Have you ever been in the same proceeding as a “sovereign citizen”? As a judge, as his/her counsel, as opposing counsel, etc.?
I have not. I saw one once while I was waiting for my turn. The judge handled it well and the defendant backed down before going full sovereign. It was something relatively minor, and the judge didn’t make a big deal of it, once he stopped being ridiculous.
I had a pro se opponent who said sovcit-ish things once (“this court has no jurisdiction over me” and the like), but not a proper sovcit. Pro se litigants tend to come in many flavors of crazy through.
It’s probably 20 years since I saw an episode of L&O where someone claimed the court had no jurisdiction because the flag in the courtroom signified a naval tribunal or something. I was stunned to see someone try that in traffic court, and they. Would. Not. Let. It. Go. Got removed with a contempt of court charge. In traffic court, which is crazy lenient.
I remember that episode. The judge was about as impressed as I’d expect your traffic court judge was.
We appear to have had a sovcit-adjacent groupuscule over here (who of course didn’t impress a real judge):
How many of them would bother going to appear in a court that they didn’t recognize?
Based on the YouTube videos I watch, the US ones either claim they’re there under duress/coercion/threats, or they’re appearing from jail where they have no choice in the matter.
Worked with a guy years ago claiming he was a sovereign citizen and could go anywhere in the US he wanted. I told him I would have him arrested for trespassing if he came on my property. He laughed. A few years later I was watching the news and they had a story about a group of anti-nuke protesters tried to enter a nearby submarine base. He was part of the group. Those in the group were hollering about their sovereign rights as they were being led away in handcuffs. I never saw the guy again, I wanted to laugh in his face.
Nothing forces an issue like forcing a safeguard. I’d imagine he’s got a better idea of how it works now.
Back when I was a baby lawyer at about 9.30am one hot humid sub-tropical summer’s morning I was peremptorily summoned to the senior partner’s office and handed a copy of a notice concerning a court hearing at 10am that day, filed by one Alan George Skyring. Skyring was seeking an order against our client - a public utility provider - that our client be prevented from cutting off services to Skyring.
I was told to get my fast walkin’ boots on and get up to court to explain that our client had been served with this notice less than an hour before, and to ask for an adjournment while we and our client figured out what it was all about. We had no idea who Alan George Skyring might be but we assumed he was someone who had not paid his account.
So I ran/walked to court and arrived in a sweaty mess. Outside the courtroom I overheard other lawyers say “Skyring” and we all came to realise that all of us (probably about eight different lawyers) were acting for institutional clients (the tax office, banks, phone companies, electricity companies, etc) who had received similar notices that morning and with I think one exception none of us knew what was going on.
We all trooped into court and there was Alan George Skyring who had filed all these notices. He was about 60 or so, pleasant, well dressed, polite and of course totally farkin’ bonkers. He proceeded to launch into a never ending stream of superficially rational, well spoken and perfectly grammatical gibberish. The gist of his “argument” - which came to be well known amongst Australian judiciary - was that for various obscure and nonsensical reasons said to involve the Australian Constitution, the Magna Carta and so on there was no valid currency in Australia and it was therefore impossible for him to pay his taxes, or anything else.
If I recall correctly the judge appeared to have some foreknowledge of Skyring, and more of the background was filled in by the one lawyer (for a bank) who had come across Skyring before.
The judge began to realise that any time he allowed Skyring to speak or raised any new topic Skyring would launch into another of his impenetrable wall-of-words speeches so he said, “I was wondering if perhaps this might be an appropriate case for an order such as was made in Soegemeier’s case?”
I was next to Skyring at the bar table and he turned to me and demanded in a whisper to know who Soegemeier was and I - in all honesty - said I didn’t know. Skyring said “of course you know, who is he?” but I really didn’t know.
Turns out that Soegemeier was one of I believe only two or three previous people who in the history of this jurisdiction had been declared a vexatious litigant. The judge didn’t want to say “vexatious litigant” out loud because he knew it would set off another long spiel from Skyring that it would take the judge major effort to shut down.
Anyway, that is what eventually happened. Skyring was declared a vexatious litigant. Between 1983 and 2014 he ran countless proceedings trying to re-litigate his sovcit style argument, get around various “vexatious litigant” orders in various courts, appeal, appeal some more, and so on.
You can find a history here. It runs to 21 pages and mentions probably 20-30 court proceedings by Skyring.
Oh and by the way, I found out afterward that Skyring didn’t actually need to obtain court orders against utility providers etc to prevent them cutting off his services - his wife paid the bills.
I assume she also paid for his obituary.
"He fought for what he believed was right.
He will be missed."
Oh boy did he. He fought and fought and fought and fought.
Knowing some of the judges involved, they had a certain bemused affection for him. He was of course an utter PITA but you had to almost admire the tenacity. And they felt somewhat sorry for him - he was obviously nuts rather than evil.
I’m going to bump this because there’s no real point in starting another thread on SC nonsense.
I just watched another SC video that just seems to push the bar further underground… Starts out with the typical officer pulling over a car with SC tags. Woman driving ultimately gets herself arrested leaving officers having to deal with the three minor children traveling with her. They get her to call her husband to come pick them up. He claims he’s unable to but states he will contact a neighbor to come pick them up. Fast forward to neighbor arriving with… Wait for it… The same SC license plate as the first car. So, both cars towed and the neighbor walking home with the kids.
Which got me to thinking. Has a SC ever won in court? Google says no, but that could just be part of the deep state coverup. Has anyone here actually witnessed a SC prevailing? At anything?
Are we sure it really was a neighbor who came for the kids?
“Thank you for calling officer, sir. I can’t come to pick up my children right now, but I’ll ask my neighbor to meet you. People say he looks a lot like me, and he has the same name, but he’s totally a different person.”
Not to make any assumptions, but the person who came was a female with a valid driver’s license.
I’ve been working in the court part time to get myself out of the house. We have one lady who is a bit nutty but I don’t think she is a full sovereign. She’s just looked up a bunch of stuff on the internet and tried to use it without understanding it. Things like civil court proceedures in a criminal court. I think she was finally convinced a lawyer would be a good idea. We shall see the next time she is in.
A couple of months ago a guy came into court and sat down. It was close to the end of the docket so it was a little curious that he was showing up then. I went up to him and whispered that the judge required that hats be removed in court. He has very few decorum rules but that’s one of them. The guy looked at me and said, “Do you have a claim against me?” He then started spouting a bunch of sovcit bullshit. I told him I was just doing security and left him alone. He got up and left about 10 minutes later. He had absolutely no reason to be there. He just came to waste his time for some reason.
No no no, he’s the shell corporate identity, legally distinct from the person of the same name.
I often watch videos about them, and I suspect that there are times that the case gets tossed for other reasons, and then claimed by the person to be a win for the cause.
I think I remember that one. I don’t recall any SovCits though.