Hamilton County denies citizens the right to swear out arrest warrants, leaving it to deputies and cops like these at a downtown parade to swear out warrants —  with hearsay only, and thousands of times without fact-witness or victim sworn statement evidence. The county commission accepts this policy, as do all local judges as none will exercise sua sponte authority to command compliance with black-letter law. (Photo David Tulis)

Judge Amanda Dunn rules that Tamela Grace Massengale may not have counsel of her choice, and that her next friend has no authority to file a remonstrance and legal defense on her behalf in light of illegal arrest warrant usages and abusages in Hamilton County. (Photo Amanda Dunn campaign)

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Sunday, June 9, 2024 – Criminal court judge Amanda Dunn rejects the right of counsel of one’s choice in a case highlighting how demolition of due process rights and justice itself are institutionalized.

By David Tulis / Copperhead Radio Network

The judge’s order is in response to an unusual filing in a bogus criminal case against Tamela Grace Massengale, a fraud victim falsely arrested under Hamilton County’s “doggie door” warrants system. The judge says she cannot have this reporter as her “next friend” for aid, counsel, support or legal assistance because he has no standing.

The federal and state constitutions recognize the right to counsel of one’s choice, “[t]hat in all criminal prosecutions, the accused hath the right to be heard by himself and his counsel; to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him; *** ” Tenn. const. Art. 1, sect.  9.  Miss Grace asked me to speak with and for her and serve her in a mortally defective criminal cause.

Illegal policy multiplies false arrest

Judge Larry Ables oversees a general sessions county court in Chattanooga Tenn. (Photo Larry Ables election campaign)

The abuse arises from a degenerate Hamilton County policy of letting the magistrate issue arrest warrants based on hearsay only, with prohibition for evidence- and fact-based affidavits by witnesses or victims, who are banned from the court. Under law, no man faces arrest except under evidence presented to a magistrate for examination under oath, based on evidence, with hearsay permitted.

I have covered four false arrests in excruciating detail arising from this butchery of due process. I have repeatedly demanded Lorrie Miller, the magistrate, and Hamilton County commission obey the law and its strict requirements for arrest. 

The rules of criminal procedure require firsthand accountability for allegations of a crime. T.C.A. § 40-6-203, informants; examination, states the following:

(a) Upon information made to any magistrate of the commission of a public offense, the magistrate shall examine, on oath, the affiant or affiants, reduce the examination to writing, and cause the examination to be signed by the person making it.

§ 40-6-203. Informants; examination (emphasis added)

The rule of law is that fact witnesses and victims must provide the sworn basis of an arrest warrant. Arrests are to be based on evidence, which evidence “may be” hearsay.

The law does not mandate hearsay, as does Miller. But it accepts it, reluctantly, as it were. “The finding of probable cause shall be based on evidence, which may be hearsay in whole or in part ***.”  § 40-6-205. Issuance of warrant. 

Cops alone are permitted access to the magistrate and that office’s court (at the jail). Such people have only hearsay in many cases. Their oath is meaningless, emitting from an improper party.

No standing?

This is Page of a 2-page order by criminal court judge Amanda Dunn denying a criminal defendant her right to name counsel of her choice.

Read it — judge denies counsel of choice

Judge Dunn says she is not authorized under the certiorari rules to remove the case from general sessions because, she says, those rules apply only to civil cases.

A second point in Judge Dunn’s 2-page order is that I lack standing to participate in the defense of Miss Grace and her counterattack on a criminal activity hardened into custom in the magistrate’s office. To have standing, the judge says, I have to be an injured party. 

“To establish standing, a plaintiff must show (l) that it has sustained a distinct and palpable injury, (2) that the injury was caused by the challenged conduct; and (3) that the injury is one that can be addressed by a remedy that the court is empowered to give. City of Chattanooga v. Davis, 54 S.W.3d 248,280 (Tenn.2001).”

A Venmo refund scam victim, Tamela Grace Massengale was arrested on a hearsay-only warrant sworn by a police officer under an illegal procedure that denies her due process rights to have her accuser in a civil matter swear out a warrant and post a bond. The cop got a phone call, got one side of the story in an alleged dog sale dispute, and ordered Mrs. Massengale, 60, disabled and a Section 8 resident, arrested and jailed. (Photo david Tulis)

Since I am not the injured party, nothing I say can be heard by the court. And nothing I say with and in Christian service to Mrs. Massengale will be considered.

My remonstrance and demand for a writ of certiorari to remove the case from the court of sessions judge Larry Ables and have the case heard in criminal court is, effectively, empty sheets of paper. They lack any justiciable substance, any materiel able to be perceived and acted upon by the court.

In other words, the merits of what Mrs. Massengale’s position, through me, cannot be reached, and cannot be heard. The court is deaf, and Miss Grace and I are mouthing words that are inaudible in her defense, and in demand for relief from Lorrie Miller, chief magistrate.

