June 11, 2023

In the wake of the Covid pandemic U.S. Supreme Court Judge Neil Gorsuch recently declared, “Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”

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Gorsuch also wrote,

In the 1970s, Congress studied the use of emergency decrees. It observed that they can allow executive authorities to tap into extraordinary powers. Congress also observed that emergency decrees have a habit of long outliving the crises that generate them; some federal emergency proclamations, Congress noted, had remained in effect for years or decades after the emergency in question had passed. [Emphasis added.]

When it comes to devouring citizens’ rights, the federal government, of course, has no monopoly. In fact, some of the most flagrant violations occur at the municipal level.

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As local governments face budget shortfalls, it is tempting for them to use excessive fines and fees for code violations to trim the gap in their budget deficits. The sad reality is that, instead of protecting the lives and rights of the citizens, municipalities and counties use them to make up for shortfalls in their budgets.

America’s founding principle of “No Taxation Without Representation” is readily supplanted by “Taxation By Citation.” This new doctrine generates nasty conflicts of interest and violates the rights of ordinary Americans, many times ensnaring those who don’t have the means to defend themselves in court.

One of the most Kafkaesque abuses reported originates from the Shelby County Environmental Court in Tennessee. Division 14 of the Shelby County General Sessions Court, known locally as the “Environmental Court,” handles approximately 17,000 vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated single-family houses in neighborhoods across Shelby County. “The truth is that the Shelby County Environmental Court is a gift that keeps on giving in Memphis neighborhoods. It is a necessary and powerful tool which we as a community should rally to support and strengthen,” said Attorney Vincent Sawyer, who represents the Tennessee Receivership Group.

The ugly reality is that, unlike real courts, the Environmental Court doesn’t swear in witnesses, authenticate evidence, or even bother to record its proceedings, leaving defendants without a record with which to appeal. Regarding testimony, “witnesses” may stand up in the audience and speak. They do not have to take an oath to tell the truth. Thus, when they “testify,” there are no constraints (whether moral or in the form of a perjury charge) on their veracity.

The court does not follow the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure or the Tennessee Rules of Evidence. Instead, the Environmental Court’s proceedings are governed by the Shelby County General Session Rules, which are six pages long and are largely concerned with courtroom decorum.

Boiled down to its essentials, the Environmental Court is not a “court of record” under Tennessee law. Often one finds waiting in the wings court-appointed housing organizations ready to make money off other people’s hardship with liens against their homes, placing them into “receivership.”