IMMEDIATE RELEASE — David Tulis (423) 544-2285 davidtuliseditor@gmail.com
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Friday, April 3, 2026 – A judge sued Monday before the Supreme Court relented on Thursday and told a radio journalist that he would withdraw his denial over use of media equipment in his courtroom.
Mike Harris, a general sessions court judge in Lawrence County, sent NoogaRadio reporter David Tulis an e-mail Thursday stating, “In order to satisfy your persistence, I am granting your request to bring your press equipment into the [arraignment] hearing for Mr. Hirsch next Monday, April 6th.”
Tulis sued the judge by invoking the plenary supervisory authority of the Tennessee Supreme Court in a petition submitted Monday to the clerk and filed Tuesday in Nashville.
“I appreciate the honorable judge’s yielding to my reasonable petition in having him rescind his groundless and unreasonable denial of my use of my phones as camera and audio recording devices,” Tulis said. “But the credit should go not to persistence, but to the rules themselves, which are reasonable and good. I give God all the glory in any good I have done.”
The defendant in the traffic case Tulis intends to cover Monday is Arthur Jay Hirsch, who is making an unprecedented argument intending to decriminalize traffic stops in Tennessee. In filings, Hirsch says the state has failed to exhaust its administrative remedies in pursuing enforcement of the driving privilege.
