“CRIMINALIZING THE FIRST AMENDMENT“
by Sharon Rondeau
(Aug. 7, 2014) — This writer will be speaking with Dr. Laurie Roth of The Roth Show on Thursday night to discuss new developments stemming from the convictions of CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III (Ret.) for taking evidence of judicial corruption to his local grand jury.
On June 24, twelve jurors from McMinn County, TN convicted Fitzpatrick, a 24-year, honorably-discharged Navy veteran, of “aggravated perjury” and “extortion” after he attempted to submit evidence to the McMinn County grand jury involving its foreman, local judges and prosecutors, and the local sheriff, Joe Guy.
None of the jurors has been responsive to The Post & Email’s multiple requests for an interview regarding their experiences as a member of the jury on the Fitzpatrick case.
McMinn, Bradley, Polk and Monroe Counties comprise the Tenth Judicial District, where a new District Attorney General was sworn in on July 1 by a law-breaking judge, Carroll Lee Ross.
A member of the public who attended the trial on the morning of June 23 told The Post & Email that there was “no way” the jury could have adequately reviewed the “evidence” provided to them to conclude that Fitzpatrick had committed “aggravated perjury,” as there were numerous petitions Fitzpatrick had attempted to submit over several months and the time spent by the jury could not have included reading them in their entirety.
The prosecution produced no police report, criminal complaint or hard evidence against Fitzpatrick. Three years ago in the case of Michael Dewy Ellington in Monroe County, which shares the same judges as McMinn County, Ellington was sentenced to life in prison for a murder without any forensic evidence or testing having been done.
On August 19, Fitzpatrick is facing sentencing by Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood for a possible multiple-year prison term for attempting to exercise his First Amendment right to petition his government for redress of grievances. His attorney, Van Irion, has vowed to appeal if enough money can be raised to purchase the transcript and file the necessary documents in time. Irion has been representing Fitzpatrick pro bono.
Two funds have been established to assist with Fitzpatrick’s defense in his support of constitutional rights and exposure of judicial corruption in Tennessee and its greater impact on the nation at large.
Judicial corruption in Tennessee has remained unaddressed for decades as criminal court judges have been permitted to hand-select the grand jury foreman from the community without vetting and retain him or her for years or decades, if desired.
On Wednesday, The Post & Email was a guest on the Abel Danger radio show hosted by Lt. Col. Field McConnell (Ret.), who operates a private intelligence operation. Just after McConnell’s show ended at approximately 4:07 p.m., The Post & Email was Brian Lange’s guest on LiveTruthRadio.
Abel Danger will again be discussing the Fitzpatrick case on Friday beginning at 1:00 p.m. CDT/2:00 p.m. EDT, and Lange has asked this writer to return to provide updates as the sentencing date draws nearer.
McConnell has promised to file a wrongful death lawsuit against “Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Soetoro” for the approximately 2,000 men and women who have died in the U.S. Armed Forces since Obama took office on January 20, 2009. With a long-form birth certificate and Selective Service registration form declared fraudulent by a law enforcement investigation more than two years ago, many believe that Obama has hidden his true past from the American public.
McConnell also plans to be in Athens, TN from August 17-19 to hold a prayer breakfast on Monday, August 18 and accompany Fitzpatrick to the courthouse to stand with him during Blackwood’s sentencing. However, McConnell stated that he believes enough pressure can be brought to bear on Blackwood and the corrupt Tennessee judiciary to vacate the verdicts, particularly if enough national outrage over the criminalizing of the First Amendment ensues.
McConnell calls Blackwood “Obama’s Puppet Judge.”
Blackwood can be reached at 865-594-6118. Members of the U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Committees can be reached at 202-225-3951 and 202-224-7703, respectively. Many readers of The Post & Email have contacted the latter to demand a congressional investigation into the Tennessee court system, which includes at least two federal-level courts.
Irion interviewed with Roth shortly after the verdicts were issued, stating, “I’m now afraid to go to the grand jury.” A listener to the show and Marine Corps veteran wrote on Thursday that “The ENTIRE MILITARY establishment is under attack via Veterans Administration abuses, the privatization of DoD, the privatization of military intelligence and the errors of Judge Blackwood and his ilk.”
The Fifth Amendment provides for a grand jury to act as a buffer between government prosecutors and the citizenry in cases of “capital” or “infamous crimes,” but its independence has largely been eclipsed by the judiciary in many parts of the country. With judicially-selected foremen, Tennessee grand juries are unduly influenced and, according to Irion, most likely not well-versed in the law and America’s founding documents.
In virtually every federal district in the country, the U.S. Attorney has the sole discretion whether or not to provide evidence of crimes to the federal grand juries over which he has purview. The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, William C. Killian, has refused to accept any evidence from Fitzpatrick relating to judicial corruption in Tennessee’s Tenth District. The Post & Email has been told that any evidence ultimately reaching the federal grand juries must come from a law enforcement agency, not a private citizen.
The Roth Show can be heard Monday through Friday beginning at 7:00 p.m. PT/10:00 p.m. ET and is available by podcast.
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On a different “note,” an interview with The Post & Email’s editor is featured on Thursday’s broadcast of “The Jack Price Show” discussing her musical career.