Source: http://www.voiceforthedefenseonline.com/story/representing-sovereign-citizen
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 13:47:23+00:00

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On a Sunday afternoon, Maris Crane1 was pulled over by the Austin police for failing to show proper Texas registration stickers on her car. When the officer asked her for identification, she refused multiple times, telling the officer that she would not give him her driver’s license because he did not have any authority over her. Ms. Crane explained that because the car was her personal property she was using to “travel,” she was not required to register it with the State of Texas. When the officer requested her information several more times, she passed him a stack of papers bearing seals from several government departments and the phrases “Sovereign Living Soul” and “UCC 1-207’’ printed on them. Ms. Crane began filming the encounter after the officer took the stack of papers. The officer called dispatch for backup when he realized the documents were false. He, and the arriving officers, then blocked in Ms. Crane’s car and placed stinger spikes in front of and behind the car to keep her from driving away.
People that espouse these beliefs often end up in the criminal justice system. Once there, they are often thought to be mentally ill and incompetent to stand trial. Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not. This article intends to shed light on this quickly growing population, who many of us will encounter in the criminal courts.
I. What Is the Sovereign Citizen Movement?
The sovereign citizen movement arose from the ashes of the Posse Comitatus, a 1970s extremist racist group that believed the county was the highest seat of government because all other levels of government had engaged in a conspiracy to destroy and override the Constitution.3 Sovereign citizens are not a militia or organized group with established leadership.4 Sovereign citizens are typically individuals or loosely associated groups of true believers.5 This makes them a difficult group to track or count. Although there is no established leadership in the movement, there are several well-known sovereign citizens who are prominent in the media and justice system.6 In addition, some sovereign citizens host seminars (for a hefty fee) in which they teach newcomers the intricacies of freeing oneself from the illegitimate United States government and fighting it legally.
Although the sovereign citizen movement may seem like it does not merit national attention or the labeling of the members as domestic terrorists, sovereign citizens often draw attention to themselves by harassing law enforcement, court, and government officials. Many times this takes the form of “paper terrorism,” but there have been several incidents where sovereign citizens have acted out violently against these officials. Their behavior toward those associated with the court, government, and law enforcement is generally in furtherance of their belief that the United States government is illegitimate.41 They will engage in paper terrorism against those they believe interfere with their status as sovereign living souls by filing liens against others’ real property or flooding the courts with nonsensical documents.42 The liens are used as a means of damaging credit or financial history.43 During legal proceedings, sovereign citizens will also file massive amounts of court documents containing nonsensical language, archaic secondary sources, and overruled case law (typically from the nineteenth century).
Sovereign citizens have their own language, which twists the definitions of seemingly ordinary words—such as “citizen,” “common-law court,” and “birth certificate”—to support their theory. The problem with this language is that there is no dictionary to interpret it. One can only translate these nonsensical documents if they have been trained to do so. Sovereign citizens often flood the courts with thousands of these documents, filing briefs questioning everything from the in personam and subject-matter jurisdiction of the court to asserting the illegitimacy of the court using overruled case law and a mishmash of secondary sources—the Bible, the Magna Carta, and other legal documents dating back to the early medieval times.
Attorneys may have difficulties interacting with sovereign citizens because of their beliefs concerning attorneys. For instance, sovereign citizens believe that if an attorney represents sovereign citizens in court instead of allowing them to defend themselves, then those persons become a ward of the court.53 In addition, lawyers themselves are not viewed as citizens because they have received a title of “esquire,” which sovereign citizens believe is a title of nobility.54 A title of nobility precludes an individual from having citizenship.55 Also as members of the American Bar Association, attorneys are franchisees of an illegitimate government-corporation that licenses its franchisees and regulates their activities.56 For these reasons, sovereign citizens strongly distrust attorneys.
II. How Can I Tell If My Client Is a Sovereign Citizen?
A sovereign citizen does not look or sound a particular way. Typically, in their everyday life, they are indistinguishable from the non-sovereign citizen. They are able to carry on intelligent conversation, make jokes, and hold a job. Only when the conversation turns towards law and the government, or individuals are charged with a crime, do they become vocal about their beliefs and reveal their affiliation.
The third indicator that a client might be a sovereign citizen is a history of minor criminal charges. These charges might include failure to pay taxes or creation of false license plates, driver’s licenses, and other government documents.72 These seemingly innocuous charges arise from a refusal to contract with the “illegitimate” United States government. Although not every client with these charges will be a sovereign citizen, most likely any sovereign citizen an attorney sees will have them.
