Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01589/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01589-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 290
Nature of Suit: Other Real Property Actions
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 16-1589

JOHN JONES BEY,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

STATE OF INDIANA, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

No. 1:15-cv-01598-TWP-TAB — Tanya Walton Pratt, Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED OCTOBER 27, 2016 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 3, 2017

____________________

Before POSNER, FLAUM, and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. John Jones Bey, who describes 

himself as an “Aboriginal Indigenous Moorish-American,” 

filed in the district court what he labeled a “Writ of Mandamus,” seeking to enjoin state and county officials from taxing real estate that he owns in Marion County, Indiana. He 

also asked that the defendant officials be ordered to refund 

the taxes that he’d paid and to compensate him for their alCase: 16-1589 Document: 17 Filed: 02/03/2017 Pages: 5
2 No. 16-1589

leged wrongs. He asked the district court to award him $11.5 

billion. The court refused, and granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss, precipitating this appeal.

Bey says he’s a “sovereign citizen” and therefore can’t 

lawfully be taxed by Indiana or its subdivisions in the absence of a contract between them and him. (See El v. AmeriCredit Financial Services, Inc., 710 F.3d 748, 750 (7th Cir. 2013), 

for a description of the beliefs of so-called sovereign citizens 

of alleged Moorish origin.) We have repeatedly rejected such 

claims. See United States v. Jonassen, 759 F.3d 653, 657 and 

note 2 (7th Cir. 2014); United States v. Benabe, 654 F.3d 753, 

767 (7th Cir. 2011); United States v. Hilgeford, 7 F.3d 1340, 1342 

(7th Cir. 1993); United States v. Schneider, 910 F.2d 1569, 1570 

(7th Cir. 1990). We do so in this case as well, and thus affirm 

the district court.

But we want to take this opportunity to examine the 

rights asserted, in this as in the other cases we’ve cited, by 

persons describing themselves as sovereign citizens by virtue of their alleged Moorish origin. Most of them are African

Americans who belong to the Moorish Science Temple of 

America (MSTA) and claim to be descendants of the Moors 

of northern Africa, though they are not; Moors are of mixed 

Berber and Arab descent rather than being African American 

in the usual sense of being descended from black Africans. 

The original purpose of MSTA, founded in the 1920s by Noble Drew Ali, whose followers call themselves “Moors” in 

place of more conventional designations such as “Black,” 

“African American,” and “colored,” was to claim government “recognition and respect as full citizens rather than the 

second-class descendants of slaves.” Leah Nelson, ‘Sovereigns’ in Black, Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law 

Case: 16-1589 Document: 17 Filed: 02/03/2017 Pages: 5
No. 16-1589 3

Center (Aug. 24, 2011), www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/

intelligence-report/2011/‘sovereigns’-black (visited Feb. 2, 

2017, as were the other websites cited in this opinion). MSTA 

focuses on “uplifting” its followers, and encourages them to 

vote in U.S. elections so that they can escape “political slavery.” Spencer Dew, Moors Know the Law, 31 J. L. & Religion

70, 72–75 (2016).

The MSTA home office, located in Washington D.C., has 

issued a statement clarifying that the organization is neither 

“a Sovereign Citizen movement [n]or a Tax Protestor 

Movement” and that it was not founded “for its members to 

become anarchist or conspiracy theorist[s].” Moorish Science 

Temple of America, Statement on Radical and Subversive Fringe 

Groups (July 15, 2011), http://msta1913.org/Statement_

Radical_Moors.pdf. A MSTA temple in Georgia denounces 

sovereign-citizen propaganda as “completely asinine” and 

asks that Moors not “adopt[] the ideals of these European 

groups who at their core, hate [Moors’] very existence.” Frequently Asked Questions, Question 1, Moorish Science Temple 

of America (Georgia), moorishsciencetemple.org/faqs/.

But clearly, sovereign-citizen ideas appeal to many [selfdescribed] Moors, who combine those ideas with Ali’s teachings in an effort to reclaim and rewrite black history. For example, the “Moors Order of the Roundtable” uses eighteenth-century treaties with Morocco to distinguish “Free 

Moors” from Africans who could be enslaved and teaches 

that courts have no jurisdiction over Moors. Nelson, ‘Sovereigns’ in Black, supra. Other groups claim that their Moorish 

nationality gives them the status in the United States of an 

indigenous people, although the logic behind this claim is 

deeply obscure. See id. Renita Bey teaches that Europeans 

Case: 16-1589 Document: 17 Filed: 02/03/2017 Pages: 5
4 No. 16-1589

are latecomers and Moors never granted them citizenship.

Washitaw Nation Comes Under Investigation, Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center (June 15, 1999), www.

splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/1999/washita

w-nation-comes-under-investigation. She teaches her followers that they are “Muurs” from “Muu” who traveled to 

North America before Africans did, when the world had only one continent. Many sovereign citizen organizations teach 

that whenever a Moor’s name is spelled in capital letters in a 

government document, the name identifies not the individual but instead his “corporate shell identity,” or in other 

words a “straw man” controlled by the government. See 

Southern Poverty Law Center, “Sovereign Citizens Movement,” www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideol

ogy/sovereign-citizens-movement.

Although the Moorish Science Temple does not buy the

“sovereign citizen” line, many of its members do. Many of 

them argue, without any basis in fact, that as a result of 

eighteenth-century treaties the United States has no jurisdiction over its Moorish inhabitants, who are therefore under 

no obligation to pay taxes. That is Bey’s position, but he does 

not explain how it entitles him to an $11.5 billion refund 

from the State of Indiana and/or its subdivisions. Nor is 

there any basis for his contention that he is not required to 

pay any taxes because being a Moor makes him a sovereign 

citizen; he may be a Moor but—we emphasize, in the hope 

of staving off future such frivolous litigation—he is not a 

sovereign citizen. He is a U.S. citizen and therefore unlike 

foreign diplomats has no immunity from U.S. law. Indeed 

his suit is frivolous and was therefore properly dismissed; he 

was lucky to be spared sanctions for filing such a suit.

Case: 16-1589 Document: 17 Filed: 02/03/2017 Pages: 5
No. 16-1589 5

Although we have discussed the MSTA at some length, 

our aim was to introduce readers who may not be familiar 

with the “sovereign citizen” movement to its principal institutional establishment. We do not mean to task the district 

judges of this circuit with having to delve into the history of 

every particular organization involved in every case before 

them. Often the organization either played no significant 

role in the events leading up to the case or if it did, nevertheless it was an organization already well known to the court. 

The unusual feature of this case is that the sovereign-citizen 

movement and its institutions, such as MSTA, are at once 

sources of difficult litigation and not well known outside the 

sovereign-citizen movement.

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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