Decline and Resurgence
By the mid 1980s, the initial tide of common law activism surged and then waned. By this time a large number of leaders on the far right were either dead, in jail or in "retirement." Events such as the prosecution of members of The Order, the shutting down of the survivalist/Christian Identity compound of the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA), the destruction of the township of Tigerton Dells, and the much-publicized trial of various white supremacist leaders for sedition in Fort Smith, Arkansas, worked to paralyze the leadership of the far right, including the Posse Comitatus and its adherents. For the Posse, too, the fact that the farm bankruptcy crisis had eased also resulted in a loss of support.
However, the Posse's ideas about the common law never disappeared. Tax protesters continued to espouse Posse ideology, and Posse believers continued, although with less frequency, to place fraudulent liens and use other Posse tactics. Perhaps one could think of the movement as existing in a state of hibernation, waiting to emerge again in a more favorable climate. The early 1990s seemed to provide that climate. Events such as the infamous standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the tragic end to the standoff at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, gave renewed energy to the "patriot" movement, as it now called itself. It fueled the fires of those who believed that a tyrannical and illegitimate government was usurping the sovereign rights of freemen.
From this climate of anger and paranoia emerged a new leadership for the common law movement. Some of the faces were familiar. From Wisconsin came Thomas Stockheimer, one of the leaders of the old Wisconsin Posse Comitatus. Stockheimer and his associates formed a new group called Family Farm Preservation, which encouraged the use of bogus checks and money orders as a way to defeat creditors and government agents. From Texas came a roofer named Alfred Adask, who started publishing AntiShyster Magazine, a periodical devoted to popularizing common law tactics, particularly the use of bogus liens. Adask, running for a seat on the Texas Supreme Court in 1992, received more than 200,000 votes in that state. In Colorado, a veterinarian named Eugene Schroeder, a former leader in the Posse-sympathetic American Agriculture Movement, began publicizing the notion that the Constitution had been suspended since 1933.
Nowhere more than in Florida, however, was the movement so strongly resurgent. Tax protesters, white supremacists, common law court advocates and others combined to give new energy to Posse ideology. Some of the sovereigns' concerns were traditional, such as the banking system and the Federal Reserve. Other concerns included those events that catalyzed the related militia movement, such as the standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco. And there were new issues as well. For all the talk by common law adherents criticizing the intrusive federal government, what angered many of them most were the actions of local governments, particularly regarding zoning and building regulations. A catalyzing issue for many in the largely male movement was the issue of divorce settlements. Many "sovereigns" felt powerless in the face of a legal system that seemed to give them no say.
The emergence of Florida's first common law court in the mid-1990s reflected all of these concerns. The guiding spirit behind the court's emergence was Emilio Ippolito, a Tampa, Florida, property owner who possessed millions of dollars worth of low-income housing. Ippolito, along with his daughter Susan Mokdad, a co-owner, fought a long-running battle in the 1980s and 1990s with city authorities over various building code violations in Ippolito's apartment buildings. The structures incurred repeated fines for faulty wiring, and missing extinguishers and smoke alarms. Some were declared fire hazards and closed down. As their struggles with the city intensified, Ippolito and Mokdad became increasingly politicized. Ippolito first formed Defenders of Life and Property, Inc., in 1991, a group opposing city code enforcement boards. By 1993 he and Mokdad had become leaders in a more radical group that called itself Pro Se Litigants.
Pro Se Litigants met monthly in the Orlando Public Library, where its members discussed their various legal problems and passed around copies of Alfred Adask's Anti-Shyster. Some fought local authorities over permits and ordinances; others contested divorce settlements or fought wage garnishments. They represented an increasing frustration with a non-responsive court system in which the only winners seemed to be licensed attorneys. Among the group's other leaders were Charles Eidson, founder of the white supremacist Church of the Avenger, who repeatedly clashed with local authorities, not only for his racial views but for flouting laws on dumping of waste, and Daniel Schramek.[18]
Schramek himself had long been making a living by providing an alternative to hiring lawyers. Since the 1980s he had been a self-styled "estate planner," which meant he drew up legal documents for people, although he was not an attorney. He was also local director of a relatively mainstream group, HALT (Help Abolish Legal Tyranny). Schramek's participation in divorce cases brought him into frequent conflict with local judicial authorities and lawyers, many of who claimed he was practicing law without a license. Actions such as signing a dead man's name on a deed finally resulted in a court order in 1993 to stop Schramek from advising people on legal issues or preparing legal documents; this order caused Schramek's business to fail, but did not stop Schramek's practices.
