With no warrant, Brandon Bennett, a Hamilton County, Tenn., sheriff’s deputy, gets set to arrest me exercising my right of ingress and egress from my house, obstructing the public road as if he were a bandit. (Photo David Tulis)
Sheriff Austin Garrett will face a federal judge in Chattanooga who is being asked by lawsuit to conpel Hamilton County to obey the arrest warrant requirements in the state and federal constitutions and at T.C.A. § 40-7-103, warrantless arrest by officer. (Photo HCSO)
“I object to these proceedings,” I tell a sheriff’s deputy who handcuffs me Nov. 22, 2023, though telling me I am not under arrest. (Photo David Tulis)
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Friday, Nov. 22 – Radio investigative journalist David Tulis is suing Hamilton County and Sheriff Austin Garrett for exposing deputies to legal peril in their refusal to uphold arrest warrant law, according to a federal complaint.
“Because the sheriff refuses to obey black-letter law and get arrest warrants when required, we live in a despotism so deep the county is like a swamp,” Tulis says. Deputies such as Brandon Bennett — whom Tulis is suing in his personal capacity — are “exposed in their properties and estates personally under policy ignoring the warrant rules in the constitution and state law.”
Bennett arrested Tulis for a damaged taillight before dawn Nov. 22, 2023, enroute to his Hixson studio, spiking his radio show.
“What really gets me,” Tulis says, “is how little the county commission and sheriff care about their employees. If the commission and the sheriff really cared about staff people they wouldn’t put them in harm’s way by forcing them to make arrests on their own personal authority. My arrest was by Deputy Bennett on his own personal authority, and he kidnapped me. The county ordains that every deputy put the onus of liability on himself or herself in making warrantless arrests. That’s why the warrant requirement is so important. It protects the government employee. And it protects you.”
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Tulis identifies Sheriff Garrett’s program of arrest-on-sight general warrants as “Redcoat warrants.” The reference to Redcoat warrants hearkens to days prior to Americans’ war for independence when the king’s soldiers were able to arrest colonists without a judge’s signature. The state constitution at article 1, sect. 7, forbids general warrants, saying they “are dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be granted.” ‡
The 41-page complaint asks the U.S. district court to forbid general warrants and seeks a master to supervise return to compliance with the law.
State law allows for warrantless arrest for felonies and a list of wrongs such as stalking, auto crash scene DUI and “public offenses.” A public offense is not just any alleged crime, but one in the nature of an affray, riot, disorder or breach of the peace, the complaint says. Tulis argues that a damaged taillight is not a public offense, and so could not legally have been the basis of an on-spot arrest.
Tulis dubs his program of suing public officials as “a mercy and fighting ministry serving the Lord Jesus on behalf of the weak and the poor.” The Shields of Shame anti-corruption channel on YouTube headlines the Bennett arrest as “Nice and Nasty.”
My complaint demanding sheriff arrest practices reform, halt to traffic abuse
General warrants prohibited
‡ Tenn. Const. Art. 1, sect 7. That the people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from unreasonable searches and seizures; and that general warrants, whereby an officer may be commanded to search suspected places, without evidence of the fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, whose offences are not particularly described and supported by evidence, are dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be granted. [emphasis added]
The Constitution of Tennessee also forbids the imposition of Martial Law (corporate government), within the Republic state. Which was founded by the People, under their Lawful authority, for the purposes of their welfare.
The office of sheriff is empowered with regard to People, only upon evidence of some crime, or breach of the peace.
The injustice of imposing “Bills of attainder” against People is a primary reason that our country was founded. From “Causes and Necessities – 1775”:
These devoted colonies were judged to be in such a state, as to present victories without bloodshed, and all the easy emoluments of statuteable plunder.-The uninterrupted tenor of their peaceable and respectful behaviour from the beginning of colonization, their dutiful, zealous, and useful services during the war, though so recently and amply acknowledged in the most honorable manner by his majesty, by the late king, and by Parliament, could not save them from the meditated innovations.-Parliament was influenced to adopt the pernicious project, and assuming a new power over them, have, in the course of eleven years, given such decisive specimens of the spirit and consequences attending this power, as to leave no doubt concerning the effects of acquiescence under it. They have undertaken to give and grant our money without our consent, though we have ever exercised an exclusive right to dispose of our own property; statutes have been passed for extending the jurisdiction of courts of Admiralty and Vice-Admiralty beyond their ancient limits; for depriving us of the accustomed and inestimable privilege of trial by jury, in cases affecting both life and property; for suspending the legislature of one of the colonies: for interdicting all commerce to the capital of another; and for altering fundamentally the form of government established by charter, and secured by acts of its own legislature solemnly confirmed by the crown; for exempting the “murderers” of colonists from legal trial, and in effect, from punishment; for erecting in a neighboring province, acquired by the joint arms of Great Britain and America, a despotism dangerous to our very existence; and for quartering soldiers upon the colonists in time of profound peace. It has also been resolved in parliament, that colonists charged with committing certain offences, shall be transported to England to be tried.
But why should we enumerate our injuries in detail? By one statute it is declared, that parliament can “of right make laws to bind us IN ALL CASES WHATSOEVER.” What is to defend us against so enormous, so unlimited a power? Not a single man of those who assume it, is chosen by us; or is subject to our control or influence; but, on the contrary, they are all of them exempt from the operation of such laws, and an American revenue, if not diverted from the ostensible purposes for which it is raised, would actually lighten their own burdens in proportion as they increase ours. We saw the misery to which such despotism would reduce us. We for ten years incessantly and ineffectually besieged the Throne as supplicants; we reasoned, we remonstrated with parliament, in the most mild and decent language.
But Administration, sensible that we should regard these oppressive measures as freemen ought to do, sent over fleets and armies to enforce them. The indignation of the Americans was roused, it is true; but it was the indignation of a virtuous, loyal, and affectionate people. A Congress of Delegates from the United Colonies was assembled at Philadelphia, on the fifth day of last September. We resolved again to offer an humble and dutiful petition to the King, and also addressed our fellow-subjects of Great Britain. We have pursued every temperate, every respectful measure: we have even proceeded to break off our commercial intercourse with our fellow-subjects, as the last peaceable admonition, that our attachment to no nation upon earth should supplant our attachment to liberty.-This, we flattered ourselves, was the ultimate step of the controversy: But subsequent events have shewn, how vain was this hope of finding moderation in our enemies.