In the wake of the Covid pandemic U.S. Supreme Court Judge Neil Gorsuch recently declared, “Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”

Gorsuch also wrote,

In the 1970s, Congress studied the use of emergency decrees. It observed that they can allow executive authorities to tap into extraordinary powers. Congress also observed that emergency decrees have a habit of long outliving the crises that generate them; some federal emergency proclamations, Congress noted, had remained in effect for years or decades after the emergency in question had passed. [Emphasis added.]

When it comes to devouring citizens’ rights, the federal government, of course, has no monopoly. In fact, some of the most flagrant violations occur at the municipal level.

As local governments face budget shortfalls, it is tempting for them to use excessive fines and fees for code violations to trim the gap in their budget deficits. The sad reality is that, instead of protecting the lives and rights of the citizens, municipalities and counties use them to make up for shortfalls in their budgets.

America’s founding principle of “No Taxation Without Representation” is readily supplanted by “Taxation By Citation.” This new doctrine generates nasty conflicts of interest and violates the rights of ordinary Americans, many times ensnaring those who don’t have the means to defend themselves in court.

One of the most Kafkaesque abuses reported originates from the Shelby County Environmental Court in Tennessee. Division 14 of the Shelby County General Sessions Court, known locally as the “Environmental Court,” handles approximately 17,000 vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated single-family houses in neighborhoods across Shelby County. “The truth is that the Shelby County Environmental Court is a gift that keeps on giving in Memphis neighborhoods. It is a necessary and powerful tool which we as a community should rally to support and strengthen,” said Attorney Vincent Sawyer, who represents the Tennessee Receivership Group.

The ugly reality is that, unlike real courts, the Environmental Court doesn’t swear in witnesses, authenticate evidence, or even bother to record its proceedings, leaving defendants without a record with which to appeal. Regarding testimony, “witnesses” may stand up in the audience and speak. They do not have to take an oath to tell the truth. Thus, when they “testify,” there are no constraints (whether moral or in the form of a perjury charge) on their veracity.

The court does not follow the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure or the Tennessee Rules of Evidence. Instead, the Environmental Court’s proceedings are governed by the Shelby County General Session Rules, which are six pages long and are largely concerned with courtroom decorum.

Boiled down to its essentials, the Environmental Court is not a “court of record” under Tennessee law. Often one finds waiting in the wings court-appointed housing organizations ready to make money off other people’s hardship with liens against their homes, placing them into “receivership.”

The Environmental Court is an example of a governmental agency that was created to deal with a specific problem. In this case, an epidemic of blight that cropped up over the years due to huge numbers of abandoned homes. Originally designed to provide streamlined procedures for abandoned homes, the court operated largely in secret, totally lacking any oversight. Think of a train wreck waiting to happen.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the “court” went after owners of occupied, rather than abandoned, homes. Currently, the Environmental Court is weaponized to utterly destroy people’s lives.

The Environmental Court wrecks Sarah Hohenberg’s life

Take the case of Sarah Hohenberg. Like Dante’s inferno rings of hell, her ten-year trek through the Environmental Court has left her bankrupt and homeless, having lost all her possessions and become a fugitive from the law.

The trouble began in June 2009 when violent storms ripped through Memphis, and two oak trees fell on her house while she and her daughter were sleeping.

“It was really so scary, and I just feel like we’re so lucky to be alive,” said Hohenberg of the experience.

The fallen trees destroyed the roof, forcing Hohenberg and her daughter to move into a two-room guest house out back. The situation worsened when her insurance company denied her claim for repairs. While Ms. Hohenberg’s insurance paid for the removal of the trees and for temporary repairs to the home, it would not permanently fix the structure. She was forced to sue the insurance company for a more comprehensive settlement.

While the suit was ongoing, her neighbors were concerned that repairs were not happening quickly enough. They sued her in Environmental Court and, eventually, the Evergreen Historic District, a non-profit entity, took over as plaintiff. The Environmental Court proceeding lasted a decade, leaving Hohenberg with an estimated $100,000 in attorney’s fees. She was forced to file for bankruptcy and, during those proceedings, was stricken with a stroke.

In 2018, a receiver took possession of her 3,500-square-foot residence. The Environmental Court ordered Hohenberg to sign a quit-claim deed so the house could be auctioned to the highest bidder. Ms. Hohenberg refused to sign the deed provoking the judge to issue a warrant for her arrest on contempt charges. Despite the last-ditch desperate maneuver, Hohenberg lost her home anyway.

Hohenberg, who was nearly 70 and in frail health, feared that jail would kill her. At that point, she fled Tennessee and landed in Mississippi, where her son paid for her to stay at a hotel. The court then ordered her possessions out of the home and, unable to move her possessions herself or pay for someone to move them, the City of Memphis eventually threw her personal possessions into the street, leaving them vulnerable to plundering.

Having seized Hohenberg’s home of 25 years and destroyed her physical and mental health, on June 24, 2019, the Environmental Court callously dismissed her case. Ironically, her house remains standing but has continued to deteriorate and is now in worse shape than it was when the Environmental Court forced her to leave the property.

“I didn’t think in a million years, because I owned my house, that they could come and take my house away from me and they did,” Hohenberg said of the experience.

Image: Sarah Hohenberg.

Enter the Institute For Justice

The Institute for Justice (IJ) is an activist nonprofit law firm that was founded in 1990 with a unique long-term strategic plan for success. As of June 2021, they have racked up an impressive eight Supreme Court victories. In fact, IJ claims that its attorneys win three out of four cases either through courtroom victories or legislative action spurred by their lawsuits.

In June 2020, after enduring 11 years of unrelenting trauma, Ms. Hohenberg partnered with the Institute for Justice, which promptly filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. In August 2020, the suit was dismissed without even considering the merits. That was how matters stood until May 19, 2023, when, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated IJ’s case against the Shelby County Environmental Court.

The Institute’s case aims to ensure that the Environmental Court and similar housing courts across the country comply with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Constitution forbids courts from depriving people of their property and liberty without proper procedural protections. The ruling provides an opportunity for IJ to continue to represent Sarah Hohenberg and fight for her rights. The battle continues.