Perhaps the most striking part of Gov. Bill Lee’s request to overturn a judge’s ruling that the National Guard was unlawfully deployed to Memphis is what it doesn’t say.
Nowhere does the appeal address the central question raised in court — whether the governor can legally send troops into Memphis without a request from local officials or approval from the Tennessee Legislature.
Instead, Lee argues that Memphis’ crime problems qualify as a “grave emergency,” that the Guard remains necessary, and that a chancery court should not have the power to overrule a governor’s public-safety decisions.
“A single chancery-court judge cannot override the Governor’s mobilization of the National Guard without appellate review,” reads the opening line in the 28-page document filed with the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
“The court below issued an unprecedented injunction that substitutes its own judgment for the Commander in Chief’s,” the opening statement continues. “The separation-of-powers implications of that move alone justify intervention. And that’s to say nothing of the actual, on-the-ground harms if this Court doesn’t intervene.”
The lawsuit — filed in October by Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, Memphis City Councilman JB Smiley Jr., State Rep. G.A. Hardaway, State Rep. Gabby Salinas, and others — argues that the governor bypassed every safeguard Tennessee law requires:
- Local leaders never requested troops.
- The legislature was never convened or asked to authorize the deployment.
- No rebellion or invasion exists.
- Civilian policing is not a permissible National Guard mission under state law.
In her Nov. 14 ruling, Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal agreed that plaintiffs are “substantially likely to prevail” and that the deployment is “unlawful.” But she paused the injunction for several days to allow Lee to appeal — a window the governor is now using to try to keep soldiers on Memphis streets.
Lee’s appeal leans heavily on a portrait of Memphis as a city in crisis — one facing a “grave emergency,” he argues, that fully justified mobilizing the Guard.
The filing cites Tenn. Code Ann. §58-1-106(a), a statute that allows the governor to mobilize the Guard “in case of riot, rout, tumult, breach of the peace, or grave emergency.”
“The dire situation in Memphis — with the highest crime rate in the country — constitutes a grave emergency,” the appeal argues, adding that “endemic organized crime in Memphis acts as a combination to oppose the enforcement of law by force and violence.”
Throughout the filing, the governor’s lawyers cite violent crime data, gang activity and public-safety pressures as the basis for the emergency declaration. The document frames Memphis’ situation as “urgent,” “severe,” and “ongoing,” repeatedly emphasizing that the governor has a constitutional duty to respond.
FBI and federal databases, however, do not formally rank cities by crime rate, and such comparisons depend heavily on city-limit reporting and methodology. Still, Lee’s appeal repeatedly uses the label “highest crime rate” to justify the Guard’s presence.
Moskal ruled that he misapplied the statute. Lee argues that Memphis fits that category.
“The Governor determined that a grave emergency exists in Memphis and Shelby County,” the appeal states, pointing to shootings, homicides and what it describes as “persistent gang-driven violence.”
Without the Guard, the state argues, “the emergency will deepen,” warning that removing troops “risks immediate and irreparable harm to the public.”
What the appeal doesn’t say
Lee’s appeal makes no defense on the merits of the case. It scarcely mentions the merits at all.
Rather than defending the way Lee deployed the Guard, the State’s filing seeks to erase the legal questions altogether.
Lee’s lawyers contend the governor has “exclusive” authority to declare an emergency and deploy the Guard without permission from local governments or the General Assembly — and that courts cannot “second-guess” that determination.
The appeal seeks to pause Moskal’s temporary injunction, which found that Lee is likely violating Tennessee law by deploying troops to patrol Memphis streets as part of President Trump’s Memphis Safe Task Force.
Moskal’s ruling cited more than 150 years of constitutional guardrails meant to prevent exactly this kind of military involvement in civilian policing.
If the Court of Appeals grants Lee’s request, the Guard would remain in Memphis indefinitely while the case proceeds.
‘Removing Guard would waste millions’
If there’s one point of agreement between Gov. Lee and the Memphis plaintiffs, it’s that the National Guard deployment is expensive. Everything else about that price tag is bitterly contested.
For the plaintiffs, the “costs” are almost self-evident: money spent on a military occupation instead of prevention, intervention or basic community needs. State Rep. G.A. Hardaway has repeatedly blasted the operation as “hundreds of millions of dollars wasted” on a show of force that “offers no real long-term solutions.”
“You could put that same money to work preparing employees with job training, or helping entrepreneurs launch businesses,” Hardaway told the Tri-State Defender in November. “That’s how you reduce crime, by expanding people’s options, not by sending in troops.”
But Lee’s appeal flips the argument on its head. For the first time, the governor claims that removing the Guard could cost “millions of dollars in waste,” citing state contracts already signed to support the ongoing operation.
The document warns that halting the mission now could “leave the state in breach of contracts, jeopardize ongoing enforcement efforts, and expose the public to continued harm.”
The appeal provides no cost breakdown, nor does it specify the contracts at issue — information plaintiffs say they’ve been unable to obtain from the administration despite repeated requests. Hardaway calls that lack of transparency a part of the problem.
“We still don’t know the mission, we don’t know the budget, and now we’re told we can’t stop what we were never allowed to review,” he said. “That’s not governance. That’s arrogance.”
What happens next
The Court of Appeals can:
- Deny the State’s request and allow Moskal’s injunction to take effect, forcing Lee to withdraw the Guard.
- Grant a temporary stay, allowing soldiers to remain while the appeal is briefed.
- Expedite the case, potentially sending it directly to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
The timeline is unclear, but the legal and political stakes are rapidly escalating. The Tennessee Journal reported in November that some state lawmakers have had informal conversations about whether to give Lee the legislative authority Moskal said he lacks — a move that could reshape Tennessee’s balance of powers well beyond Memphis.
Plaintiffs say the implications are national.
“What happens in Memphis is being watched across the country,” Harris said. “This is about the Constitution. It’s about whether we are a nation of laws — or a nation of force.”
