“HE’S BEEN LOCKING UP HIS NEIGHBORS WITHOUT AUTHORITY”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Sep. 16, 2011) — U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone is quoted as having said that “Jury Service is one of the highest duties of citizenship, for by it the citizen participates in the administration of Justice between man and man and between government and the individual.”
Extensive investigation shows that Mr. Gary Pettway, who acted as the foreman of the Monroe County grand jury for 20 years, was never officially appointed nor sworn in as mandated by the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure.
The Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts (TAOC) has referred The Post & Email to the Rules of Criminal Procedure when we have raised the issue of a grand jury foreman serving multiple terms, often for decades, advising that there is no limit on terms of service for the foreman. Tennessee law, or Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA), does not differentiate between the foreman and other grand jury members as to how they are selected, and Rule 6(g) of the RCP requires that the foreman “shall possess all the qualifications of a juror,” who cannot have served on a jury within the preceding 24 months according to TCA 22-2-314.
Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood has stated that “the grand jury foreman is no different than any other member of the grand jury.”
The Tennessee Courts website states that when there is a conflict between a court rule and state law, the rule takes precedence if it is more recent. Likewise, if a statute is more recent, the statute prevails:
These rules take precedence over preexisting statutes and case law which are in conflict with them, but statutes passed subsequent to their adoption which conflict with these rules shall control.
TCA 22-2-314 was passed in 2008 by the Tennessee legislature.
The Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts describes the duties of the grand jury foreman:
(4) Duties of Foreperson. The grand jury foreperson has the following duties:
(A) to assist and cooperate with the district attorney general in ferreting out crime, to the end that the laws may be faithfully enforced;
(B) out of term, to advise the district attorney general about law violations and to furnish names of witnesses, whom the district attorney general may, if he or she deems proper, order summoned to go before the grand jury at the next term;
(C) in term, (in addition to the district attorney general who also has such authority) to order the issuance of subpoenas for grand jury witnesses; and
(D) to vote with the grand jury, which vote counts toward the twelve necessary for the return of an indictment.
The final three paragraphs of Rule 6 appear to defer to state statutes. The Rules were updated in 2006 and “Advisory Commission” commentary provided in 2007.
Do court rules obstruct the intention of the Bill of Rights, particularly the Fifth Amendment?
The Fifth Amendment states:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Have the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure trumped the Fifth Amendment?
The grand jury foreman of 20 years in Hamilton County, TN was not reappointed because the judges questioned her objectivity after her two decades of service. However, her replacement is reportedly “a friend” of a Hamilton County judge. One reporter referred to the foremanship as a “job.” In 2007 Crabtree had stated that because her grand jury’s recommendations were not being heeded, “the criminals are winning.” The grand jury had advocated “a new jail” at the time.
The Hamilton County Grand Jury issued a report in 2008 to the Criminal Court judges citing overcrowding in the county jail, stating, “We are disappointed with elected county officials that they haven’t taken the time to tour the entire jail. “
Deplorable conditions have been reported in the Monroe County jail, but the grand jury has not exercised its duty in calling for improvements. The grand jury as well as trial juries have been reported to be routinely rigged.
The Tennessee District Attorneys General conference outlines the procedure of a Tennessee county grand jury as:
…a group of thirteen citizens chosen from the jury panel. One of these thirteen is the fore person and will preside over the grand jury. The grand jury hears testimony from witnesses in a private session. Neither the defendant nor his lawyer will be present at the grand jury hearing. A representative of the district attorney general’s office may be present when witnesses present their testimony, but the grand jury’s voting must be done in secret. If twelve of the thirteen grand jurors believe a crime was committed by the defendant, they will charge or ” indict” the defendant for that crime. The formal charge by the grand jury is called an INDICTMENT. Sometimes this charge is also referred to as a “true bill”. When the grand jury refuses to indict someone, its action is sometimes referred to as a “no true bill.” When the Grand Jury returns a “no true bill’ against a defendant, then that person cannot be brought to trial.
For Tennessee, there appears to be no grand juror handbook available online except at the federal level.
In Ohio, state law provides for the judge to appoint the foreman if he or she “satisfies the qualifications of a juror,” who must be selected randomly. Regarding terms of service, Ohio stipulates that “a person who has served as a grand juror at a term of court is prohibited from serving again, either as a grand juror or petit juror, in that jury year in which the service is rendered or in the next jury year. The person is entitled to a certificate of excuse or postponement in the same manner as a petit juror.”
