DUANE SHERRILL
Contributor

In a sometimes contentious two-day hearing in which the court officer called for order in the court six times, Judge Robert Carter heard arguments as to why he should or should not throw out the criminal cases against former Tullahoma Alderman Jenna Amacher, who is accused of lying about her place of residence in her qualification papers to run for Coffee County Clerk last year.

At issue, the defense maintains, are multiple abuses of subpoena power, the arrest of Amacher without a capias, and abuses both before and after her indictment. However, the capias question dominated day one of the hearings as the defense accused the prosecution of illegally arresting Amacher during a traffic stop on June 10. They claim District Attorney General Craig Northcott pulled the cart before the horse and jumped the gun in arresting Amacher before the arrest capias was in hand. And, the defense further maintained that Northcott’s conduct was part of a personal vendetta against Amacher that began when she was an alderman.

“We believe this has been personal for quite a while,” maintained defense attorney Gus Fraley. “The misconduct has been confirmed.

Fraley claimed the reason for the rush to arrest Amacher before the capias was prepared was because Northcott had planned to go out of town and that he wanted to publicize the arrest before leaving. He believes the DA’s alleged misconduct rises to the level that he should be removed from the case, if nothing else because he is allegedly a material witness.

“This is a lie, and it’s unethical!” Northcott objected to the accusation being made by the defense.

Northcott went on to say there is no personal element in the prosecution. “It is not personal,” he said, defending his office, adding that his office “did nothing wrong” in the Amacher arrest.

Instead, the DA suggested that if anyone did something wrong, it was Coffee County Sheriff Chad Parton by booking Amacher into jail without the capias – a capias that Northcott insisted was not needed for an arrest, as warrantless arrests are made every day in cases where a crime is suspected.

“That’s on him,” Northcott said as the sheriff listened in the courtroom, obviously not pleased by the allegation.

Partin had earlier testified, telling the judge that the DA’s officers taking Amacher into custody with only the indictment and not a capias threw things into disarray at the jail when she was brought in for booking.

“He put us in a hell of a spot,” the sheriff testified about the DA’s office bringing her for booking without a capias, noting he knew that put him in a potentially libelous situation. “I told my clerk to get her ass out of the jail.”

The sheriff said he has not seen a case handled like Amacher on June 10 in his 34 years of law enforcement. The situation was so weird that the sheriff took a picture of the capias with a clock in the background when it was delivered to him by then-Circuit Court Clerk Jenny Anthony several hours after Amacher was booked and bonded out.

Anthony would later testify that the requests that the Amacher capias be expedited put her office under stress.

“We were starting to feel a little heat,” she testified, noting the situation was out of the norm in her experience.

Jail Administrator Tammy Warren testified that she was told by Northcott to make errors and typos in the booking papers to slow down the process while the capias was written and brought to the jail. She noted she kept a complete log of the situation and read from her notes on the stand during testimony.

Northcott defended that any statement to that end was a joke

“I’ve learned you can’t joke with Lt. Tammy Warren,” Northcott said of the situation.

Fraley clarified that the defense was not blaming the sheriff, noting he did everything to expedite the booking so Amacher could bond out on her $10,000 bond.

“It’s hard to respond when you’re dealing with fiction,” Northcott said of some of the defense’s theories in the case. “They are divorced from reality.”

He explained that the hurry to arrest Amacher on the morning of June 10 was not because he was leaving town but because he wanted to get her cellphone before she could destroy it.

“She has a history of destroying cellphones when under pressure,” Northcott said, noting the phone was taken and put in a secure case where it was held until a forensics expert forced it open the next month. He added that any allegations of tampering with the phone beforehand were wrong.

“They are ignorant and don’t know what they are talking about,” the DA said.

As for Amacher possibly destroying evidence, Northcott said he has seen evidence of it in the past.

“She’s lived her whole life thinking the law does not apply to her,” the DA said.

Most of the first day of testimony involved DA Investigator Jason Williams (former Tullahoma Police Chief) being on the stand. He testified and showed video of a visit to her residence on Ledford Mill Road (which she put in her petition for candidacy). He maintained they found no signs of work being done or of anyone living there. However, when they visited Blue Creek Road in Franklin County where the state alleges she really lives, he reported finding lots of personal items.

“Did I instruct you I’m obsessed with her and tell you to take her down?” the DA asked Williams.

“No,” Williams responded, noting he was simply asked to look into allegations that Amacher had lied about her residence on her petition to run for County Court Clerk.

It was the Ledford Mill residence that the defense maintains is key to the case, as Amacher was reportedly operating under the auspices of a 2023 judgment by Judge Carter that found she could use that as her legal residence since she had plans to move into the residence at some time in the future given work on improvement of the land.

“If you honestly believe Ledford Mill was her residence then you’re in fairy land,” Northcott said. “She has never lived there, not in five years.”

Judge Carter is now left to consider the two days of arguments, which fall into evidentiary evidence and as to whether he will dismiss the felony charges against her.