If any group of people can establish a “common law court” on their own, then what’s to stop those people who’ve been officially made judges by the government from forming their own “common law court”? In which case the court that the police drag you in front of really does have authority to make you pay those speeding tickets or whatever.
You’re bringing way too much logic to this topic. 
And now, neither did the federal Court of Appeals: Appeals Court upholds Wesley Snipes’ Sentence.
From the CNN article:
Off topic, I guess, but…
But they were stealing from shops, right? Or restaurant supplies, maybe? So they were increasing the demand for meat at those places. Everybody who was going to buy meat still wanted to, right? So the shops had to get more in stock.
Stealing products from resellers supports their production.
I think there’s been a little too much of a pile-on in this thread.
Look, some “magic words” really do work. The cops and judges and prosecutor might all genuinely want to nail you for a crime you really committed, but they’ll drop the whole thing if you point out in court that you got caught one day after the statute of limitations ran out instead of one day before. And, sure, there’s no statute of limitations on murder – but no matter what you’ve done, they’ll scuttle the whole thing if (a) their key piece of evidence is your confession, and (b) they didn’t in fact Mirandize while you were in custody. “I asked if I was free to go. I asked for a lawyer. They kept asking me questions. I told them I killed her.” You said the magic words. They didn’t. You’re free to go.
Say they’ve got you on the hook for a letter-perfect contract – and so you stand up and straighten your tie and clear your throat and mention that you signed it ten minutes before you were old enough to consent. Say someone is ruled to have excellent grounds for suing your corporation – and you patiently explain to the court that she served process on the building’s janitor. Say your uncle disinherited you in a will that revoked the one where he left you everything – or would have, anyway, if he’d gotten it witnessed by the right number of people, and so you point out that he was one short and chuckle all the way to the bank. Isn’t that how the system works? Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
Now, granted, I don’t know anything about this gold-fringe stuff or capitalization or whatever – but I don’t see why we should ridicule folks for thinking the government will be bound by any and all technicalities it wants to codify; AFAICT that’s the whole point of a whole lot of stuff, right down to the “wet foot dry foot” policy for Cubans rushing for Miami Beach or a warrant that includes the house but not the car and thus and such. The question is whether it is codified, not how arbitrary or counterintuitive the technicality seems.
Yes, exactly, which is why there has been a continual pile-on.
None of this lunacy is codified. It is made up, every bit, down to the last loon. It makes for a surface plausibility to people who are incapable of independent thought, precisely because the law does have seemingly arbitrary but in actuality necessary fine points and cut-offs written into it.
That does not mean you can invent a new set that nobody else has ever heard of and apply them to your own interests. They are called “magic words” because they don’t exist outside of the pixie dust filling the cranium of the utterer.
They are a nuisance to the court system, they are expensive to the public that has to fund the hearing of their cases, and they are potentially dangerous for wanting to take the law into their own hands. A mere verbal pile-on is hardly sufficient, but it’s all we can do.
I think everyone here recognizes that there are various rights that people can invoke in certain situations that can inhibit, to some degree, a police investigation. Such as, refusing to consent to a search or invoking one’s right to counsel. However, these “magic words” don’t actually put an end to an investigation or prosecution. The police can continue to investigate by other means.
And what you point to as “magic words:” expiration of the statute of limitations, ability to agree to a contract, process servers, etc. are not “magic words” at all. They are questions of law and fact that would be put to a judge or a jury. They are not literally words that can be used to stymie the government, they are matters that can be examined and argued about in a courtroom.
What the OP seems to be proposing is that quite literally there are words (which are to some degree kept secret) that can be uttered to compel the government to completely drop any effort to arrest or prosecute a person on a wide range of crimes. That is, indeed, worthy of laughter.
