Tag: Memphis

  An attorney representing Memphis Judge James Lammey has asked The Memphis Commercial Appeal to retract and apologize for an article suggesting he is an anti-semite. As The Tennessee Star reported, an article Lammey shared  on Facebook— with David Cole as author — appeared on a website called takimag.com and was, at least according to the newspaper, anti-Semitic in nature. Lammey told The Tennessee Star he never agreed with the content and said as much on Facebook. Lammey only said he thought it was interesting. In his letter, Bolivar-based attorney Stephen L. Hale told the newspaper their article was “reckless, defamatory, and constitutes libel, per se.” “The publisher has used this opportunity to launch not only a political attack against a sitting judge but to assail his core values as a civilized human being. Because of the publisher’s purposeful and reckless avoidance of the truth the reputation of Judge Lammey has been irreparably harmed; he has received hundreds of phone calls from all parts of the country accusing him of being a Holocaust denier, anti-Semite and racist,” Hale wrote. “Valuable time has been taken away from his duties the citizens of Shelby County, Tennessee elected him to do as well as the time his…

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  A coalition of left-leaning activists is reportedly pushing for authorities to formally censure Memphis Criminal Court Judge Jim Lammey after he published a Facebook post they considered inflammatory. As The Tennessee Star reported, people unloaded a torrent of anger after Lammey shared an article from someone the mainstream media later identified as a Holocaust denier. Lammey said, however, he did not know that about the author at the time. In his role as a judge, Lammey also makes illegal immigrants register with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In Tennessee, there is a process to censure a judge. “The Administrative Office of the Courts cannot censure judges. Judges are censored by the Board of Judicial Conduct, which was created by the legislature to investigate, and, when warranted, act on complaints about a judge,” said Barbara Peck, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. “The Board of Judicial Conduct normally does not confirm or deny whether a complaint has been filed against a judge. However, according to Judge Dee Gay, who serves as chair of the BJC, because Judge Lammey’s conduct is a matter of public record at this point, he can confirm that an investigation is under…

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If you’re a Tennessee resident driving to Mississippi or Arkansas on Interstate 40 and you desperately want to avoid Memphis and its high crime and sanctuary policies then you have an option to do just that. If you’re heading westbound on I-40 toward Memphis you can connect with the new Interstate 269 at Arlington and head south to connect to Hernando, Miss. From there you can continue west toward Arkansas or go further south into Mississippi. I-269 only goes for about three miles in Tennessee before it crosses the state line into Mississippi, said Tennessee Department of Transportation spokeswoman B.J. Doughty, in an email. Doughty told The Tennessee Star that the route opened in the fall of 2015. But The Star noticed GPS systems such as Waze and the iPhone Maps app only recently began suggesting the route as a way around Memphis. “The cost of the 2.9 mile section from Mississippi to SR 385 cost $42,654,646.01,” Doughty said. “This project cost was split – 20% state and 80% federal.” According to the Hernando, Miss.-based DeSoto Times-Tribune this month, construction crews completed the portion of the I-269 project, apparently in Mississippi, last fall. “The new interstate connects Tennessee’s State Route…

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A 29-year-old Memphis man pled guilty Wednesday to a drunk-driving crash that killed a motorist in Memphis. Members of the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office refused to say if that man, Ramiro Junior, is an illegal immigrant. The crash happened in 2015, south of Poplar Avenue, said Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich, in a press release. According to Memphis TV station WREG, at the time of the crash police found several bottles of Corona beer — open and unopened — inside Junior’s car. The car also had 18 bottles in the back seat. No one at the district attorney’s office returned The Tennessee Star’s repeated requests for comment Wednesday on Junior’s immigration status. Criminal Court Judge John Campbell sentenced Junior to eight years in prison for vehicular homicide involving alcohol. Junior’s blood-alcohol content was .111, according to a press release. Jose R. Jaimes, 24, died in that crash. “Investigators said Junior was driving an SUV at (a) high rate of speed westbound on I-240 when he lost control, spun into another lane and struck a sedan, injuring two occupants and killing Jaimes,” the press release said. Sam Winnig of the district attorney’s DUI Prosecution Unit handled the case,…

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The Tennessee Black Voter Project wants to inspect voter registration forms that members of the Shelby County Election Commission rejected. As reported, the election commission rejected many applications because some were duplicates of already-registered voters. Other applications were incomplete. Felons who cannot vote filed other applications. But Administrator of Elections Linda Phillips told The Tennessee Star it’s unlikely members of the Tennessee Black Voter Project can access the forms right now. “One of the problems with that is, of course, in some senses everything we have is a public record, except there are these Social Security numbers on the forms, and they have to be redacted,” Phillips said. “They are more than welcome to inspect the forms, but they have to wait until we have time to redact the Social Security numbers, which is not something we can do during an early voting period of this election.” According to The Associated Press, members of the Tennessee Black Voter Project filed a lawsuit Monday asking to see the rejected voter registration forms. They and other groups submitted more than 36,000 registrations. The commission, however, said about 55 percent of them were invalid. Phillips, however, defended the detailed process her staff uses…

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