III. Is Your Sovereign Citizen Competent to Stand Trial?
Sovereign citizens have a bizarre, almost nonsensical belief system that is impenetrable to those not in the know. The first time a lawyer meets a client who introduces him or herself as a sovereign living soul, the lawyer may raise an eyebrow. When the client follows the odd statement with the proclamation that his or her arrest was illegal because the government does not have jurisdiction or authority over them, that attorney’s (completely reasonable) first response may be to consider whether there is some mental illness affecting the client’s competency.73 The client certainly does not make a better case for himself when he tells the attorney his status as a foreign alien, free from his corporate identity, with natural human rights not afforded to a Fourteenth Amendment citizen. The few studies on the subject, however, conclude that sovereign citizens typically will be competent to stand trial.
1. All names have been changed to maintain confidentiality.
3. Anti-Defamation League, Sovereign Citizen Movement—Extremism in America, ADL (2010), http://archive.adl.org/learn/ext_us/scm.html?xpicked=4 .
6. Dario Busch, The Sovereign Citizen Movement, Dario Busch (2013), http://dariobusch.com/2011/10/the-sovereign-citizen-movement-patriots/.
8. Busch, supra note 6.
9. Anti-Defamation League, supra note 3.
10. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit II, supra note 7.
12. Dario Busch, supra note 6.
15. Busch, supra note 6; Van Ness, supra note 14.
16. Busch, supra note 6.
19. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Analysis Section, supra note 2.
20. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Analysis Section, supra note 2; Van Ness, supra note 14.
21. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Analysis Section, supra note 2.
22. Southern Poverty Law Center, Sovereign Citizens Movement, SPL, spl.org.
23. Van Ness, supra note 14.
24. Busch, supra note 6.
29. Casey Sanchez, Return of the Sovereigns, Intelligence Report, Spring 2009, at 14.
30. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Analysis Section, supra note 2; Van Ness, supra note 14.
31. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Analysis Section, supra note 2.
32. Southern Poverty Law Center, What is a “Sovereign Citizen”? Intelligence Report, 2010, at 132.
33. Southern Poverty Law Center, supra note 23; Van Ness, supra note 14.
34. American Defamation League, supra note 3.
36. Van Ness, supra note 14.
39. Southern Poverty Law Center, supra note 22.
40. Erwin Rommell School of Law, http://rommellaw.com/.
41. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit II, supra note 7, at 10.
44. Adask, supra note 17.
45. Southern Poverty Law Center, supra note 22.
47. Southern Poverty Law Center, supra note 22.
49. Adask, supra note 44.
53. J. M. Sovereign, Title 4 Flag Says You’re Schwag! The Sovereign Citizen’s Handbook (Sovereignty, 2009).
57. MacNab, supra note 46.
62. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Analysis Section, supra note 2.
63. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit II, supra note 8, at 2.
64. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Analysis Section, supra note 2.
67. See United States v. Svoboda, 633 F.3d 479, 480 (6th Cir. 2011), where defendant creates a fraudulent driver’s license imprinted with the Department of Homeland Security seal, the White House seal, and citations to 42 USCS § 1983 and Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 (1887).
69. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Analysis Section, supra note 2.
70. American Defamation League, supra note 3.
72. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Analysis Section, supra note 2.
73. See Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 80 S.Ct. 788, 4 L.Ed.2d 824 (1960).
74. See Jennifer Pytyck & Gary A. Chaimowitz, The Sovereign Citizen Movement and Fitness to Stand Trial, International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 12: 149-153, 2013, at 149; George Parker, Are Sovereign Citizens Competent to Stand Trial? 27, American Acad. of Psychiatry and the Law, Transcript of Competency Hearing at 11, United States v. Brown, No. 09-CR-30-01-GZS (2010); Svoboda, 633 F.3d at 481.
75. See American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders 327 (American Psychiatric Association, 4th ed., text rev.).
76. WebMD, Mental Health and Delusional Disorder (Sept. 13, 2013, 11:21 a.m.) http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/delusional-disorder.
78. See Pytyck & Chaimowitz, supra note 72, at 153; Novack, supra note 48.
79. See Pytyck & Chaimowitz, supra note 72, at 153; Novack, supra note 48.
80. See Pytyck & Chaimowitz, supra note 72, at 152; American Psychiatric Association, supra note 73.
81. See Pytyck & Chaimowitz, supra note 72, at 153.
84. See id.; Forensic update at 8, United States v. Loughner, No. I 1-CR-00187-LABU (2012); Transcript of Competency Hearing, supra note 72, at 20.
85. Transcript of Competency Hearing, supra note 72, at 19.
92. See Novack, supra note 48; Transcript of Competency Hearing, supra note 72; Forensic Update, supra note 80, at 5; Pytyck & Chaimowitz, supra note 72, at 153.
93. See generally, Gray v. State, No. 03-09-00408-CR, 2010 (Tex. App.—Austin [3rd Dist.] Aug. 8, 20 I 0) (not designated for publication).

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