Four States Will Be in Defiance Of Federal Court Order If They Comply With CDC’s Eviction Moratorium; Judge In Large Tennessee County Is Refusing To Enforce CDC’s Edict

This seems shocking. It shouldn’t be, but it is. A county judge in Tennessee is defying the authoritarian bureaucrats at the CDC and allowing evictions to continue in Tennessee’s 4th most populous county.

New eviction moratorium won't help you, judge tells families in Hamilton County Thursday

Seventy-seven families appeared Thursday morning in Hamilton County eviction court, where a judge told them that a new eviction moratorium won't help them.

He [County Judge Jerry Starnes] says that's because, a higher federal court ruled the CDC did not have the authority to impose the moratorium to begin with. The 6th circuit court of appeals at Cincinnati ruled in July that the CDC had overreached by imposing the moratorium.

Since the 6th circuit court ruled the CDC had overreached, Starnes explains the order does not apply to Hamilton County residents.

Quite simply, Judge Starnes is specifically complying with a ruling from the 6th Circuit Court.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which encompasses Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio, ruled in late July that CDC lacks the authority to issue pauses on eviction. And the CDC order itself says it does not apply “to the extent its application is prohibited by federal court order.”

Tennessee Supreme Court General Counsel Rachel Harmon circulated a message Wednesday to court officials, saying “this new eviction moratorium does not apply in Tennessee” because of the 6th Circuit ruling.

Good on the Tennessee Supreme Court’s General Counsel for advising Tennessee courts that the eviction moratorium does not apply in the state. But we better start hearing reports that the other major Tennessee counties are also ignoring the CDC’s moratorium.

What about Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky? If they apply and enforce the CDC’s eviction moratorium, it would be an overt and intentional act of defiance of our federal courts.

On the other hand, if Michigan does choose to defy a federal court order on the eviction ban, and there are no consequences, then I can think of a whole lot of federal court orders that I’m ready to see red states start ignoring.

(buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com)

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 04:51 PM

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