Again, “the statute of limitations ran out” seems to compel the government to completely drop any effort to arrest or prosecute a person on a wide range of crimes (and ditto for double jeopardy, right? Compels the government to drop any effort to prosecute a person on a wide range of crimes if you can accurately note that “this court already litigated that matter,” or something, AFAICT). I mean, sure, “I’m fifteen” maybe only works as magic words to get contractual obligations dropped in a flash, but “process was never served” presumably has somewhat broad applications…
The thing is that genuine exceptions like evidence being ruled inadmissible because no warrant was issued or a confession being thrown out because you didn’t have an attorney present all exist within the legal system. They were created by legislative act or court decision and they are all dependent on the authority of the legal system.
But these magic powers supposedly come from somewhere else. They’re not based on the authority of the legal system - they supposedly defy that very authority.
A good rule of thumb is that when somebody claims that some executive authority like the police or the Governor or the President can’t do something they may be right. But when they claim that a legislative or judicial authority like Congress or the courts can’t do something they’re pretty much always going to be wrong.
Again, “the statute of limitations ran out” really are effective as magic words against court proceedings, and ditto for “double jeopardy”, right? As for legislative authorities like Congress, yeah, it’s maybe just the obvious black-letter stuff in the Constitution – I dunno, ex post facto this, and bill of attainder that, and habeas corpus plus jury trial, or something. But if the argument is that some technicality currently exists, and you’d like very much to mention it right now – I don’t see that such folks are wrong by definition, only that we should go for the SDMB default by requesting the cite.
No, the question of double jeopardy, age of consent, statute of limitations, and whatever else – all the way down to mens rea – are not magic words. They are questions of fact and law that ultimately must be decided by a jury or a judge.
The idea that there are some words that one can utter to the police that instantly defeat any question of fact or law is patently absurd. That is far, far different than applying the law to the facts, which is something that is done in a courtroom.
Let me say this another way: theft is generally defined to be the unlawful taking and carrying away of another person’s personal property. If an action fails to meet that criteria, let’s say, the property did not belong to another person, then it is not a crime. Stating that “the property didn’t belong to someone else” isn’t a magical get-out-of-jail-free card, the statement would still be subject to the scrutiny of a court.
What the OP is asking about, I guess, is whether there are things that can be said that would let someone go instantly free from the police and any other lawful inquiry into an alleged crime, simply because the words were uttered. That’s fantasy-land conspiracy nonsense.
If anyone is going to make themselves independant of all governments can you let me know so as I can invade you and take all of your stuff?
Absolutely not true. It’s the same as saying that religion and all its apparatus - churches, ministers, holy books - exist and saying that god is not only real but that you can call on him any time you want to get you safely across a busy street. And everybody else will see him, too.
The former is obvious reality, the latter is delusional fantasy.
The law is like religion in many ways - it sure has the analogs of churches, ministers, and holy books - but that also means that all its precepts have been carefully put together and examined down to the last nuance for decades. There is no room for someone to walk in off the street and announce that a new amendment to the Constitution has been sitting there unnoticed until this second. If someone went to church tomorrow and announced that there has always been a secret Eleventh Commandment that stated that everybody in the room had to give him all their money would you still take them seriously? Or would you toss them out the door?
Unless you’re a member of their insane cult, you’d do the latter. That’s what the law is doing in these cases, and for the same reason.
Magical words law is insane. You cannot haul it back into reality by noting that other things exist that are not insane. These things are independent and can be judged independently.
No, these laws do not have power over the legal system. They are powers of the legal system. If the right legal authorities passed the right laws then the statute of limitations and double jeopardy and ex post facto would cease to exist. They only exist because laws say they do.
The freemen and their like don’t understand this. They think there are “magic words” that are above the law and that legal authorities can’t change.
Sure, there are some kinds of nearly-magic limitations on government agencies.
But there is a severe lack of critical thinking in the woo-woo legal stuff. Statutes of limitations, service procedures, etc. all were passed by legislators for a reason. They occasionally get in the way, or cause an injustice, but legislators (including those who wrote and/or amended the constitution) all thought that the costs of these limitations were worth it. If there was some legal barrier to making people pay income tax, and legislators thought that income tax was a worthwhile thing, then they’d fix whatever the legal barrier is, passing a constitutional amendment if necessary. They wouldn’t just spend the next hundred years hoping nobody knew enough to bring up the legal barrier in a hearing.