Indeed, by 1993 Schramek, Ippolito, Mokdad, Eidson and others in the group had launched dozens of suits against lawyers, judges, the Florida Bar, and other organizations and individuals. Eidson went so far as to post a document in the Hillsborough County courthouse calling for the formation of a "posse comitatus." Ippolito and Mokdad even served brief stints in jail for fighting with bailiffs during one trial. By then they had lost much of their property in their continuing and losing battle with city authorities as it was seized or condemned for various building violations. Hardened veterans now, thoroughly disenchanted with the existing legal system, it was an easy step for them to form in mid-1993 a legal system of their own, the "Constitutional Court of We the People." Ippolito and Mokdad and others not only formed the court, but advertised in local papers that they would hear divorce proceedings for a $25 fee. Within a year they moved from bogus divorce proceedings to issuing arrest warrants for local judges. The Constitutional Court's "Fugitive Warrants Unit" warned judges to "schedule appointments" or face "physical arrest at your home or workplace by the Militia which could result in a dangerous confrontation."[19]
The common law court finally went too far when, in support of the California tax protest group called the Pilot Connection Society, it mailed threatening letters to the jury trying a fraud case against the tax protest group's leaders. Ippolito, Mokdad, and others were arrested and indicted in the spring of 1996 on conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and other charges, covering the arrest warrants, the Pilot Connection letters and threats against other federal officials and jury members.
The Constitutional Common Law Court of Ippolito and Mokdad was not the only such "sovereign" group in central Florida; indeed, it was merely at the center of a web of such activity. Charles Eidson had his own common law group, the "Tampa Freedom Center." He offered common law advice and issued bogus liens. Five sovereigns were convicted in the Premier Benefit Capital Trust scheme, which defrauded investors of more than $7.5 million; two of the principles, Janice Weeks-Katona and her son, Jason Weeks, were convicted on additional charges, including plotting to kill U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday in Tampa, Florida. Similarly, two couples, members of a group called the American Citizens Alliance, received sentences for threatening two judges and filing fraudulent $25 million liens against them in retaliation. Members of the Alliance openly advocated killing police officers; its leader is in jail on federal charges of fraud. Other Alliance members included George Sibley and Lynda Lyon, who fled Orlando on aggravated battery charges rather than give themselves over to a "fraudulent and unconstitutional court."
While fugitives, Sibley and Lyon murdered an Alabama police officer and are currently on death row. Three freemen in Orlando, members of "American National Freeman" as well as Ippolito's common law court, were convicted in early 1996 on 21 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction of justice relating to bogus liens they filed. Other common law groups, such as the Guardians of American Liberty, were less openly confrontational, but still operated to spread the Posse ideology across the state, as did numerous individuals, who labeled themselves "freemen" or "sovereign citizens." Individuals were able to wreak just as much havoc on the legal system as groups.[20]
Florida was an early hotbed of common law activity, but the movement grew. From Florida and Texas and Wisconsin, and from resurgent Posse members in other areas, the common law movement spread like wildfire across the country. At meetings in Kansas and Oklahoma hundreds of people congregated to learn common law tactics, some of them paying large amounts of money for the privilege. Across the country, common law adherents began establishing versions of common law courts, which they called "Our One Supreme Court." They believe that the Constitution, referring to the judicial power of the United States being vested in "one Supreme Court," did not mean the establishment of one Supreme Court, but rather meant local common law courts that are the highest judicial authority in the land. By 1995, officials in Nebraska detected common law activity in almost half of the state's counties. Similar surveys in Ohio discovered common law activity in almost every single county in the state.
