Original post here Somervell County Judge Danny Chambers Issues Order to Criminal Trespass me at Annex with Warning
First, recap, simplistically, on what happened on May 9 2025. I had gone to the Somervell County Annex to visit the clerk’s office, and then stopped by the Commissioner admin office across the hall to say hello to Evalina and Christy. While there, Deputy Jeff Haynes came to the door, tole me he was giving me a criminal trespass warning and order me to leave the building. (a public taxpayer funded building) “I need you walk out there right now”. I had zero idea why this was occurring, had been giving no paper warning explaining why. At the point Haynes told me about the warning, I turned on my phone to record the incident, as I expect a lot of people would do. I went outside and asked why this was happening and no one knew. Jeff Haynes also did not know and called up Trey Brown, the County Attorney to find out why. I was told that Judge Danny Chambers had ordered this, that Trey Brown was the person that knew why. I wondered how anyone even knew I was in the building and was told I was on camera, which to me means that presumably Trey Brown had, at least for some period of time been watching for me to enter and then CT me and probably asked the person monitoring the cameras in the Judge’s office to do so. Haynes appeared confused, to me, about why I was being CTd and conferred with Trey Brown, who told him it was because I had entered into a private office and recorded, in violation of a paper sign he had had printed in the past. I was told no date, Haynes did not know, and I rightly assumed this was because someone thought I was doing it, THAT DAY, on May 9 2025. In fact, although no one told me this, I figured after thinking about it that it was because, some 8 months earlier, I did some recordings in those so-called private offices with the full knowledge of the public office participants. Note that at no time during the interaction in the hallway and outside the annex was it told to me that THAT was the reason for the CT. So, no notice to me, no signs letting anyone know that Trey Brown considered the commissioners office private and nothing connected to the date 8 months later that I was surprised in the hall without doing anything illegal. Anyway, Trey Brown is arbitrarily making stuff up without benefit of a legal basis. You can read why I came to this conclusion on the previous linked posted.
Today, however, I am considering how utterly weird and unaccountable it is to have Judge Danny Chambers okay serving me with a criminal trespass warning without ANY backup, paper evidence, written order, etc. I was more than shocked when Melanie of the Somervell County Sheriff’s office, who is the Open Records person, told me that there was no paper order with Danny’s signature on it to show where this order stemmed from. Likewise, there was no writeup to detail why this was done, nothing with a description of a date. Jeff Haynes did not even know when this supposedly happened and in what circumstances, merely relaying that Trey Brown told him after I keep asking WHY???? WHEN??? WHO??? Apparently it is not illegal for Chambers to just up and tell somebody to give me a warning, based on being told by a third party to do it. I consider doing this to be unethical even if it is not detailed in the law, it’s a matter of fairness.
Would you like it if someone came to criminal trespass you and could not tell you why, or the date this supposedly happened but instead ordered you out of a public building? I find it extremely incompetent of Judge Danny Chambers to just up and decide to verbally CT me on May 9th . He’s a JUDGE for gosh sakes-does he, in the Friday county court, look for evidence before he rules on a given charge? He could have done a modicum of research and documented it, instead of doing a vague CT order, and on the basis of hearsay, without specifics for me by just accepting the request, which was also apparently without a dated writeup, from Trey Brown, who I already knew was not happy that I disagreed with him in August 2024 for putting up a sign in the hallway that had no legal reference or had been voted on by commissioners, and did NOT say that the offices in the commissioners hall were *private*. Can you trust a person who is a judge when he issues this type of thing without any written proof? Not even that it left Jeff Haynes in an embarrassing position when he, as the messenger, had no idea why and on what basis this was happening and had to, after the fact, because he could not show any reason, ask Trey Brown and STILL could not tell or show me WHEN this all supposedly happened.
I want to make a point about WHAT IF the people who wanted to issue criminal warnings without explicit justification and detail WERE NOT GOOD PEOPLE? Now, I am not saying Chambers is not, but suppose, entirely speculative here, Trey Brown was angry at me because I challenged his signs in the hall, which were entirely without legal proof and also violated specific one-party recording laws. And suppose he decided “I’ll show her, I’ll just go make sure I criminally trespass her at some point in the future and will not have anything to prove that at that point or any point in the past she deserved a trespassing warning or that I warned her I would be doing that.” In other words, suppose a person who was involved with levying a charge without written proof had a dishonest or petty motive. What would stop them? I’m not just talking about me but any of you, would you not want someone to have to SHOW why you were receiving something that is considered criminal? If the law as it stands right now does not require a written justification, then I think the law needs to be changed so it is fair to the public.
I remember hearing back in 2024 that Cindy Gray, who was then working at the Expo, had apparently called up Chambers to CT an elderly man out of the building. As the story was told to me, he wasn’t going anything, just hanging out as some people in their later years do for conversation. I do know know, but I did ask through an open record for the order from Chambers and there was none. I realize now that this is a modus operandi, to just up and CT people without any documentary facts, records or writeup.
I also believe that, based on Danny’s reaction when I asked him if he knew about this when I approached him on Friday, that he doesn’t want to be accountable for something HE did. (See the video posted on the other link where he tried to deflect from direct responsibility, in my view)
More generally, I believe that anytime a serious action is taken that accuses a citizen of a criminal activity (ie criminal trespassing), there should be facts that can be told TO the person allegedly breaking the law. When you are stopped by a cop on the road, he or she will ask you “Did you know you were speeding” and of course you know it’s for something you did RIGHT THEN, not “Hey, sometime in the past, about 8 months ago, we think you were speeding and I’m issuing you a ticket NOW”. hahah, that’s ridiculous.
Anyway, Jeff Haynes, instead of just being told to come CT, would have known or be able to reference it from a written record WHY, WHEN, ON WHAT BASIS, etc but he did not. A responsible county JUDGE would have required, from Trey Brown, something that was a writeup to back up why this was being asked for so that me, the alleged *perp* could have seen why, on a day I was merely visiting the public premises to go the clerk’s office, someone was trying initially to have me banned from the entire building. The buck stopped with Danny, even if he tried to deflect from admitting that he issued the order, which would not have happened but for him.