A man in Lake County, OH has recently been appointed to a three-month term by a judge. The announcement states that “The grand jury is responsible for protecting innocent people from needless accusations and making sure evidence against the accused is considered fairly.”
Commentary from a former grand jury foreman claims that the District Attorney exerted undue influence over the grand jury. His observations include:
…what I had experienced is that the DA felt he or she was running the Grand Jury and sometimes would not allow us to ask all our questions. As if he or she was guiding us into a direction that the DA wanted us to go in.
I felt I was imprisoned for the 5 days, like the criminals we were deciding on were treated. Only difference we could go home at the end of the day. Our coming and goings were controlled, as well as our breaks and lunch breaks.
I almost feel that an advocate for the Grand Jury should of been there to protect the Grand Jury. Someone who is knowledgeable, like your web site is about the Grand Jury proceedings, limits and responsibilities.
In the Northern District of Illinois, court rules state that the judge appoints the foreman. The Foreperson’s Handbook states, “The grand jury works with the U.S. Attorney’s office, but is not controlled by that office.”
In the Commonwealth of Virginia, court rules allow for the judge to select the foreman, who “will then be sworn in under an oath that states your important powers and responsibilities. The remaining members of the Grand Jury are then sworn to observe the conditions of the same oath.”
Some states no longer convene grand juries, but rather, have handed the responsibility to prosecutors and investigative panels comprising only judges. One source states that the Fifth Amendment mandates grand juries only at the federal level.
In Texas, the judge appoints the grand jury foreman, but the qualifications of any potential grand juror may be questioned by members of the public.
In San Bernardino County, CA, “judges generally make an effort to select citizens who have some knowledge of community or governmental activities.” The main function of the grand jury is to oversee matters of civil government. “The Grand Jury may examine all aspects of County and government and special districts to ensure the best interests of San Bernardino County citizens are being served. “
Similar to other locales across the country, the judge appoints the foreman in San Bernardino County. The term of service for the grand jury is 12 months. To conclude its work, “Each year the Grand Jury prepares a final report that is delivered to the Court the day the succeeding Grand Jury takes office…Once the job is done and the report filed, the Grand Jury loses its power and influence; except perhaps in the influence its report has on the succeeding Grand Jury and from its “Continuity Report” which calls attention to any major problems it believes the new Grand Jury should follow through on.”
On April 1, 2010, Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III attempted to carry out a citizen’s arrest against Pettway for over-serving his term as foreman. Rule 6(g) of the Rules of Criminal Procedure state that a judge can appoint the foreman.
Fitzpatrick was then arrested by Monroe County sheriff’s deputies and Madisonville police and charged with disorderly conduct, disrupting a lawful assembly, and riot. Later that day, he was also charged with resisting arrest. Then on June 3, 2010, Fitzpatrick was charged with two felonies by the Monroe County grand jury which he stated was tainted “because they all knew Mr. Pettway.”
Fitzpatrick was convicted on December 1, 2010 on two misdemeanor charges. Two charges arising from a false arrest on October 27, 2010 were heard on June 23, 2011, resulting in a mistrial on one count and conviction on the other.
Beginning in February 2011 through September 15, Fitzpatrick issued a total of five requests for appointing orders for grand jury foremen from the Monroe County court clerk’s office as well as from several judges. He received no response to any of the subpoenas. On September 14, 2011, he requested “judicial appointing orders for foreman to the Monroe County Tennessee grand jury from 1985 to 2010 – each and every one.” The court clerk, Darlene Moser, responded, “I don’t know that we have those.” The only appointing order which was requested and fulfilled was that of the foreman for 2011, whose name is misspelled and for which the appointing order contains no effective date. Moreover, her predecessor, Mr. Pettway, was still serving on January 5, 2011. When Fitzpatrick pointed out the error in the current foreman’s name, the clerk answered, “We haven’t fixed it yet.”
Why are the court clerks unable to locate the appointing orders and oaths of office for the grand jury foreman from 1985 to 2010? Do they exist? If not, why not?
