I am demanding immediate issuance of a writ of mandamus, to disintegrate Gov. Bill Lee’s lawless government by emergency starting March 12. The grounds?
He is in open and flagrant violation of Tennessee law at TCA 68-5-104. His state of emergency is based on presumption and rumor, not science nor law.
By David Tulis / NoogaRadio 92.7 FM
It has been extraordinarily damaging to African-Americans, the poor, aliens and strangers, orphans and widows, with city and county government complicity, and I am demanding an immediate end of it, and restoration of equity and law.
Will chancery judge Pam Fleenor act in favor of the people, or will she hold out, as she has for 30 days in rejection of law and equity, in partiality for the governor?
I am the relator in the lawsuit against Gov. Bill Lee and Hamilton County health administrator Becky Barnes filed Oct. 2, 2020, to demand compliance with Tenn. Code Ann. § 68-5-104 and other provisions of the health law.My encounter Friday at chancery starts outside the clerk and master’s office in Hamilton County, Tenn., with Alan Guice, my witness.
Robin Miller, clerk and master, comes up to us with Kelly Burnette, whom she identifies as a court officer. It is just shy of 10 a.m., the agreed time.
Clerk converts meeting into hearing
Mrs. Miller begins conversation touching the substance of the meeting. But insist I am here on the state of Tennessee’s business, and will not conduct a conversation with her in a public place.
She directs us into an empty courtroom in circuit.
Court officer Burnette says that no recording devices are allowed “because it is a courtroom.”
I say I would like to go to some other room to meet with clerk and master Robin Miller.
She says that I had wanted to go into a courtroom. I had not made any such request and consider that a false statement.
We enter a courtroom in circuit, which contains a gallery and two tables in front of the wooden barricade for plaintiff and defendant parties. On one of these tables I place my briefcase.
Ignoring the tables, clerk and master Miller enters the judge’s door and takes her place behind the judge’s dais in the judge’s chair. I stand at the podium. Mr. Guice is at my right. To my left, facing me, is Mrs. Burnette.
With raised voice, I tell the court that I called the meeting to deal with the administration of the case State of Tennessee ex rel David Jonathan Tulis vs. Gov. Bill Lee and Administrator Becky Barnes, No. 20-0685.
Mrs. Miller says she is pulling out the records, and that I can look at them if I want to.
I am told repeatedly to pull up my mask, which slips off as I speak. It is a scarf knotted in the back of my neck. “Your mask has to be up, it is required by the mayor,” Mrs. Burnette repeats. Several times during the hearing I object, saying I am feeling light-headed for lack of oxygen.
‘Administrative’ matters veritably judicial
I ask about the nature of the assembly: “Are you here administratively or judicially?”
Mrs. Miller says she is here administratively.
The women say twice that I had wanted a courtroom, so here we are, in a courtroom. I had made no such request, and feel surprise no conference room or office is used.
Clerk and master Miller has the case file in her hands, and is looking through it.
I ask, has there been a problem on service? Mrs. Miller says no.
Did the governor get the summons and lawsuit? I ask. I am given to understand that he has received it.
This is not a proceeding, and is not to be recorded, Mrs. Miller says. It is a meeting, she says.
My perception of the encounter is this: It is a hearing, not a meeting, and I proceed by way of exhortation and demand as if it were a hearing vs. that of conversation or discussion.
I say the record shows service to the governor. Greenie return certificate is not back yet from the post office, I say, but I have alternative proof, a digital copy of a signature provided by the U.S. post office branch manager in East Ridge. Secondarily, the record in Mrs. Miller’s possession contains a color screengrab showing website confirmation of service by the U.S. Postal Service.
Is chancery obstructing justice?
“I am here to find out if the court is exacerbating wrongs alleged in the complaint. How so?” I ask, reading from a script. “By the action by delay. That is the question. The complaint was filed 28 days ago.”
I tell her she is vested with judicial authority and that I speak to her in both hats, administrative and judicial. She has power to sign the one-page decree that is part of my motion pro confesso.
I emphasise the case is “opportunity for his court” to end 232 days of violation of the law and show chancery for the majestic and important jurisdiction that it is. Judge Pam Fleenor and Mrs. Miller have a chance to end “the worst disaster in the state’s history that is 81,965 days old.” The complaint allows and enables each Mrs. Miller and Fleenor to be a great judge, I say.
Is there confusion on mandamus? I ask, saying I am concerned about ignorance being part of the reason it has not issued.
Rachel Kapperman, court attorney, had said Wednesday she didn’t know much about mandamus and asked if it was “like a TRO.” I mention Mrs. Kapperman and say there is a huge difference between mandamus and a TRO, and “equity cannot tolerate this chancery court not knowing the difference.”
A mandamus is a peremptory writ and peremptory means that the claims are “imperative, absolute, conclusive, positive, not admitting question, delay or reconsieration; positive, final, decisive, not admitting of any alternative, self-determined, arbitrary and not requiring any cause to be shown,” I say, quoting Black’s Law Dictionary (4th ed.).
I am asking for a writ to issue because “equity cannot tolerate not knowing the differences” and “I am here to make the constitution work, the statute to work (Tenn. Code Ann. § 68-5-104 which I hold up for Mrs. Miller to see, printed in large type on a piece of white paper) and I am here to make the court work and for the court to function properly.”
