What Does the TN Administrative Office of the Courts Have to Say about Blackwood’s Rant?

JUDGE PERSONALLY DISPARAGES DEFENDANT AND “CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Aug. 20, 2014) — On Wednesday morning, The Post & Email sent the following inquiry to Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts (TAOC) Communications Director Michele Wojciechowski, with whom we had made contact approximately two months ago regarding our concerns about the legality of judges’ actions and decisions as reported over the last five years.

Wojciechowski had promised to research our questions and arrange a time to speak with us, but after we sent her recordings of the Fitzpatrick trial from June 23 and 24, we never heard from her again.  She did, however, say in one of her last emails that she would “not have time” to listen to the recordings.

Hello Michele, may I obtain a comment from you on the statement made by Senior Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood at a sentencing hearing yesterday?

He said on the record:

“I’m sick and tired of all these people who want to talk about their Constitutional rights.”

http://timesfreepress.com/news/2014/aug/19/fitzpatrick-gets-three-years-prison-mcminn-extorti/?news

While the above article had some mistakes about which I contacted the reporter and he then changed, four eyewitnesses reported that the same comment from Blackwood to me just after the hearing.

Also, the pre-sentencing investigation report found “there are no victims in the case of 14-CR-69.”  However, yesterday at the hearing, prosecutor A. Wayne Carter was reported to have said, “We’ve decided that there was a victim in the case.”  How does that reconcile legally and judicially?

Please refer to page 3 for the investigator’s statement.

Blackwood additionally pounded his fist on the bench repeatedly and called Fitzpatrick a “moral coward.”  Is this normal comportment for Tennessee judges?

Have you been able to perform your research so that we could set up a time to speak?

Thank you.

Sharon Rondeau, Editor
The Post & Email
www.thepostemail.com
P.O. Box 195
Stafford Springs, CT  06076
203-987-7948

We then included, in printer-friendly format, the entire article containing the pre-sentencing report from Parole Board investigator Judith Hilton-Coffman here.

After sending our message, we received the following response:

I will be out of the office attending the Judicial Academy until Monday, August 25. I will be checking emails occasionally and will respond as soon as possible.

Thanks,

Michele