TENNESSEE INJUSTICE

Submitted by: Walter F Kirkpatrick

Eyewitness Report on Darren Huff Appeals Hearing

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Thursday, January 30, 2014 @ 10:54 PM In National | No Comments

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AUDIO OF HEARING ALSO AVAILABLE

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jan. 30, 2014) — The audio recording of a hearing held at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, OH on Thursday morning on behalf of Darren Wesley Huff is now available for listening or download at the court’s website.

Huff was represented at the hearing by Atty. Gerald Gulley Jr. of Knoxville, TN.  Over the past year or so, Huff told The Post & Email that he has experienced challenges in communicating with Gulley, as has the power of attorney Huff designated to handle his affairs.

Huff is currently incarcerated in the minimum-security prison at Texarkana, TX, with roughly 15 months left on his four-year sentence.

On April 20, 2010, Huff traveled to Madisonville, TN to attend a hearing for CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III, who had been arrested after attempting a citizen’s arrest on the grand jury foreman on April 1.  Fitzpatrick had discovered that the grand jury foreman had over-served his term at the hand of the local criminal court judge and therefore compromised the grand jury, which decides whether or not evidence presented for their review rises to the level of issuing an indictment.

Upon arriving in Madisonville that day, Huff met a friend, William Looman, and the two patronized a local restaurant after they were barred from attending Fitzpatrick’s hearing by sheriff’s deputies armed with assault rifles inside the courthouse.  Huff had locked his legally-owned firearms in the toolbox attached to the back of his truck before he arrived in Madisonville, which contradicts local news reports stating that he carried a pistol.

Despite an unusual, large deployment of law enforcers throughout the town to include snipers and a SWAT team, no incidents were reported, and there were no arrests.

PJ Foggy of The Fogbow later admitted to having told then-Mayor Allan Watson that a group of militia members had assembled a plan to “take over the courthouse” by force on April 20.  In response to the false warnings, agents from the FBI and TBI, local police, county sheriffs and Tennessee Highway Patrolmen were assigned to Madisonville for the day, although their presence proved unnecessary.

Ten days later, Huff was arrested on two federal firearms charges despite that he had neither carried nor threatened to use force against anyone over the course of April 20, 2010 and had traveled home uneventfully.

Local press toed the government line and did not make an effort to interview any eyewitnesses to the alleged events in Madisonville.  Contrary to media reports, Fitzpatrick’s attempt to arrest grand jury foreman Gary Pettway had no connection with Fitzpatrick’s previous charge of treason against Barack Hussein Obama.

At his trial in October 2011, Huff was acquitted on one charge and the jury produced a “hung” verdict on the other, after which Judge Thomas A. Varlan told them to “try again” “to reach a verdict.”

Fitzpatrick has illustrated that grand juries and trial juries are routinely intimidated, strongly influenced, and coerced into issuing decisions by prosecutors, judges, and grand jury foremen, who in Tennessee, are hired by the judge to occupy a patronage position.

District Attorney R. Steven Bebb testified at Huff’s trial that he had observed “someone he didn’t know” loading a gun outside of the Madisonville courthouse on April 20, 2010, but no one was ever identified or arrested for any wrongdoing other than Huff, ten days later.  Neither the media nor the police produced any photographs of the alleged “courthouse takeover,” which, in fact, never happened.

The FBI reportedly claimed that Huff’s arrest was justified because ”on April 21, Huff recorded a radio broadcast, talking about his traffic stop and saying he did have weapons and ammunition with him.  As a result, the FBI believes Huff had both the intent and means to carry out threats of violence.”

Several months ago, Huff informed The Post & Email that he still did not have the full transcript from his trial in October 2011.

An eyewitness who attended Thursday’s hearing reported the following:

I attended the hearing today in Cincinnati, at the 5^th [sic] Court of Appeals, in which both sides presented arguments in an attempt to support their position in this case.  The three judge panel included judge Boggs, judge Barrett, and judge Moore, a woman.  I arrived at approximately 0905 Hrs to find that the hearing had already begun, so I seated myself and began to take notes.  They would not allow any form of recording device, plus I had to turn my phone off, so I had to rely on hand written notes.

From a purely gut level, I felt like Darren’s court appointed attorney, who is doing an honorable thing in representing Darren, did not present a strong case in defense of Darren. Here is what I saw and heard.

On being seated inside the courtroom, I began to take notes immediately. The state’s attorney, hereinafter called “SA”, responded to a question from a judge who asked something about Darren’s “intent” to commit violence. The SA answered that he agreed Darren was intending to commit violence in and around the court building. They equated a citizen’s arrest with violence. The judge in the middle, judge Boggs, who I had a bad feeling about, made what I consider an attempt to “lead” the SA into providing certain information while attempting to speak about the law. He made an analogy saying, had it succeeded, could very well have turned the jurors against Darren.

His analogy was that if a person left their home with loaded weapons intent on robbing a bank, but while on the way to the bank, fell and severely bruised their ankles, then went back home rather than going through with their original intent to rob that bank, then that person could still be prosecuted for committing a bank robbery just as if he had actually committed the robbery. (Opinion: I find this preposterous as how can they know what someone “intended”) “Besides”, the judge continued, “what else could Mr Huff been planning as a citizen’s arrest is an inherently violent act”. (Again in my opinion, this is out of order as how can the judge make judgments like calling a citizen’s arrest an inherently violent act.)

Judge Barrett weighed in to bring up the topic of Assault Statutes and weapons used in the alleged assault.  The SA replied that Darren admitted that he did have multiple firearms & hundreds of rounds of ammunition. The officer testified that Darren HAD a Colt 45 and 2 AK-47’a.  He said this information was given by Darren to the highway patrolman who stopped Darren to give him a traffic citation, so the decision should NOT be overturned as the officer’s recollection of events did not match Darren’s, plus it did not violate the 4^th Amendment.

According to the SA, Darren was:

1. The SA said that Darren planned to take over the city

2. Darren told the officer he would take the guns with him into the courthouse as he had plans.

3. Darren said I have my Colt 45, and

4. According to the arresting officer, Darren said he “knew that no judge will go down quietly”.

5. Darren had been planning the attack for weeks with Walter Fitzpatrick.

Basically the judge (Boggs) sounded to me as if he was biased against Darren. Barrett seemed to slightly favor the notion that the charges were unlawful. Moore seemed neutral.

The Defense Attorney (DefA) spoke very briefly, perhaps 5 minutes. No new testimony was presented. Here are his remarks.

1. Officer said they were warned of the attack
2. DefA argued the 4^th Amendment was violated so the “evidence” was unlawfully obtained (he did not say what evidence he meant)
3. The DefA said Darren testified he (Darren) told the officer he had a Colt 45
a. Judge Boggs said the statute is the issue (did not identify which one)
4. DefA agreed the statute was the issue but that the statutes was bad
5. DefA said there was NO intent to use any weapon unlawfully, arguing that Darren carried the pistol lawfully.

My opinion: I was shocked the DefA offered so little discussion of any kind. It appeared to me that he was only going through the motions, though bear in mind this is MY perception only and may be incorrect. Still, when someone’s freedom is at stake, it would seem logical that an attorney would go to much greater effort in an attempt to prove the freedom and rights of the defendant were violated.

That is all I have to report. If I had been allowed to record the discussion there might have been a little more though the entire hearing only lasted 35 minutes.

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