Breach of trust, fiduciary, oath alleged
Lee and Barnes have breached their roles of trustee in breaching their oaths of office, have breached their fiduciary duties by violation of the law, I declare. I ask Mrs. Miller if chancery administration is doing the same. Will the chancery follow the train of these two respondents? They are denying their ministerial duty under the law to obey it.
“Delay destroys equity, destroys this court and destroys my remedy,” I tell Mrs. Miller.
“There is no known authority allowing delay like this to be considered just. There is no known authority that allows continuing fraud for one more day under the notice of the law and public knowledge of TCA 68-5-104.”
I say the constitution is public notice to these two, the law is continuing notice that they have denied and I repeat that I am in the chancery to help and empower Judge Fleenor to act for the people.
I say that every day of delay “is an unlawful delay that seems to be an obstruction of justice given the irreparable harm I am claiming on behalf of 6.8 million people.” Why is that? I ask.
Mrs. Miller rises from the dais, saying she is going to ask the judge about a date for a hearing.
As she steps out, I insist that every day Tennessee law is not obeyed is inequitable and unjust. Before she reaches the door I say that I am not asking for a hearing, but for a writ of mandamus.
Kelley Burnette says she is not sure with whom Mrs. Miller has gone to speak
We wait 10 minutes.
Miller wears judge robe
Kelley Burnette hassles us about having masks, and I say I object and that I cannot breathe and feel light-headed.
Mrs. Miller returns, wearing a judge robe.
Court officer Burnette says, “All rise.”
Mrs. Miller says that she met with Judge Fleenor and that as soon as she gets the green card she will set a hearing.
As soon as she gets the green card? I ask. I say the U.S. lack of green card does not control the operation of equity in light of the emergency. The greenie has not come back to me, I say. But I have a digital version of the receipt signature in my personal record. I show Mrs. Burnette the copy from my casefile notebook. These details cannot allow the interest of 6.8 million people be impeded by these questions, I say.
I ask if Mrs. Miller understands that because mandmus is peremptoyry, it comes ahead of the entire docket in chancery. “Is that correct, or incorrect?”
Mrs. Miller says, “That is correct.”
People cannot wait another day for mandamus to issue. I say I am concerned about these details.
Mrs. Miller reviews the service proofs. Certified paperwork, my service affidavit notarized. She looks at the printout from the USPS website under the tracking number to show service delivery. The USPS checked the box for “delivered” at 8:41 a.m. Oct. 6, 2020.
I insist service has been made and the record is clear for mandmus to issue. I say that the record shows the state continues to admit violation. They have failed to respond to open records.
I say there is no authority for any of these mask edicts such as Mrs. Burnette demands. Mrs. Miller says that because Sheriff Hammond didn’t wear a mask he got COVID-19.
Mrs. Miller says she is “without power” to rule. I insist she has authority to sign the decree in motion pro confesso. It asks mandamus to issue because respondents “have made their confession or corroborating admissions constituting confession” apart from any pending response in my mandamus lawsuit.
I read from Gibson’s. “Equity will not suffer a right to be without a remedy” and quote his comment that the maxim “is the original source of the entire equitable jurisdiction,” P. 53, Gibson’s Suits in Chancery, 5th edition, 1955.
I say these are beautiful rules for equity and justice. And that today’s meeting is scheduled two days after I had come in demanding a decree indicates chancery administration is acting prejudicially against the interests of the state of Tennessee. On what basis does it have this prejudice, I ask?
The people are under wicked edicts and legislation by people with no authority, I say.
Under TCA § 25-29-102, Mrs. Miller has authority to “command the defendant to do the act,” I say, quoting the law. “That’s all I am asking. Command the respondent to do the act.”
Mrs. Miller, I say, is an attorney for 30 years, is a judicial officer, is wearing judicial robes — she has authority to command obedience to the statute right now.
Tulis empowers court to act justly
“To not do seems obstructive when it should be supportive, that it should prevent unconstitutional conduct, protect the constitution and civil rights, to end the abuse of substantial rights and use the mandamus’ unusual extraordinary remedy to protect the people in the state.” I insist that state of Tennessee has “specific legal right to the duty required to be performed by the court.”
I say American Jurisprudence on mandamus has 438 pages on how mandamus works, and Mrs. Kapperman and Mrs. Miller should’ve read it to have the court act immediately.
State of Tennessee has claims that are “specific, well-defined, nondiscretionary, vested, without reasonable controversy,” I say, reading from my script, hand-written on yellow card stock paper.
“Mandamus must issue,” I say two or three times.
In several instances at the hearing I ask if there is anything I can do to assist the court since I am there to help Mrs. Miller accomplish justice. I say I am there to help the court do what is just and true to its nature, pursuant to Gibson’s treatment of equity.
I say I don’t want a hearing, don’t need a hearing, but that the state is demanding a mandamus, since the other side has admitted to open violation of law. There is nothing Lee and Barnes can say as my complaint lays out a long train of admissions and confessions they are in flagrant violation of the law, I state.
Mrs. Miller says she will take the file to Judge Fleenor and talk with her about what I am saying, and call me.
