Preserving your rights in city court....

[Police Moderator]

Preserving your rights in city court; judge fields my odd liberty queries
May 10, 2013 by David Tulis

City court serves as a pressure relief valve for the judicial system, where cases can be disposed of in a bench trial — the judge sitting without a jury — in an informal and hasty way. City court arises from the common law office of justice of the peace, men who dispensed summary justice under local or town law. They are, in a way, “people’s courts,” and often the only place Chattanoogans encounter the legal system.

One city court judge in Hamilton County is Marty Lasley. Having practiced law in Chattanooga for 25 years, Mr. Lasley was elected as a two-year replacement judge in Soddy-Daisy in August. When the term is over he may run for an eight-year term. In an interview, Mr. Lasley tackles several questions that have had me tied in knots. These questions pertain to the means whereby you, the defendant, can maintain your rights.

City court and general sessions courts are the same. The judges are elected. But in neither do you get a jury trial. Your right to a jury in a criminal matter and in disputes over $50 is protected in the constitution. You have “an absolute right, an absolute right” to a jury trial, Mr. Lasley says.

“All you have to do is ask me, and say, ‘I want a jury trial.’ and the judge does not have discretion to weigh it, to decide whether that’s a good idea or a bad idea, this case is so small, that’s wasting the everybody’s [time]. There’s no discretion. If you ask for a jury trial, I sign a line and you go straight up to criminal circuit court, and they have the apparatus to give you a jury trial.”

Read more: nooganomics

Judge Marty Lasley does a great job of handling the Sovereign Citizenish view from the far right (So far right it is almost left!)

If one wishes to listen to one of the most reasonable explanations of Constitutional 'reasonableness', the ever involving (In real time) 'totality of the circumstances' concept, and how our basic legal 'system' works, listen to the entire radio piece linked in the article.

Great work, Judge.