By mid-decade, certain hubs of activity had arisen: in Montana, the so-called Montana Freemen, fugitives from the law, offered classes on common law strategies, especially bogus money orders and checks, to people from around the country. In Ohio, groups such as "Rightway Law" offered common law seminars, while the central Ohio "Our One Supreme Court" received national attention for its activities. Indeed, by 1995 in Ohio, one common law leader had been killed in a traffic stop confrontation on a rural road, while another was in jail for assaulting a police officer and a third a fugitive for the same offense. Still another prominent leader had been convicted on fraud charges. Common law court activity was also especially high in California, Colorado, Idaho and Missouri, but no state was completely devoid of such activity.
As in the 1980s, there were many different types of common law activity, including tax protest activities, issuing arrest warrants, and establishing common law courts. Many common law actions were triggered by some sort of confrontation between a "sovereign citizen" and some authority figure, whether it be the IRS, a loan officer, or a state trooper issuing a traffic citation. It is at that moment that the adherent's fanatical nature is revealed, often turning the most minor incident into a violent confrontation or even an armed standoff.
One typical example is the case of James Conrad Gutschmidt of Mercer Island, Washington. In February 1996, Officer Glenn Sawyer of the King County Airport Police/Aircraft Fire-Rescue Division spotted a burned-out headlight on a car in a restaurant parking lot near Boeing Field Airport in South Seattle. Sawyer pulled up to the vehicle, occupied by Gutschmidt and two friends. Sawyer told Gutschmidt that the stop was only a safety stop and no citation would be issued. He asked to see Gutschmidt's driver's license. Gutschmidt replied that he was not "driving." Sawyer repeated his request. When Gutschmidt finally complied, Sawyer went back to the car and pulled up the license number on the computer, where he discovered a restraining order from a family law court, two failures to appear, two unpaid speeding tickets, and two suspended license actions for failure to appear. Sawyer asked Gutschmidt to step out of the vehicle. Gutschmidt refused, causing Sawyer to call for another officer to aid him. The two demanded that Gutschmidt leave his vehicle, which he finally did. After the confrontation, Gutschmidt was arrested on charges of obstructing an officer arrest. In the courtroom, Gutschmidt was no more cooperative. When the judge asked where he lived, Gutschmidt replied, "In my body, which is the temple of God." Gutschmidt having no fixed address, having been evicted earlier, the judge decided there was reason to believe Gutschmidt would again fail to appear at the readiness hearing and set bail at $1,000.
The police officers might have thought that the irritating episode was over, but retaliatory sequels to such events are a common occurrence. A few months later, Gutschmidt took his grievances to the local "Our One Supreme Court," where he charged the two officers with a variety of offenses and asked for a judgment of $10,000 in gold or silver (plus costs) against them. The common law court issued a summons to the two officers to appear before it, or face "judgment by default." The court also recorded for Gutschmidt an action against King County, the judge scheduled to try Gutschmidt's case, and Sawyer and the other police officer, and ordered that the case be dismissed and the thousand dollars in bail returned. The police officers ignored the summons and other documents, but were nevertheless worried about them, and not without reason. They could not guarantee that a group of sovereign citizens would not show up at their front doors and attempt to "arrest" them. In another, unrelated action, Gutschmidt secured a $170,000 common law court fine against Interest Savings bank, the bank that foreclosed on his house.
Not only do the common law courts issue summonses and judgments, but the courts and their adherents are especially active in placing bogus liens on the property of individuals or institutions with which they have disagreements. What was a nuisance in the 1980s turned into a serious problem nationwide in the 1990s. Common law court members filed liens against police officers, judges, city officials, banks, utility companies, businesses, and neighbors. Because such liens often go unnoticed until the recipient tries to sell his or her property, there could be thousands more liens still undiscovered. The filed documents look legitimate; in early 1996 a county sheriffs department in Colorado even served some common law court documents on a local church before noticing that they were bogus. Not only have Posse adherents become adept in drafting such documents themselves, but in a disturbing trend, some are finding legal practitioners willing to participate in such schemes. Several disbarred lawyers-as well as the occasional practicing one-have been known to prepare common law documents. To give but one example, in the spring of 1996, attorney Jerry Wilkins of Waxahachie, Texas, was one of four men convicted in that state of passing more than $61 million in fake money orders through their group "USA First." As a result, there is no shortage of people able to create realistic counterfeit money orders or bogus liens.
