Tisdale Lesson, Submit or Else

Nydia Tisdale During Recent Trial

I had never been to a criminal trial before. But because I know Nydia Tisdale and am interested in her case, I attended numerous hours of her trial, spanning five days of testimony which concluded this past Monday in Dawsonville.  Later that evening, after four hours of deliberating, the jury concluded, and justifiably so, that Nydia Tisdale committed no crime for which she deserved to be arrested.  In the same breath, however, they convicted her for misdemeanor obstruction for resisting arrest.  So let’s see if we can wrap our minds around this.  According to the jury, Nydia Tisdale did nothing to deserve being arrested, yet she was arrested anyway.  And during the arrest for which she had done nothing wrong, she resisted the officer in some minor fashion, but enough to earn her a misdemeanor conviction.  Now who among us would not in the very least question why we might be arrested when all we are doing is sitting quietly, peaceably engaged in a perfectly lawful activity?  According to that jury, doing so would earn us a conviction.

Importantly, the effect of that verdict is to absolve the arresting officer of any culpability, at least for the time.  Regardless what may ever come of this trial or future ones, the Dawson County jury found by its verdict that it was not the officer’s fault.  So in essence, they also found that it was not the fault of the Dawson County Sheriff’s Department.  And if it was not the fault of the sheriff’s department, it also was not the fault of Dawson County.  And if it was not the fault of Dawson County, the arrest of Ms. Tisdale, for committing no crime at all, was not the fault of government.

When a wrongful arrest occurs, how can it be that no one is at fault?  How can it be that no one made even the slightest mistake?  How can it be that the person wrongfully arrested, wrongfully inflicted with pain and wrongfully imprisoned, is herself wrong and no one else is culpable?  How is it that no one is responsible for the wrongful arrest? The wrongful order to arrest?  The wrongful persuasion to issue the wrongful order to arrest?  The wrongful imprisonment?  How does a case like this happen?

The Dawson County jury told the entire world that Nydia Tisdale did not deserve to be arrested, yet she was arrested anyway and it was literally no one’s fault.
 
I do not buy that.  There was indeed fault here.  Nydia Tisdale was wrongfully arrested, harmed and imprisoned.  Someone is at fault and they should pay.  Nydia Tisdale was convicted for, in some slight way, resisting a wrongful arrest.

And when she was wrongfully arrested, as the verdict attests she was, even though the jury absolved the arresting officer of any wrong doing, all parties agreed he did not use proper protocol in making the arrest.  He admitted he did not properly identify himself, his authority for making the arrest or the reason she was being arrested.  And as his reason for not following protocol, during his testimony the arresting officer insisted that he bypassed all normal arrest formalities out of a concern for public safety. That’s right; according to the arresting officer, he believed the quiet lady with the video camera was a danger to the public.  But no other witness had that concern.  When asked whether they believed Ms. Tisdale presented a threat to public safety, virtually every other witness including the Georgia Insurance Commissioner, the Attorney General and Labor Commissioner agreed that Ms. Tisdale presented no imaginable threat.  Importantly, however, unless he might convince a jury that he believed Ms. Tisdale presented a threat to the public, the arresting officer would have no excuse for not following protocol.  So ask yourself how it might be that the only person at the entire rally who, at least at this point, believed then that Nydia Tisdale was a danger to the public, also happened to be the arresting officer who did not follow proper protocol in the arrest? Think about that one, friends.

What kind of a society do we have when the government can arrest us, when we have done nothing wrong, nothing illegal, violated no one’s rights, presented no imaginable public threat, but when the dust settles the government has done nothing wrong?
 
I ask those questions because, according to the Dawson County jury this week, American citizens who have perpetrated no crime, trespassed no property, hurt no individuals, but sit quietly to themselves enjoying the meager freedoms they have left, are required by law to submit to the arbitrary and unfounded orders of the government, regardless of authority, regardless of virtue, regardless of reason, and turn themselves over for arrest.
 
What I saw in Dawson County this week was shameful, a travesty of justice.  It was the product of a few small-minded, aspiring political operatives, scrambling in an effort to create political cover for a party politician who might have uttered a less-than-perfect expression during a campaign event.  And in that process, they ruined lives, broke up families, split a community, destroyed careers, and inflicted physical agony and mental cruelty on a defenseless innocent citizen journalist.  Yet she is the one judged at fault.