Going limp, I force deputy Brandon Bennett and a jailer to drag me to the jail in their false arrest and false imprisonment tort. (Photo Hamilton County sheriff’s office)

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Tuesday, April 15, 2025 — U.S. district court judge Travis McDonough overthrows my reform lawsuit and dismisses it and it and orders the case closed because my arrest for a damaged taillight is done Nov. 22, 2023, with probable cause.

The order says that there is no right to use the public road except in commerce and that there is no protection in law against general warrants which the ruling upholds as constitutional and approved by the U.S. supreme court.

Travis McDonough, federal judge

The ruling ignores complaint that traffic stops are to be administrative and civil, and that it is an error for police and deputies to be able to use criminal authority to supervise an administrative realm under authority of Tennessee department of safety, the oficers of which deal with technical defects such as damage taillights.

Doc 37, 38 dismissal order

The order ignores the premise of the suit and disregards my motion or injunction on arrest practices, which is that driving and operating a motor vehicle is a privilege coming from the Tennessee privilege law of occupations such as dentistry, plumbing and involving, and that privilege is not managed criminally. But civilly.

That being so, warrantless arrest violates a state law on criminal procedure and uses an improper criminal authority in a civil and equitable relationship between a licensee and the state.

All privileges in Tennessee are granted under misdemeanor threat, including the driving and operating of motor vehicles. No other privilege in Tennessee is managed by criminal prosecution at first instance but always administratively by commissioners of trades under the uniform administrator procedures act.

Page 1 of a 10-page order dismissing my efforts to decriminalize traffic stops and end general warrants.

Judge McDonough effectively voids Tenn. Code Ann. 40-7-103, the Tennessee law saying a misdemeanor arrest can be made without a warrant if it is a “public offense” or a “breach of the peace threatened.” No federal judge can overrule a state law, and roll it over indirectly and obliquely, by implication, without saying the law is unconstitutional and illegal in the United States.

We are going to end the terror of policing in Tennessee and the United States, eventually. I believe it must be through proper application of the law in which the operation of motor vehicles is found. McDonough ignores this analysis and hones in on the jurisprudence regarding police officers’ requiring to have probable cause in making an arrest.

Tennessee law, however, has a barricade to this jurisprudence of operating on the spot, on sight, and without warrant physical seizure of a man or woman. That is the warrantless arrest law which contains constitutional protections. And it also has the law that requires a movant, a plaintiff, to exhaust its administrative remedies in any matter pertaining to a license.

All matters under a license in Tennessee are subject to administrative contested case hearing under the uniform administrative procedures act in title 4. The controversy under a license is not instantly criminal, though all occupational licenses have a misdemeanor penalty provision. They are handled by their respective privilege authorities. Note this important story on this matter.

Privilege taxable activity — basis for ending traffic stops

Probable cause is not the be-all and end-all in making an arrest. In my case, deputy Brandon Bennett did not allege mens rea (guilty or evil intent) and did not establish he had authority, since I was not carrying goods or people for hire under title 55, the motor and other vehicle law that flows out of title 65, carriers.

Judge McDonough effectively obliterates T.C.A. § 40-7-103 that is the warrantless arrest statute. No federal judge has the authority to do that. The result of the court’s commitment to the status quo is that, unless I appeal, we live under general warrants and criminalized “traffic stops.”

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