The paper value of the liens known about thus far runs into the trillions of dollars. The dollar amount of these liens is not as significant-because the liens, after all, are bogus-as is the fact that in many states it can cost up to thousands of dollars to have such liens removed. When the "Common Law Court of Pleas" in Arlington, Texas, filed a $1 billion bogus lien against the A. H. Belo Corporation (owner of the Dallas Morning News), the company had to pay $12,500 in legal fees to get it removed. A.H. Belo Corporation could spare the money; the average sheriffs deputy or county clerk cannot.[21]
Recently, many states have passed new laws making such liens easy to remove or making the filing of bogus liens criminal. Other states have dusted off old laws against impersonating public officials or criminal syndicalism in an attempt to deal with the actions of these courts. In most cases it is too soon to tell whether these new efforts will enjoy success. It is important to note, however, that in almost every case, the states have been reactive in nature, responding sluggishly to the tactics of the common law court movement. In contrast, the common law movement itself has so far proven itself extremely creative in discovering new strategies and tactics.
The most prominent example of common law activity, of course, is the group of people known as the Montana Freemen. Near Jordan, Montana, a group of unsuccessful fanning families decided to resort to common law activity to stave off debt and foreclosure, while to the south, in Roundup, Montana, a smaller group of tax protesters, steeped in Posse ideology, taught classes on how to use bogus checks and money orders. In both locations, quasi-standoff situations developed, local authorities not having the physical power to remove the Freemen from their foreclosed-upon land. Defiant, the Freemen escalated from frivolous lawsuits to bogus liens to common law courts and arrest warrants.
In September 1995, the Freemen in Roundup drove in a convoy north to Jordan and merged with the other group. By now the dark family ranch near Jordan had become, in true Posse fashion, "Justus Township." It also became a haven for common-law adherents fleeing from the law from Colorado, North Carolina, Utah and elsewhere. Garfield County, where the dark ranch lay, simply did not have the resources to deal with so many armed and committed extremists.
Common law adherents from across the country traveled to Jordan to learn how to use bogus checks from group leader Leroy Schweitzer. Not until March 1996, when federal authorities finally stepped in, was there a serious attempt at bringing the group to justice. Local citizens cheered as the FBI instituted a peaceful 81-day standoff that resulted in the surrender of the Freemen, now awaiting trial on numerous charges.
The resurgent common law court movement, though a direct descendant of its 1980s predecessor, has exhibited certain marked differences from its older incarnations. Of these, perhaps the most important is increased organization and increased cooperation between groups and individuals. The 1990s movement has exhibited an unprecedented degree of organization. Much of this has been due to the development of advanced technologies, including inexpensive fax machines, laser printers and the Internet. While in the 1980s a typical group might have operated only locally after attending some seminar on the subject, in the 1990s such groups are in contact with people of similar persuasion across the entire country. Magazines such as The AntiShyster and The Americans Bulletin cater to common law views, while the number of people traveling around to offer seminars (or seminars by videotape) is greater than ever. Even more obvious has been the impact of the Internet. World Wide Web sites that offer common law material are very numerous.
The range of this material is breathtaking, from long discourses and legal rationales for common law activity to detailed instructions on how to create "nonstatutory abatements" and "common law liens." Automated e-mail discussion lists allow common law adherents to share tactics with each other, something they do on a regular basis. The average common law proponent in the movement today potentially has much more information at his fingertips than did his predecessor a decade ago.
