Wamp asks to ban Tulis from courthouse during ‘2A Ray’ trial
She fears reporter's presence as much she dislikes his reporting about the Rzeplinski case and the duty of jurors to stand up for defendant in bizarre, irregular case
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Saturday, July 27 2024 — Elected district attorney Coty Wamp has done good things in office in criminal prosecution. She exercised discretion by dismissing the Gregory Parker traffic case, premised on trooper abuse. She dismissed the false arrest case in which crime victim Tamela Grace Massengale was harmed in a hearsay-only “doggie door” arrest warrant. She dropped a phony criminal case against me for my traveling privately in a car with a damaged taillight.
In cases of high crimes and misdemeanors, no doubt, she has done well in nailing provable malefactors. In these cases she and ADAs such as Jeff Jones meet their duty in sharing all the evidence, not tampering with evidence, securing all witnesses, reading relevant cases and not bullying defendants in the plea bargain mill. Everyone here may applause.
But Miss Wamp has a temper, and it is showing in her prosecution of me as a journalist just at the start of the Ray “2A Ray” Rzeplinski anti-gun trial. The petition power aimed at me as journalist is not for a crime. My cause of harm is saying all the wrong things about the power of the people to vote against her in the jury box.
She’s trying to bar me from the courthouse during the Rzeplinski trial starting Monday because I am a “disturbance” in talking about rights of conscience among jurors.
Best that jurors be ignorant
Her prosecution of Mr.is unjust and improper, and as journalist it’s my job to let people know.
Goaded by the Hamilton County sheriff’s office, former DA Neal Pinkston started the case that Miss Wamp inherited. Rather than exercising discretion and ditching the mess, she assigned Nicole Evans prosecutrix to go ahead.
Front and center of Miss Wamp’s crosshairs in her sidebar prosecution of this journalist is jury nullification. In a Thursday filing she did not serve on me, she complains that I have “unlawfully intervene[d] or interfere[d]” and have “attempted to inform jurors of the unlawful concept of jury nullification.” In covering the Rzeplinski case, she says, “he has directly attempted to tamper with and taint the potential jurors.”
Coty Wamp motion on Jury Nullification
“Mr. Tulis has already attempted to influence potential jurors through his articles. He has shown through a pattern of behavior that he is obstructive and will not follow the law” (p. 5).
Tennessee courts have routinely ruled that a defendant does not have a right, whether it be constitutional or procedural, to jury nullification. Tennessee has also ruled that a defendant and his or her counsel [are] prohibited from encouraging jury nullification. When such arguments arise, courts act properly when they stop such arguments from being made and prospectively prohibit such arguments from being made through instruction to the defendant and his or her attorney. When jury nullification is raised to jurors, a trial court acts properly in issuing an instruction to jurors that they must make their judgment based on whether the elements of the crime were proved beyond a reasonable doubt and not based on the personal views or whether the law is valid. Although a jury might make a decision based on nullification, they have no right to do so.
“State’s motion regarding attempts at jury nullification,” pp. 2, 3 (citations omitted).
She complains I have a “history of operating outside the lines of what is proper and lawful. He actively intervenes in cases in which he is interested,” which action must be remembered is protected by my right of free assembly and free association.
‘Bell cannot be unrung’
She asks Judge Amanda Dunn to let her exclude “for cause” any prospective juror who listens to me on radio, reads my reports or watches my videos. Miss Wamp demands I be banned from the courts building during the trial — truly an extraordinary bit of sass, a demand based on no evidence. The evidence she must have is not that I back an ancient common law right of the people, but that I am a known disturber of the peace, a promoter of affrays, riot and uproar affecting the public.
To Miss Wamp, no juror should have ever heard about jury nullification. And if a juror has heard about it from me, and sees me in the courtroom, that is an illicit communication that creates a prejudice against the state.
“If jurors have been exposed to this unlawful concept, it is a bell that cannot be unwrung, and the state may have may only have one chance at trying his case,” she says.
Tulis filings on press liberties vs. DA Coty Wamp
“Mr. Tulis has already attempted to influence potential jurors through his articles. He has shown through a pattern of behavior that he is obstructive and will not follow the law. Pursuant to this rule, the state is requesting that this court bar Mr. Tulis from the courthouse until the trial has concluded and the jury is released from service. While this may seem drastic, the state believes it is necessary to preserve a fair trial for both parties.
Better that the constitution be overthrown so that people don’t hear about their rights to overthrow abuse prosecutions such as that of Mr. Rzeplinski.