Judge Dunn refuses to see, in pleadings I drafted as a Christian mercy, Miss Grace, with my words effectively coming from the defendant’s mouth.

In not seeing Mrs. Massengale in the grievance against magistrate Miller’s bogus and illegal policy, but seeing me, Judge Dunn denies Miss Grace counsel of her choice. 

She says “there is no basis for this Defendant to be appointed a next friend,” as if somebody other than a defendant makes such selection of counsel and help. As noted in one supreme court case, the constitution doesn’t necessarily guarantee a defendant the attorney of one’s choice, but counsel. That could be me. 

Judge Dunn says Mrs. Massengale cannot select me and appoint me because she is not an “infant or otherwise incompetent.”

The civil code is replete with examples in which a person can be named “next friend” for an individual who is incapable of proceeding on their own behalf. See T.C.A. 520-12-128; T.R.C.P. 17.03, In each instance, there must be a showing that the injured party has been adjudicated incompetent or is an infant, as welI as a Court order naming the next friend or guardian who can act on their behalf. It is insufficient for an alleged injured party to simply name another citizen as next friend to take up legal action on her behalf.

This point, too, overlooks a standard practice in law. An incompetent hires a lawyer to represent him. Every person with representation is incompetent to speak to any court, except on the witness stand, and will not be heard because of the admission of incompetency.

Who today is not an incompetent facing a conflict in the complexity trap that the law has become, with charge stacking, plea bargain mills, planted evidence, perjury (testilying) and crummy legal writing by lawyers and jurists left and right?

Assignment of power of attorney

Miss Grace states in an affidavit, granting me power of attorney, that I speak for one not as apt in legal knowledge.

Affiant has an absolute right to name another person as next friend, counsel and to speak on her behalf, with her and for her in any public proceeding in the criminal case against me. He makes no representations of being a lawyer or an attorney, of running a law office or a law business, of having license to practice law, of having any knowledge of law sufficient to give legal advice. He represents his service to me as that of a Chrisian man extending acts of mercy and grace to me and on my behalf.

Judge Dunn rejects this simple grant of power of attorney, and isolates Miss Grace on her own. People can in a hospital sign living wills for people to take charge of their end of life; but under this opinion are incapable of giving power of attorney to a friend.

For Judge Dunn, there’s no harm to Miss Grace. Judge Ables assigned the public defender to be her elbow counsel. 

Public defender Mike Little met with his client for an hour May 21. Judge Ables heard the first salvos in the case April 29 in general sessions. Judge Dunn says in a footnote Mr. Little filed a motion to strike Miss Grace’s filing demanding relief in her case and reformation of the magistrate’s office, such motion improper if Miss Grace did not command it. 

If such motion is in the case file, it would suggest that he is acting as representative, when the assignment by Judge Ables was that his office is elbow counsel.

Judge Dunn is saying in effect that Mrs. Massagill may not choose counsel of her choice, which happens to be me, though I am not an attorney and do not have a law practice or law business.

My intervention on her behalf, exercising my constitutional rights and also letting her exercise her constitutional right to counsel, has caused a disturbance in the force field in Hamilton County courts. This field, as it were, is established by custom, usage, acceptance, acquiescence of lawyers, judges, law enforcement officials at various retainers and parties of the police-judicial industrial complex.

There have been loud and shrill denunciations of my intervention and allegations of UPL, or authorized practice of law.

“[T]he Court finds that Mr. Tulis does not have standing to file a petition on behalf of any person other than himself. Mr. Tulis has not established a sufficient personal stake in the outcome of Ms. Massengale’s criminal charges to have standing to file this action on his own behalf. Likewise, he has not been authorized by this or any other court to act as her “next friend” for purpose of filing suit. Defendant’s “appointment” of a next friend is insufficient in the eyes of the law.

Mrs. Grace, with me as her mouthpiece, had demanded removal of the case to criminal court, a court of record, so judicial supervision could be applied to illegal arrest warrant usages and abusages. It is certainly in Judge Dunn’s authority to take up the matter repeatedly injurious to the public.

A removal writ “may be granted whenever authorized by law, and also in all cases where an [official] exercising judicial functions has exceeded the jurisdiction conferred, or is acting illegally, when, in the judgment of the court, there is no other plain, speedy, or adequate remedy.” 27-8-101. Constitutional basis.

Judge Dunn cites T.C.A. 27-8-104. Power of circuit and chancery courts, that says “judges of the inferior courts of law have the power, in all civil cases, to issue writs of certiorari to remove any cause or transcript thereof from any inferior jurisdiction, on sufficient cause, supported by oath or affirmation.”

This matter is criminal, thus reference to plenary power is restricted by grant of specific power in civil cases, Judge Dunn avers.