Another difference between the old movement and the new are the different strategies that have more recently emerged. While many of the goals of modem day common law court activists remain the same as those active in the 1980s, some goals have changed. The typical common law activist in 1983 might have been an angry farmer threatened by foreclosure who attempted to place a lien on his own property in an (futile) effort to forestall legal action. While a 1996 common law activist might engage in a similar battle, perhaps over a home mortgage, a zoning restriction, or in retaliation for a divorce action, there are a growing number of committed common law adherents who openly advocate common law tactics as a way to overload the legal and judicial system, with the ultimate goal of eventually bringing it down together. One of the reasons the Montana Freemen taught people how to issue bogus money orders was to destroy the hated Federal Reserve System. Others were content with lesser goals, such as flooding local county clerks' offices and local courts with so much common law activity that local officials would be too distracted to perform their lawful duties. This tactic has been especially effective in sparsely populated counties, where county governments have neither the staff nor resources to cope with such efforts. Another more immediate result of this strategy has been attrition, as many public officials and employees have become so frustrated dealing with these tactics that they have resigned from public service.
The common law court movement has also seen increasing violence and threats of violence, leading to great concern on the part of individuals whose jobs put them in contact with its members. Violence was always a possibility with the old Posse, particularly in farm states like Kansas, yet today the threat or actual use of violence seems much more widespread. Agencies like the Internal Revenue Service have long had to deal with the radical actions of the tax protest wing of the movement. People like Joseph Bailey, convicted of trying to blow up an IRS building in Reno, Nevada, in December 1995, keep the IRS vigilant. But now fanatical common law advocates have taken serious measures in their wars against other public officials. Many judges, prosecutors, police officers and other public servants have received arrest warrants; some have received death threats. In California, when Stanislaus County Recorder Karen Mathews refused to file the liens and other documents of the local common law group, Juris Christian Assembly, members of that group ambushed her in front of her home in early 1994, attacking her with blows and cuts from a knife. One assailant dry-fired a pistol repeatedly at her head, warning her to "do your job."
In Montana, the Montana Freemen were thwarted in 1995 in what was apparently an attempt to kidnap (and perhaps hang) law enforcement and criminal justice officials who opposed the Freemen. The following year, in Idaho, common law proponent Gary DeMott, head of a group called "Idaho Sovereignty," announced his plans to arrest not only a local judge but hundreds of county officials across the state. In the end, he backed down from his confrontational statements, but not before creating considerable concern and anxiety. The past actions of Posse adherents such as Gordon Kahl in the 1980s and George Sibley and Linda Lyons in the 1990s, individuals who translated threats of violence into the reality, demonstrate that such threats must be taken seriously.[22]
An additional feature of the resurgence of the common law court movement is greater numbers and distribution. The movement of the 1980s saw most activity in Wisconsin, the Great Plains states, and the Pacific Northwest, with incidents occurring in a number of other states, particularly in the West and Midwest. A decade later, there are sovereign citizen groups in every single state in the country. Moreover, these groups have exhibited a willingness to establish relations with other branches of the "patriot" movement. In several states, common law court leaders have expressed a desire that militia groups in their states act as marshals of the common law courts. So far, most militia units have been wary of such alliances, because of the danger it would place them in, but it is not uncommon for individuals to belong both to militias and to common law courts, particularly in rural areas.
Common law courts also have developed considerable connections with white supremacists, more so than has the militia movement. The sect Christian Identity maintains a very strong foothold within the movement, as evidenced by the Montana Freemen. In a few states, the common law ideology has taken a bizarre twist, resulting in secessionist movements. Not surprisingly, such movements have been limited to only a few states such as Hawaii, Alaska, and Texas. Texas has spawned the most notorious of such groups, the so-called "Republic of Texas" (ROT), which argues that Texas was never lawfully annexed and is therefore an independent nation. ROT grew quickly and spread across the state. It has co-opted most of the other common law groups and part of the militia movement in Texas. Its leaders act in open defiance of local authorities, who have obtained an arrest warrant (not yet served) for the rot's most visible leader, entrenched with his followers at a remote West Texas site.