“Ross disrupted the proper citizen’s arrest knowing that he was trying to protect himself from being caught in allowing this impostor to operate in Ross’s court under his oversight for 20 years. Ross was caught in the moment, and he had to stop any further investigation into Mr. Pettway’s background, so he made up charges against me to attack me, to make me look like the criminal, not the government. Ross did that in a moment of panic. Ross knew that day that Pettway has no papers. Mr. Pettway has no papers, which is the exact situation we have with Mr. Obama.”
Fitzpatrick continued:
Any time that somebody finds out something that might lead to an investigation into government corruption in Monroe County, TN, or, by extension, the Tenth Judicial District, this person is attacked by the government and charged in a crime which is a subterfuge. It’s a make-believe crime which would never get through a legitimate grand jury. It’s exactly what they’re doing to Ms. Kennedy Powers, and exactly the same people are involved.
We were trying to arrest Mr. Pettway because he had been in the grand jury for 20 years. That was a crime in and of itslf. We did not know about his lack of documentation. We looked at the law in Tennessee and found that it was impossible for one person to be in that grand jury for 20 years as an individual by name. But who that day did know that Mr. Pettway had no papers? Carroll Ross. Carroll Ross knew that Mr. Pettway had no papers. He knew Pettway was a fraud and an impostor.
I didn’t commit a crime. They charged me with crimes I didn’t commit, and they’re doing the same thing against Ms. Jessica Powers.
Because Mr. Miller knew about what I’ve been talking to you about, or was perceived to have known, he was murdered by the government. It’s the same tactic; they do this all the time. Everybody in this court knows that it’s been going on for a long time.
Ross is intimately familiar with Pettway’s illegitimacy. Pettway has never taken an oath, and they’ve told Pettway that they’ll protect him. Then Pettway was caught and put under arrest, and Ross had to do something to protect himself because he knew he had been standing up this man as an impostor and a fraud. So in the moment that Mr. Pettway was being placed under citizen’s arrest, he panicked because he knew that there was nothing to show that Pettway was legitimate. He had no papers.
The Post & Email asked, “Is it similar to what the Obama supporters are doing: setting up an AttackWatch.com site, demonizing people, and hacking others’ websites, because they know that Obama has no papers?”
It’s exactly the same thing, and in this community, people are afraid to stand up and fight back because they know that the people doing this are capable of doing murder, and not just of them: they’re capable of murdering the kids, the wife, and of destroying people economically. They’ve seen it over and over again. This community is under siege. They’ve been terrorized by judges, district attorneys, and prosecutors. Mr. Miller’s murder was a message. Everybody in this community knows that Mr. Miller was put down by the government.
The Post & Email: “Even the local mainstream media has said that.”
Jim Miller was murdered because he knew what was about to be exposed, and he knew more. Mr. Miller was a government hit.
Requesting certification of the grand jury foreman should not be a big deal. When the fake Tennyson document was produced, they were able to do that in a day. Last Friday, George and I went in and requested it in the morning, and we recorded the request. We came back after lunch, and they had it in just a couple of hours. Then the sign was up banning recording devices. Why can’t they do the same thing for the appointing order for Mr. Pettway? Why couldn’t we get the paperwork for the last four years or even the last year? They couldn’t produce anything. Mr. Pettway has no papers. He’s a fraud, he’s an imposter, he’s a plant…one or the other of the two judges would be signing the appointing order for Mr. Pettway, but neither one complied with the subpoena. I was requesting these documents to defend myself to show that this man had been unlawfully installed by a judge into the Monroe County grand jury foremanship. In McMinn County, three judges put Mr. Riley in that position as a plant. If they come up with anything, now, it’s too late.
Mr. Pettway knew for himself that he wasn’t allowed to be there 20 years in a row. They didn’t keep any records. No one can come back at this and say they have the paperwork. They didn’t have it so I could use it to defend myself on June 23, and they don’t have it now. The reason I’m being brought into these fake trial settings is so that they can make it look as if I’m some kind of crazy guy so that William Bryan can set up a heavy police presence to make people look away from corruption in government and they’re trying to change the subject. We now know today that Mr. Pettway has no papers. Ross never saw this coming. So Ross brought up three fake charges against me to destroy the person who found corruption in government, which included Carroll Ross. This led back to Ross and Reedy, and Ross knew it, so that’s why he disrupted the citizen’s arrest. It was another signal to the community: “Don’t try and stand up against us; we can put you down. Don’t even think about doing this, because I’m going to take care of you.” And that’s what they’re doing with Ms. Jessica Kennedy Powers.