Chronos said:
They could, but the don’t - they’re too busy operating illegal Admiralty courts as part of the conspiracy to steal the government or whatever.
Exapno Mapcase said:
I think the argument over “magic words” is pointless. These people seem to think it is codified, just buried. They think if they dig out the right formulation they can invoke the right code that means the “hidden” laws have to be observed. They think that the courts will have to observe the code, but rather than bringing it to light for public review of circumstances, they will quietly acquiesce to keep the real law hidden.
Their logic is flawed, though. If the “fake” courts wish to keep the secret law buried, the easiest and best way to keep it buried is to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist.
The Other Waldo Pepper said:
But that is what Lemur866 means by invoking fascism. If the bully thugs are busy hiding behind admiralty courts rather than the “real” common law courts and are actively pulling a fast one to steal power, then what forces them to comply when the free men invoke the “real” laws? That’s what “magic words” is all about. The ones with the power are already circumventing the “real” laws - what is to keep them from continuing to circumvent the laws, to pretend you don’t know what you’re talking about? Yes, within the court system they find themselves compelled to follow restrictions just because you invoke them, but the thing is those restrictions are publically visible, so they have to comply to maintain the illusion that they are working in a system of laws and not just arbitrarily throwing power around. But if the rules you wish to invoke are hidden, then those thugs can ignore them with impugnity.
It’s like the cop who wants to beat a confession out of you, then pretend he didn’t lay a hand on you, you got those injuries from an accident or a fight with your brother before you were arrested or whatever. Your assertion isn’t proof of his wrongdoing, you need other evidence. And if the judge is his brother-in-law, and agrees with his methods, your calls for review are just as ineffective as if he didn’t beat you in the first place. If the people you can appeal to are in on the cover up, then your appeal is useless. It’s the same thing here. If the courts you wish to invoke the common law, free society, citizen of state, whatever loophole are in on the cover up, they will gleefully pretend what you are saying doesn’t exist, and you have no recourse. “Oh damn, you caught me, I guess I’ll have to let you free. Don’t tell anybody about this, I wouldn’t want them to know or they’ll do it, too. Pooh.” Right.
The thing with, say, “the statute of limitations ran out” is that saying the words itself doesn’t accomplish anything. If, instead, it was some clerk deep in the bowels of the courthouse who noticed that the statute of limitations ran out, you’d still walk free, even if you never said a thing. That’s the difference between that and the “magic words” folks are talking about in this thread: Some folks genuinely believe that the act of saying the words “I’m a sovereign citizen” or whatever causes the case to be thrown out.
No, the easiest and the best way to get around this “secret” law would be to repeal it.
Yes, that’s the silly part. That there are secret laws that the powers-that-be don’t want you to know about, because then the whole tyrannical edifice would come crashing down. Except what would happen is we’d just change the law.
And not-so-coincidentally, this is exactly what happened in the case of the income tax. There were concerns that the income tax might violate the apportionment clause of the constitution. So what did the advocates of the income tax do? Pass the 16th amendment. And therefore, the income tax was constitutional.
So even if there really is a law saying you don’t have to pay your taxes if you declare yourself a whatever and sign your name in all caps, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay your taxes, because either the fascists will pretend the law doesn’t exist, or they’ll just change the law. The law isn’t immutable, Congress changes the law all the time. So the notion that the fascists are helpless against the invocation of the secret law is just silly, because the fascists are the ones who write the law, and the law says what they want the law to say.
So why would the fascists include a provision in the fascist tax law that says you don’t have to pay taxes if you don’t want to? Why wouldn’t the fascists just change the law to say you have to pay taxes or you go to jail?
Because then the words wouldn’t be magic. Duh.