Hamblen County Commission Chairman Howard Shipley admitted he violated the free speech rights of citizens, apologized for it and promised never to do it again.
But less than a year later, court records allege, he did it again. Now, Hamblen County, Tennessee, taxpayers are on the hook for the cost of defending him in federal court.
A private attorney – veteran government defender Arthur Knight III – has been engaged to defend Shipley and his colleagues on the Hamblen County Commission in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court over citizens’ rights to display political messages on their clothing at meetings of the county’s governmental body.
It is litigation court records show might have been avoided had Shipley honored the promise he made in writing in November 2020 after he ordered citizens protesting the cost of a new jail to either take off T-shirts displaying protest messages or turn them inside out.
“I wrongly prohibited the exercise of freedom of speech and the right to petition the government when I directed that deputies stop individuals wearing a (Citizens for Open and Accountable Government) shirt at the courthouse door and tell the individuals to turn their shirts inside out before being allowed to come to the public meeting,” Shipley wrote in a notarized statement entered into the minutes of a November 2020 commission meeting.