring my administrative notice of April 15 pertaining to the black-letter law and the meaning of the words “public offense.”
Administrative notice makes clear that the listed offenses in the statute are exceptions to the general protection in the Constitution against warrantless arrest.
The statute carves away from the rights of the people these on-spot “emergency” powers explicitly given by number to the state to affect arrest without a warrant.
The sheriff’s department should be glad to have these exceptions as grants against the rights of the people, allowing his officers to arrest people on the spot without warrant. It is a convenience to your job, makes LEOs’ task easier, with fewer steps, less headache.
Violation of law by an individual or officer is a triable and indictable offense for which one can make appeal to the grand jury or upon which one might file a criminal complaint.
Are you putting your department in liability risk for causing oppression and torts against members of the public such as myself? Are you properly looking out for the persons of your officers, whom you put in harm’s way by directing them into activities which are contradicted by black-letter law and in the bright aura of the constitutional guarantees of the people of Hamilton County?
On July 31, two weeks ago, I made an appearance in the courts building and was threatened with arrest by 5 officers apart from any statute and apart from the enumerated list of misdemeanors allowing warrantless arrest.
I told the officers that they had to go and get a warrant to arrest me. They ignored this advice and said that they were going to arrest me on the spot. I retreated to avoid being a crime victim at their hand.
Their threat to commit an act in violation of statute is a tort, at the very least.
Under arrest law notice 128 days
As of April 15, the county has been under my administrative notice. I advise you to please study the rules on notice as developed by the courts. Notice puts the department on awares about the list of offenses for which an arrest can be made without a warrant. Acting in good faith requires you to account for the contents of the notice, and adjust any policy out of accord with the law.
Your department routinely arrests people outside the scope of this law in refusing to obey the clear protections of law.
Sheriff Hammond’s abuse of the traffic statute at Tenn. Code Ann. Title 55 is also a problem under administrative notice of March 1, 2018.
You arrest people in violation of the disabilities of Title 55, and violate 40-7-103 by arresting people for “driving on revoked” and “driving on suspended” when such are not public offenses. The department has accepted the analysis of Tennessee transportation administrative notice 904 days and running, having made no rebuttal or denial in any manner.
As my April 15 administrative notice makes clear, for instances where arrest is possible in a streetside encounter at the use of a car has as a prerequisite an automobile accident or crash. On top of that, another test: DUI or flight. Without these tests, arrest on the spot is in fact illegal and an oppression.
Your silence us to these two notices is consent to their analysis.
As regards my presence in the courts, I suggest you heed the rights of the people and dare not tread on them as you have done against me.
I have a one year statute of limitations for suing your department for the wrong. That means I have 351 days left in which to take action against these officers individually or against the corporation.
Not public offense, not breach of peace
I urge you to review this statute, Miss Wamp, and halt all abuses of the powers that the people have given to your department via the general assembly. Standing in a public building without a medical device is not a public offense and is not a threat of the breach of the peace.
You err in your letter to imply there is one test only, that of “in the officer’s presence.” Being in a public building without a medical device may be an offense against a rule, it may be an offense against a custom or standard or policy. But it is not an arrestable misdemeanor on the spot. To arrest someone for not having a chin diaper, the deputies would have had to go to magistrate Lorrie Miller or a cohort at the jail, swear out a warrant against a public figure they know by name, and had that warrant in hand to seize me.
To suggest that my standing there was “disorderly conduct” as per 39-17-305 also is a misfire. Which of that law’s five provisions would I have violated? “Violent or threatening behavior?” Refusal “to obey an official order to disperse issued to maintain public safety in dangerous proximity to a fire, hazard or other emergency?” Note the tests below. ‡
The only disorderly conduct would have been your department’s employees creating a breach of the peace.
Warrants. That’s the constitution, and that’s how the statute works. Your explanation voids the statute and deconstructs it to destroy the necessity of a list of exceptions, Miss Wamp. If that’s the way you want it to be, then you are knowingly and intentionally violating the people’s rights, and doing so with malice, wicked intent, bad faith and intent to harm.
Sheriff Hammond took an oath to uphold the rights of the people implied or enumerated in the constitution. They have a right to be in the courts building without having to have a license or permit or to meet any condition whatsoever.
They have a right to be free from warrantless arrest done in violation of 40-7-103. They have a right to be free of a law, which you are indicating would be misused in my case.
‡ 39-17-305. Disorderly conduct.
(a) A person commits an offense who, in a public place and with intent to cause public annoyance or alarm:
(1) Engages in fighting or in violent or threatening behavior;
(2) Refuses to obey an official order to disperse issued to maintain public safety in dangerous proximity to a fire, hazard or other emergency; or
(3) Creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act that serves no legitimate purpose.
(b) A person also violates this section who makes unreasonable noise that prevents others from carrying on lawful activities.
This is ridiculous. Instead of making a proper DEMAND of the Sheriff for his LAWFUL Authority/jurisdiction to arrest you without a warrant, under any circumstances, you are exchanging “he said—she said” with a bought-and-paid-for flak that has nothing to do with anything after blowing your opportunity to have the courthouse deputies commit the assault of false arrest against you.
Meaning that their intimidation works just fine in covering for the criminal activity of the Sheriff Department of HAMILTON COUNTY (a municipal corporation governing by fraud).