(Stillwater, Okla.) — In a remarkably rapid verdict, a Payne County jury took only 35 minutes to convict a man, who considers himself a sovereign citizen and represented himself at his trial last week, of child stealing, possessing guns illegally, and obstructing an officer in rural Stillwater.
The thing that annoys me about “Sovereign Citizens” representing themselves in court/thinking that they somehow aren’t beholden to US law because of some stupid declaration on their part is that the law and the court are there for their sake. Having a trial, being presumed innocent until proven guilty, and entire idea of due process is afforded to citizens of the United States. If “Sovereign Citizens” truly weren’t US citizens, there wouldn’t be a need to go through all of this. The government could just seize them and do whatever they wanted with them. They wouldn’t have any government to go to bat for them.
It’s all just so stupidly short sighed
If you’re just a kid on the Internet I can see how you might find the whole sovereign citizen concept as some kind of real life cheat code and fall for it. Adults should have enough life experiences to understand that this is just bullcrap though. I’ve never met a sovereign citizen in real life but I would love to meet one and have a conversation. I don’t think I could change his or her mind but I’d love to pick it.
You better bring an ice pick
I had a really mean, abusive landlady who happened to be a SovCit. She was an 80 year old woman notorious in this small county of about 10,000 people for being involved in lawsuits and representing herself in court. Talking to her, she’s very entitled and her attitude is “I’m rich, I’m higher class than you, smarter, and better”. In reality, she owns property but doesn’t even have a bank account due to judgements against her (probably has hid wealth with her children). Her main Sovereign thing was driving. She thought she could drive around with no insurance, no registration, speeding, slightly inebriated with no problems. Periodically she gets stopped, pulls the whole “I have the right to travel” thing and insists the cops have no right to stop her.
Frustratingly, she basically gets away with it. She has spent a few nights in jail, but I’ve kept up with her court records and somehow she keeps getting away with no penalties. She presents what must be ridiculous petitions to the court and somehow ends up with the charges being dropped. In several cases, like for no insurance/registration, the prosecutor has just not shown up
I assume this is because she’s simply annoying to deal with - we tried suing her for tenant issues, called 3-4 attorneys in town and nobody would take the case. She had harassed us constantly about not being married, cooking meat in the house, and then finally claimed we didn’t pay rent (because she wouldn’t accept our check) and said according to her (totally illegal) lease, we had 24 hours to leave. We pointed out her provisions were specifically banned by state law and she yelled "I don’t CARE about STATE LAW! " We said uh, no, and she got her brother in law to come scream at us at our door step. Cops were called, who told them to leave us alone and the landpeople were really puzzled by that. They 100% believed they could kick us out after 1 day because they didn’t accept the rent check, another thing specifically banned in state tenancy law.
So, for the attorneys, maybe nobody would take it due to conflict of interest from previous cases? Finally one lawyer talked to us for a while and explained that he’d maybe do it for $8,000 up front, but essentially, she’s so damn annoying that nobody wants to deal with her. She strings out proceedings forever and loves to file absurd countersuits and according to him, it’s just not worth it and if we could just get away from her, so much the better.
I really hope she pisses a really bored and very good attorney who fights her bullcrap just because he or she wants something to do.
Following her cases, at least 3 tenants have sued her in the 4 years since we left there. So at least someone is pursuing it, but so far she’s still renting houses and acting abusive. The crazy thing is it’s in a ‘compound’ (a really nice area in a ski/tourist town) and her house is about 60 feet from the lovely 2 story wooden cabin her tenants rent.
I’m so sorry you are dealing with this!
Thanks… it was a while back now, but it definitely sucked while it was happening. It’s very uncool to not feel safe in your own home. It also took a toll on our relationship, which is more annoying since it seemed that’s part of what the old bat was trying to do.
I agree with your post in general, but this is not true. It’s not only citizens who are guaranteed rights to trials, etc.
It’s true, we give trials and similar protections to citizens of other nations, but if someone weren’t part of a nation at all, why bother? There wouldn’t be a larger body of organization that would be interested in protecting them.
And we have suspended that right to non-citizens before. That was a major issue with Gitmo (in addition to the cruel and unusual punishment)
If you can suspend a right it isn’t a right.
That was (arguably) different since it wasn’t on american soil
This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of stupidity. Another glaring fact they ignore is that they’re using public roads and infrastructure paid for by tax money. Even if they think they aren’t ‘citizens’ of the US they’re still subject to US law just like someone visiting from France would be. It’s all so dumb.