Legal Dopers: A Very Entertaining Decision

[Spoons]

We’ve discussed “freemen on the land” and “sovereign citizens” here before; most notably, the case of Robert Peterson, who claimed to be a “freeman,” and who was tasered in Idaho for trying to film inside a courtroom.

In that thread, the decision by Justice Rooke, of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench (the superior court in the province of Alberta), in the matter of Meads v. Meads (warning, very large PDF), came up. Meads basically ripped to shreds every argument that the freemen have; not only in Canada, but around the world.

I recently ran across a decision involving an accused who used freeman techniques, that cited Meads. That should not be too unexpected in such matters; except that this Ontario decision is so entertaining, that I had to share it. It came out of the Ontario Court of Justice:

R. v. Duncan, 2013 ONCJ 160

I’ll offer a couple of excerpts that made me smile. From paragraph 8:

It has been said that, given enough time, ten thousand monkeys with typewriters would probably eventually replicate the collected works of William Shakespeare. Sadly, when human beings are let loose with computers and internet access, their work product does not necessarily compare favourably to the aforementioned monkeys with typewriters.

From paragraph 9:

Mr. Duncan provided me with an “affidavit of truth”, a rather substantial volume that appeared to me to be the result of somebody doing a Google search for terms like “jurisdiction” and the like and then cobbling them together in such a way that it makes James Joyce’s Ulysses look like an easy read. This hodgepodge of irrelevancies relied upon by Mr. Duncan was one of the misbegotten fruits of the internet. Finding it was a waste of Mr. Duncan’s time; printing it was a waste of trees and my reading it was a waste of my time and public money.

And my favourite, from footnote 2:

For readers under the age of thirty or so, the “typewriter” was a mechanical device used for creating documents that pre-dated the computer and lacked some of the computer’s more annoying characteristics, in particular the computer’s facilitation of “cutting and pasting”, which is undoubtedly one of the four horsemen of the modern apocalypse and which has cost many trees their lives and many lawyers and judges their eyesight.

At any rate, it was a nice change from reading more standard decisions. Enjoy!

[Giles]

One very funny thing is that the learned judge, after disposing of the “freeman of the land” argument, dismissed the case because the arrest had not been lawful.
(The defendant had not actually raised this argument in his defense.)

[Gleena]

I just read Mabo 2 again for the third time.

This is exactly what I needed. Exactly.

I recomend to you the first and last few paragraphs of Bell Group (in liq) no 9. Not the whole thing, mind (one of the longest judements in Australian history) but the first and last few paragraphs are a joy.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/wa/WASC/2008/239.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=bell%20group%209

[Max_Torque]

Most entertaining opinion ever: Bradshaw v. Unity Marine Corp., 147 F. Supp. 2d 668 (S.D. Tex. 2001). The second paragraph:

Before proceeding further, the Court notes that this case involves two extremely likable lawyers, who have together delivered some of the most amateurish pleadings ever to cross the hallowed causeway into Galveston, an effort which leads the Court to surmise but one plausible explanation. Both attorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact–complete with hats, handshakes and cryptic words–to draft their pleadings entirely in crayon on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place mats, in the hope that the Court would be so charmed by their child-like efforts that their utter dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed. Whatever actually occurred, the Court is now faced with the daunting task of deciphering their submissions. With Big Chief tablet readied, thick black pencil in hand, and a devil-may-care laugh in the face of death, life on the razor’s edge sense of exhilaration, the Court begins.

[Irishman]

@Spoons

I recently ran across a decision involving an accused who used freeman techniques, that cited Meads. That should not be too unexpected in such matters; except that this Ontario decision is so entertaining, that I had to share it. It came out of the Ontario Court of Justice:

R. v. Duncan, 2013 ONCJ 160

I’ll offer a couple of excerpts that made me smile. From paragraph 8:

From paragraph 9:

And my favourite, from footnote 2:

At any rate, it was a nice change from reading more standard decisions. Enjoy!

That was, indeed, an entertaining read. I do have one concern, that in the process of determining that the state had not made its case, the judge inadvertently provided the defendant with “proof” that his claims were legitimate and the police had no jurisdiction over him. It’s unfortunate.

@Max_Torque

Most entertaining opinion ever: Bradshaw v. Unity Marine Corp., 147 F. Supp. 2d 668 (S.D. Tex. 2001). The second paragraph:

I keep trying to determine if those remarks are meant metaphorically, or if both party’s lawyers actually submitted their pleadings in crayon. :eek:

[pravnik]

@Max_Torque

Most entertaining opinion ever: Bradshaw v. Unity Marine Corp., 147 F. Supp. 2d 668 (S.D. Tex. 2001).

That one has an interesting story behind it; it’s pretty funny, but when it came out a lot of lawyers were saying the judge who wrote it (U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent) treated lawyers appearing in his court like that far too often and was in general sarcastic, dismissive and abusive. In 2009 Kent was sentenced to 33 months in prison for lying to investigators about sexually abusing female staff members and became the first federal judge to be impeached and removed from the bench in 20 years.