Josh Frey, left, sheriff of Henry County, Tenn., runs cruisers and canines in the public interest, and indicates he is not familiar with the powerful writ, habeas corpus. (Photos osh Frey campaign, Henry County sheriff’s office)
Christopher Fiedler and his wife, Nicole Beale, face continuing arrest threat in travels on his private scooter that he insists is not subject to privilege under Tennessee law. (Photo Christopher Fiedler)
Friday, Dec. 18, 2024 — Contempt of court seems on full display in Henry County, Tenn., where the sheriff refuses to accept a petition for writ of habeas corpus, effectively a nuclear bomb of a petition that leaps to the head of any court docket because of its peremptory, emergency authority.
“They can mail it out all they want to. We don’t hand deliver anything,” says Sheriff Josh Frey when asked about a deputy’s reportedly refusing to deliver to the court a petition by free-traveling constitution-minded Christopher Fiedler, behind bars since Nov. 19, arrested and charged with failure to appear after waiting most of the morning Nov. 18 at the general sessions court in Paris.
“When the sheriff tells you he don’t deliver the mail, the hell he don’t,” says Christopher Sapp, midstate bureau chief for Eagle Radio Network.
Asked if he has heard about the controversy over Mr. Fiedler, Sheriff Frey says, “Nope. And I don’t know what you mean by one of my correctional officers can block somebody.”
Henry County is west of Nashville, with Paris the county seat. (Map Google)
This reporter explained that the writ of habeas is “The petition or the writ of habeas corpus is a peremptory petition. When the judge gets that, he clears off his whole calendar to hear it. They come first in line. Of course, you know what it is — you know what I’m talking about by way of remedy.”
“No, I really don’t,” Sheriff Frey says.
‘Leading peremptory writ protection’
“Well, the habeas corpus is the leading peremptory writ protection in the constitution. What it does is commands the sheriff to bring the body. Habeas corpus means ‘bring the body’ to the court, where the sheriff, the man who put the person in, has to show cause why he’s there. It’s an imminently powerful command. And Christopher Fiedler, who’s been in since the 18th, says he can’t get it delivered through Deputy Wade and the others to [Henry county circuit court] Judge [Bruce] Griffey.”
“Does a deputy have authority to block transmission of a legal document to a court?” the reporter asks.
Quick take ————————
— Habeas petition powerful; interrupts anything a judge is doing
— Sheriff blocks Judge Griffey from knowing about illegal jailing
— Due process violations pile up in central-west Tennesssee
“They can mail it out all they want to,” Sheriff Frey says. “Oh, yeah, we don’t deliver, nah, nah — we don’t deliver — hand deliver — mail or legal mail to the judges, or any legal mail whatever.”
Asked specifically about a habeas, Sheriff Frey replies:
If they mail it to the court. If they mail it — all right, look. I’m not going to argue with you. OK? I’m telling you, we have to give them access to deliver it, and that is through the mail, and that is what we do.
Contempt of court?
Habeas corpus is a storied remedy strictly protected in state and federal constitutions. Along with the writ of mandamus, it is the pre-eminent tool to thwart illegal arrest and abuse of process.
Evidently, the sheriff is unfamiliar with habeas corpus, though he is no doubt POST certified.
Sheriffs by law are judicial, their role harking to common law and the jurisprudence even of the old Hebrew republic, where the civil magistracy is almost exclusively judicial. Formerly, county commissions were called county courts. Sheriffs “furnish [the court] with fire and water; and obey the lawful orders and directions of the court.” T.C.A. § 8-8-213. Powers as conservator of the peace. They serve legal process and execute court orders, whether it be eviction, civil suit, arrest, maintenance of the peace, running the jail or taking belts off of grown men’s trousers at the scanning equipment that still operates at entry of most courthouses.
Refusal to act on a habeas corpus petition is a crime.
The attempt to elude the service of the writ of habeas corpus, or to avoid the effect thereof by transferring the plaintiff out of the jurisdiction or to another person, or by concealing the plaintiff, or the place of the plaintiff’s confinement, is a Class C misdemeanor.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-21-129 (West)
“Once it comes to the attention of the court, the court has a duty to entertain it,” Mr. Sapp says. If a judge is aware of a false incarceration, “he can be held personally liable” for not acting immediately. “There’s no judicial immunity for him not entertaining a habeas petition, liable for keeping him incarcerated whenever he should’ve been able to have a petition heard.”
Says the law: “The sheriff shall perform such other duties as are, or may be, imposed by law or custom.”
America, an entire country lost on its own foundation.