Jamie Coots

Gregory James "Jamie" Coots (November 17, 1971 – February 15, 2014) was a Pentecostal pastor in Kentucky who was featured in the National Geographic Channel reality television show Snake Salvation, which documented the lives of people who practice snake handling. Coots died Feb. 15, 2014 from a rattlesnake bite during a service.^[1]

Background

Jamie Coots grew up in Middlesboro, Kentucky. He was a third-generation snake handler. His father, Gregory Coots, was the pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name.^[2] The church was founded in 1978 by his grandfather, Tommy Coots. Jamie's son, Cody "Little Cody" Coots, is now the pastor.^[3]

Jamie Coots began handling snakes at age 23. He primarily made his living as a truck-driver for a mine.^[4] The nature of being a serpent handler also meant that Coots traveled circuits to other churches, often with Punkin Brown.^[5] While he was pastor of Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name, Coots increased both the number of snakes and the portion of those that had lethal bites among those used in services.^[6]

Jamie Coots had been bitten eight times by snakes over the years, before the bite that killed him. One bite in 1993 nearly killed him, according to Cody Coots. Jamie Coots lost part of a finger from one bite in 1998.^[7]

A 28-year-old Tennessee woman in his congregation was bitten by a snake in 1995 during a church service Coots led. She died from the bite in his home. Coots was charged in connection with the death but a judge decided not to pursue the case.^[8]

Following his arrest earlier in the year for possession of snakes, in October 2013 Coots had an article published in the Wall Street Journal calling for snake handling to be protected under the religious freedom provisions of the US Constitution.^[9]

Death

On February 15, 2014 Jamie Coots was bitten on the right hand during a service at his Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus' Name church in Middlesboro. After the bite Coots dropped the snakes, but then picked them back up and continued the ceremony.^[10]

Later, he was driven home. When paramedics arrived his relatives refused medical treatment for him, saying it was inconsistent with his religion. He died in his home.^[11] He was succeeded as the head of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus' Name by his son, Cody Coots.^[12]

2013 arrest

On January 31, 2013 Pastor Jamie Coots, a resident of Kentucky, was traveling in the backseat of his Kentucky licensed four door sedan with his son Cody (driver) and another church member (Kenny Stewart) northbound on federal interstate I-75 between Alabama and Kentucky, states where possessing venomous snakes is legal. Hours previous in Alabama, Mr. Coots had legally purchased 5 venomous rattlesnakes and copperheads for his church in Kentucky and carried the receipt. The snakes were being transported in locked sacramental boxes used at church as emblems of religion. Two of the boxes were more than 50 years old, built by prior pastors of the church.

A Knoxville Police Officer pulled Coots over for a window tint violation, although Tennessee law expressly prohibits officers from stopping cars with nonresident license plates for window tintage. The Officer observed the snakes and having been coached by TWRA that all reptiles, snakes and even pet turtles are contraband comparable to drugs and weapons, seized their driver’s licenses and keys, and detained them on the side of the interstate for more than hour, before Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) Wildlife Officer Joe Durnin arrived on scene.^[13] Wildlife Officer Durnin cellphoned TWRA headquarters in Nashville to learn what type of charge to cite Coots and the occupants with. Another hour passed before Durnin finally cited the church members for Illegal Possession of Class I Wildlife, a class A Misdemeanor, T.C.A. 70-4-401, in Knox County Criminal General Sessions Court, threatening to incarcerate them if they did not appear in court.

Officer Durnin seized the snakes commanding Coots and son to ducktape the locked boxes and place them in the rear of his TWRA vehicle. The Wildlife Officer drove more than 100 miles from East Tennessee to respond to the call from the Knoxville Officer.

Chattanooga Constitutional Defense Attorney Christopher H. Jones (wildlifelaw.org)^[14] represented Pastor Coots. In addition to filing a Motion to Suppress the illegal vehicular stop in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Attorney Jones filed a Motion to Dismiss based on the federal Commerce Clause, an enumerated power of the United States Constitution, Article I section 8 clause 3, which prohibits a state from requiring permits from nonresidents traveling through the state “in the flow of interstate commerce.” Jones also cited an Attorney General’s Opinion for the State of Tennessee that forbade the TWRA from requiring permits of nonresidents traveling through the state with animals because of the Commerce Clause. The Opinion was written as a result of the TWRA from 1991 to 2004 seizing zoo animals on airplanes stopped at airports in Tennessee for not having first acquired TWRA issued import/ export permits. Several airport animals confiscated by the TWRA were euthanized.^[15]

Coots’ lawyer also provided a Motion to return the snakes and disclose their location, because of TWRA’s track record illegally destroying animals kept in captivity, especially snakes and other reptiles maligned by the agency.^[16]

At court on February 11, 2013, driven by the TWRA’s zeal for a conviction, Assistant District Attorney Samyah Jubran refused to honor Attorney Jones’s Commerce Clause and Fourth Amendment arguments and any other motion. Jubran threatened if Coots refused to immediately plead guilty to the current charge, forfeit his snakes and sacramental boxes, Wildlife Officer Durnin would add an additional charge of Unlawful Transportation of Wildlife, T.C.A. 70-4-405(h)(7) to each defendant because the snakes were not placed in bags inside the boxes.

Coots refused to plead guilty, and Officer Durnin added the new charge to each. The court date was reset for a Preliminary or Probable Cause Hearing on February 25, and on this day Coots and codefendants attended court with two experts: 1. Dr. Ralph Hood of the Department of Psychology at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga who studied the defendants’ serpent handling religion in Kentucky for more than 30 years, having published hundreds of journal articles and books including “Them That Believe.” ^[17]

2. Herpetologist Dr. Gordon Burghardt, of the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s Department of Psychology, and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, whose testimony would have been that he has observed the use of defendants’ sacramental boxes during church, and the snakes freely moving in the defendant’s secured sacramental boxes were less stressful, than being restrictively bagged and placed inside the boxes.^[18]

Prosecutor Jubran vehemently rejected the witnesses’ multiple invitations to talk and negotiate the case, and when provided a copy refused Dr. Hood’s book “Them That Believe,” instead remaining steadfast that Coots immediately plead guilty to all charges or his snakes and sacramental boxes will be considered contraband and immediately destroyed by the TWRA.

This upset Coots greatly, considering the history and tradition of the boxes. When the Prosecutor observed Coots’ visceral reaction, she offered to drop all charges against the codefendants including the second charge of Unlawful Transportation of Wildlife, T.C.A. 70-4-405(h)(7) and return the sacramental boxes, only if Coots pleaded guilty to the first charge of Illegal Possession of Class I Wildlife, T.C.A. 70-4-401. However, the snakes would be forfeited.

Attorney Chris Jones advised Coots not to give into the intimidation, and to have a Preliminary or Probable Cause Hearing, so the Judge could hear testimony, and at the end of the hearing ask her to dismiss the charges based on Coots’ constitutional defenses. Fearing the TWRA would purposely lose or destroy his sacramental boxes if the Judge did not dismiss the charges, Pastor Coots accepted the prosecutors offer and pleaded guilty with one year of unsupervised probation. The new charge and other charges against his son and Stewart were dismissed.

After pleading guilty that afternoon, at a gas station north of Knoxville, TWRA Officer Joe Durnin returned the sacramental boxes, although one of the box locks was missing, another damaged, and plexiglass of each scraped preventing the snakes from seeing clearly through the boxes.

References

External links

• obituary