Police, courts ‘trap’ men in harms that God plainly forbids
Whether warrantless arrest, illegal jailings, we have a duty in fear of God to halt these breaches of law and injuries upon the common people
Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow. – Isaiah 1:16
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Wednesday, June 7, 2023 – In my work for legal and judicial reform in Tennessee I have few allies, whether among people in the church, or among conservatives or liberals.
This is the Tennessee supreme court building, wherein the judges uphold a vast system of criminal breach of laws by cops — and the governor, Bill Lee.
Today in solitude I await answers due Thursday in federal court among the five parties I am suing in a lawsuit with three major reforms, and one overhanging procedural grievance in the federal rules I indicate I plan to challenge.
Two of the three reforms deal with police abuse in which cities, counties and courts from sessions court to the supreme agree with longstanding abuses that no one cares enough to bring into the light of day.
➤ Warrantless arrests operate against clear black-letter law in Tennessee that require warrant. We have what’s denounced as a “general warrants” scheme where citizens are arrested on the spot for cause without warrant – without neutral judicial approval beforehand.
➤ Citations in Tennessee’s 1981 law are unconstitutional because they require booking (imprisonment) prior to adjudication. Both major breaches are in Title 40, in the same chapter 7, and have long been in process. Tens of thousands of court cases have been created with these acts of violence against legally presumed innocent people.
Jeremiah warns against our allowing continuing harm upon the weak, the poor, the alien and stranger, the orphan and widow. These are categories represented in arrest reports, perhaps overrepresented, with little means of resistance in the labyrinth of the court system..
Authorities’ traps ‘catch men’
God says his people have a “defiant and rebellious heart; They have revolted and departed” without any fear of God, Jer. 5:23, and thank him for neither rain nor harvest.
Your iniquities have turned these things away, And your sins have withheld good from you.
'For among My people are found wicked men; They lie in wait as one who sets snares; They set a trap; They catch men.
Police, deputies, drug task forces and other LEA with remote authority trap and harm innocent people. Two thirds of the people at Silverdale detention center in Chattanooga are unconvicted, and too poor to pay the bondsman.
As a cage is full of birds, So their houses are full of deceit. Therefore they have become great and grown rich.
They have grown fat, they are sleek; Yes, they surpass the deeds of the wicked; They do not plead the cause, The cause of the fatherless; Yet they prosper, And the right of the needy they do not defend.
Shall I not punish them for these things?' says the Lord. 'Shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?' (vv. 27-29)
The prophet says “an astonishing and horrible thing Has been committed in the land” at the hands of people who have, shall we say, public attention the bully pulpit.
The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule by their own power; And My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end? (v.31)
Notice priests’ source of authority. That would be “rule by their own power.”
As we identify in Tulis v. Orange, the officer operating without warrant makes arrests of people on his own authority, and not judicially, as the law requires. Officer William Orange seizes me Nov. 6, 2021, at the judicial conference entirely in his own person, under color of law, under sham of law.
We oppose these evils not because they happen to us, and will happen to us. But because they are generalized evils that injure the weak and the poor most profoundly – more so than they injure us. We have standing with which to plead for relief and redress on our behalf, and theirs.
No Christian would want to do any less. And I appreciate your support.