Displaying items by tag: twra abuses

Hunter Hollingsworth, at his family’s Benton County property, successfully sued the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency over unwarrantless searches of his property. An appellate court upheld a lower court ruling against the agency.  John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout

This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.

In a blistering and unanimous opinion, the judges called TWRA’s legal defense of its tactics a “disturbing assertion of power on behalf of government.”

NASHVILLE — State game wardens cannot enter private property in Tennessee without a warrant, the state’s Court of Appeals ruled last week.

The decision puts in check a unique power wielded for decades by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency to secretly patrol and surveil Tennesseans’ privately-owned lands for potential violations of hunting, fishing and wildlife laws.

TWRA officers don’t seek permission from a judge before entering private property, need no supervisor approval, keep no records of their searches and don’t inform property owners — sometimes donning camouflage or installing cameras to secretly monitor activities based on the suspicions of an individual officer.

The blistering and unanimous opinion by a three-judge panel compared TWRA’s tactics to British customs officials who were granted unlimited “writs” by the king of England to conduct arbitrary searches in the years leading to the Revolutionary War — abusive actions that would go on to inform the establishment of the U.S. Constitution’s 4^th Amendment protecting Americans from illegal government searches and seizures. 

Lamar bestows a kiss on one of her raptors. John Partipilo via Tennessee Lookout

Judge rules that Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency grossly overstepped its bounds following citizen complaint

This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.

NASHVILLE — Holly Lamar, a master falconer and owner of a Nashville “bird experience” business, has a story to tell about each one of her 13 captive-bred birds of prey.

The story behind Faith, a 7-year-old peregrine falcon, is tied to a particularly rough patch for Lamar, who experienced success as a Grammy-nominated songwriter, then lost nearly everything. The 20-day-old chick arrived just after Lamar fell victim to a financial scam that wiped out earnings from her music career.

She picked the name “Faith” to symbolize the feelings of trust she was trying to regain in her life — and as a nod to Faith Hill, the country singer who recorded “Breathe,” a 1999 megahit co-written by Lamar. 

Faith, the falcon, is now dead — one of 13 falcons seized by officers with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency in a sweeping August search of Lamar’s home and property that a Nashville judge later characterized as “egregious,” an “abuse of the law” and a violation of Lamar’s constitutional rights.