We have a crime syndicate that includes the make-believe assembly that has appropriated the name of a grand jury. Mr. Pettway has no papers. Mr. Obama has no papers.
Going after Mr. Pettway’s papers is an easy thing to do, so why not do it?
This is why they had four sheriff’s deputies monitoring my movements in the courthouse on Wednesday.
On June 28, 2010, when I was being arraigned, Ms. Cook testified. After that was over, Judge Ross handed down a series of prohibitions against me: “You can’t file documents in this court; you can’t come and look for documents in this court; you can’t talk to anybody…” In that court order, which was unconstitutional and unlawful, he said, “Don’t come back here looking for documents.” This is what shocked the people in the court that day. He was telling me, “Stay away from this court. Don’t go and investigate.” Well, the investigation continues, and now there is a continued and aggressive sheriff’s response. Here’s the deal: Ross is caught, and so is Reedy.
The larger issue is that nobody in the last 20 years has been brought through a system with a lawfully seated grand jury in Monroe County.
The irony of it all is that this all has come to our knowledge because of an attempt to get to the legitimacy of Obama in a complaint for treason. This whole thing has come full circle. In other words, we’ve found the same problems here in the local government that we were trying to repair in federal government because we were turned away at the federal level. Judge Royce Lamberth turned us away. The same thing is happening here.
Ms. Jessica Kennedy Powers is being held right now on an act of attainder. She is being punished without the permission of a jury. This is attainder in pure form. You can’t lock somebody up and keep them there. There’s a habeas action that can be taken here; judges can be brought under criminal accusation. We have had the practice of attainder in this community now for well over 20 years.
We now know today with certainty: Mr. Pettway has no papers; none.
The Post & Email: “Without documentation, we don’t even know for sure what his name is, just like Obama.”
Exactly. This is the same fear that is washing across the country. Nobody wants to step forward and say that Obama is a fraud for a number of reasons, but the chief reason is that they don’t want the government coming after them. They don’t want to be the next Jim Miller. Jim Miller was killed because of what he knew. We can say with certainty that Mr. Miller’s murder involved a government coverup of some type or kind if only because they didn’t take a look at that Marathon gas station on the evening of July 17, 2010. That’s all we need to show that the government is involved in this. Where is that Marathon gas station? It’s in Sweetwater, TN. Who is the police chief in Sweetwater, TN? A guy named Eddie Byrum. Who’s his cousin? Captain in the sheriff’s department Bennie Byrum. In the government plan, they tell Hilton, “We want you to go to the Marathon gas station, and this is what you do: You get rid of your clothing, you clean up your vehicle, you toss ’em in the dumpster, you’re done, and then you bolt out of here.” And that’s what they did. No one expected someone to be there to be there, to see this go on, recover the clothing, and take it to the Sweetwater Police Department.
What does the Sweetwater Police Department do? Well, they’re in on the fix. Hilton was told to go to Sweetwater and to do this and to do it that way, so when the Sweetwater Police Department had the bloodied clothes turned in to them, they didn’t do anything with them. Later that day, when Mr. Miller’s body was found, there was no police presence at that gas station. It was all done as a plan.
And now they’re trying to make this look like a burglary. No! No! No! This was a mob hit; a very carefully planned-out mob hit. Rick Crawley wasn’t questioned; the FBI didn’t look at him; the marshal’s office didn’t question him. The marshal’s office doesn’t have an obligation to investigate it, but they do have the responsibility to report this to other federal agencies that do have a duty to investigate it. The TBI has covered up this thing at length. There is no question any more: Mr. Pettway doesn’t have any papers. And that’s not the worst of it, because the worst of it would be stuff that Mr. Miller could report. So they killed him.
Mr. Miller was a luminary in this town. He was a big man in this town. They took down a guy who was respected and known, and everybody in town knows he was murdered because the government is out of control. Jim Miller had dirt on the government. His murder was a message. And this trial is another message to the community that says, “We’re going to get away with it again.” And Ross is at the center of it.
If they produce anything now, it’s too late.
Mr. Pettway is an impostor and a fraud. He has no papers. It is the same thing as Obama.
Editor’s Note: Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio has stated that he will be investigating the authenticity of Obama’s “papers.”