Brickbat: Overruled


Credit: steakpinball / photo on flickr

On one single day, Tennessee Circuit Judge John McAfee overturned three rulings by Campbell County General Sessions Judge Amanda Sammons that removed a total of four children from their homes over the objections of the Department of Children's Services. DCS not only told Sammons they did not wish to remove the children from their homes but they saw no legal grounds to do so. Sammons removed two of the children without even holding a hearing. McAfee says he routinely has to issue emergency orders stays of Sammon's removal orders and overturns her removal orders on a weekly basis.

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  1. Sammons tried this week to block McAfee from issuing stays or overturning her decisions, filing a stack of motions challenging his authority to do so. McAfee ignored the filings, terming them “improper.”

    I ran into the same problem when I tried to remove McAfee from my laptop. It’s near impossible to get rid of.

      1. Yes. Let us all narrow our gazes.

        1. gaze narrowed…what now? I have to walk around all day like this?

          1. LIKE A CHINA-MAN??? You’re racist.

  2. Even after she signed Byrge’s expungement order at McAfee’s urging, Sammons insisted the fault rested with Hatmaker. She alleged in an answer that Hatmaker failed to follow up. Hatmaker countered she was lying and demanded she submit to questions under oath, the court file showed. She didn’t show up at the Friday deposition. Hatmaker on Monday filed a motion to have Sammons held in contempt and sanctioned. McAfee ruled Monday her status as a government official protected her but suggested Hatmaker pursue “other remedies.” He didn’t specify at the do-over hearing what that would entail.

    That’s an unrelated case. In addition to being an apparent idiot, she’s -surprise, surprise – a former prosecutor. Poor McAfee. His days seemed filled with fixing her fuckups. Lucky for her she’s virtually untouchable by the commoners.

    1. but suggested Hatmaker pursue “other remedies.

      McAfee must own a wood chipper dealership.


      Where is that in the constitution again? Oh yeah, the FYTW clause.

    3. “former prosecutor” – yep, that’ll do it. Chris Christie: if we have to, we’ll send law enforcement into Mexico to arrest drug dealers even if Mexico objects because, as a former prosecutor, I know sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do and sometimes the technicalities of the law have to be brushed aside.

  3. It seems that government,at all levels,is inhabited by the worse sort..The power hungry,lazy type that can not make it in the private sector.

    1. Some people just need wood chipping.

    2. Ahem. *Improper* court documents.

    3. It looks like she destroyed that web page. I only get the paper’s banner, and no text

  4. Wow. Just…wow. Sammons is some kind of wicked evil.

    She’s woodchipper worthy.

    1. Her picture reminds me somewhat of a young lady I dated years ago: Attractive up until she unleashes the crazy that’s inside.

      1. Crazy chicks are great in bed,as many here have said.Just,never give them your real name,number or address.

        1. Unfortunately, Adans, she hid the crazy very capably for quite some time. I think she had a lot of practice, given what I found out later.

          Interestingly enough, a gay buddy of mine warned me to be careful the first time he met her. Obviously, I should have listened to his advice.
          A few years later I returned the favor when I met his boyfriend, who even to my Cis-eyes could have probably found work as a model. After my buddy had had enough of that fellow’s craziness I asked him why he didn’t break it off sooner. He told me that it was because the guy was hot and the sex incredible.

          I suppose the seeming crazy/great in bed link crosses personal preferences and natural wiring.

  5. I may have mentioned here my sister used to work at DFCS but had to quit after the stress got too bad, There are two types of people who work in the trenches at DFCS, (three if you count the bureaucrats-in-training who just want the experience that moves them into a paper-shuffling administrative role) the do-gooders and the do-the-best-you-canners. The do-gooders know how you should raise your kids and you’re going to by-god do what they say, the ones like my sister try to help you raise your kids the way you’re trying to raise them. As my sister put it, some of them when they go on a home visit ding you for dirty dishes in the sink because they think it means you’re not properly supervising the maid, my sister would check to make sure there were dirty dishes in the sink because it meant the kids had had something to eat recently. If you’re involved with DFCS, you’re probably poor and stupid and make bad choices, but being poor and stupid and making bad choices isn’t a crime and it doesn’t mean you don’t love your kids and aren’t trying to raise them the best you can. And as much as a poor, stupid, bad-choice making parent may not do a good job raising a kid, getting snatched by DFCS is likely going to be far worse for the kid. You do the best you can.

    1. We constantly have dirty dishes in the sink.

      It’s funny you say that because each time I set to clean the house in the back of my head the thought of a bureaucrat coming in not knowing or wanting to know the context of why it’s so is always there.

      Now try and tell me we’re not an over-bureaucratized society; or at least live in a time where there’s an over-reliance on government. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this.

    2. “If you’re involved with DFCS, you’re probably poor and stupid and make bad choices,”

      You may need to brush up on how DFCS operates nowadays. My sister, who is a very intelligent actuarial account that makes near $100k a year has been visited by DFCS multiple times for no other reason than her teenage step children lying to their teachers about physical abuse when they don’t get their way at home. Seriously, they scream abuse every fucking time they are denied anything. Now don’t get me wrong, my sister is an emotional idiot for staying with her lazy, layabout husband and his shitty kids but she’s not a child abuser. Kids today, as I’m sure you know, are encouraged to rat on any guardian for any perceived form of abuse, real or not. It’s the fucking Iron Youth all over again and what was once an issue for the “poor and stupid” has crept into firmly middle-class to affluent households.


    I should think her days are numbered. Remove this nut job before she does more damage.

    And what kind of voter supports someone who ‘promises a revolution’? Last I checked was violence and crime that serious to be moved by a over-zealous, fire-breathing judge promising to clean things up?

  7. We had a nut job on the bench in the 7th district (Louisiana). It took 8 years and a crowbar to get him off, and that was with two other judges and the prosecutor working at it.

    Sammons’ days are numbered, but how much damage will she do in the mean time? They can’t have a recall election?

    1. I’m confident they’ll manage to remove her after she destroys a mere dozens of lives. Other judges showing these insane judges deference, you know, in case they themselves might need it later, enables this kind of asshattery (notice her rulings were overturned but she doesn’t face any kind of personal or professional responsibility). They’re like the good cops who look the other way while bad cops take bribes.

    2. How many times did they have to hit him with the crowbar? must have been whacking him in shifts with 3 people working on him!

    1. Firt arugala, now anti-poor policies… you’ve gone full Blue, haven’t you? Next you’ll be ranting about Boooshes.

      1. I’m going to start calling y’all “peanuts.”

    2. This Judge Sammons is looking worse and worse.

  8. You know, I hear Judge Judy’s tenure at CBS, or wherever she is syndicated, is almost up…

  9. “McAfee says he routinely has to issue emergency orders stays of Sammon’s removal orders and overturns her removal orders on a weekly basis.”
    Shit, that must be super awkward when they run into each other at the supermarket or at judge cocktail parties or whatever.

    1. They probably talk like old friends and wish each other a good evening.

      Among, the many things I learned through a handful of unavoidable litigations is that “officers of the court” i.e. all lawyers, judges etc, have a collegiality that would make any police union proud. Even the genuinely good ones are perfectly capable of acting like each other are the devil in the courtroom, then having a friendly chat about pro ball literally the moment they get out in the hallway.


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