From time to time over the years, readers have commented that some of the stories published by the PP Blog read like fiction. Did AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin, for example, really compare the U.S. Secret Service to “Satan” and the 9/11 terrorists?
The answer is yes. But if the answer weren’t disturbing enough, any number of Bowdoin’s apologists were more than pleased to help the recidivist con man spread his reality-distortion field on the Internet. By the time it was over, purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming was filing false liens against a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and a Secret Service agent who’d had roles in the ASD case, according to the FBI.
The Blog itself has pointed out that various “defenders” of various bizarre schemes have woven impossible tales — tales that wouldn’t sell as fiction because they require the suspension of too much disbelief.
If you’re a reporter, you haven’t lived until you’ve been invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony conducted by the nonexistent “prince” of a nonexistent undersea nation that purportedly sells driver’s licenses for $140.
Never in human history has fractured thinking been packaged and sold at the scale provided by the Internet. Law enforcement and the courts are facing unprecedented challenges as various litigants and, in some cases, their customers, seek to undermine the authority of judges, prosecutors and police.
In what the PP Blog believes to be one of the most important pieces of judicial reasoning published in 2012, an Alberta judge overseeing a divorce case and encountering bizarre posturing by one of the parties appears to have coined a new term: “Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument” or OPCA for short.
Court of Queen’s Bench Associate Chief Justice John Rooke used the divorce case as a springboard to discuss some of the bizarre litigation now occurring in Canada and the United States — theories advanced by “sovereign citizens,” for instance. Highlighted below are snippets from the judge’s issuance of a “Reasons for the Decision.” (Bolding added by PP Blog.)
“These Reasons in many instances identify reported caselaw that comments on OPCA litigants, OPCA gurus, and their misconduct. It should be understood that the reported caselaw is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of encounters between this Court and OPCA litigants are not reported.
These litigants and their schemes have been encountered in almost all areas of law. They appear in chambers, in criminal proceedings, initiate civil litigation based on illusionary OPCA rights, attempt to evade court and state authority with procedural and defencebased schemes, and interfere with unrelated matters.
OPCA strategies as brought before this Court have proven disruptive, inflict unnecessary expenses on other parties, and are ultimately harmful to the persons who appear in court and attempt to invoke these vexatious strategies. Because of the nonsense they argue, OPCA litigants are invariably unsuccessful and their positions dismissed, typically without written reasons. Nevertheless, their litigation abuse continues. The growing volume of this kind of vexatious litigation is a reason why these Reasons suggest a strong response to curb this misconduct.” — Queen’s Bench Associate Chief Justice John Rooke, Sept. 18, 2012
Did you know that American Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) schemes advanced by vexatious litigants have made their way into Canada?
And did you know that some individuals advancing such schemes do not seem to understand they are quoting codes and law to Canadian judges that apply only in America?
Not only do the codes and law not only not apply under Canadian law, they misinterpret the meaning and application of American law.
But it gets stranger than that: Dennis Larry Meads is a party to the divorce case filed in Alberta and referenced above. To say the case has served up a symphony of the bizzare would be an understatement.
Meads, for instance, allegedly has instructed Rooke “and the Bank of Canada to use a secret bank account, with the same number as his social insurance number or birth certificate, to pay all his child and spousal support obligations, and provide him $100 billion in precious metals. Mr. Meads has also purported to create various contractual obligations for those who might interact with him, or who write or speak his name.”
The case has prompted Rooke to dissect some very strange events taking place in Canadian and U.S. courts.
Theses cases, according to the judge, “often fall into the following descriptions: Detaxers; Freemen or Freemen-on-the-Land; Sovereign Men or Sovereign Citizens; Church of the Ecumenical Redemption International (CERI); Moorish Law; and other labels.”
At one point in the divorce proceeding, Meads attempted to give an envelope to the judge, but the judge refused, explaining “I refused the envelope, and noted that if the envelope was abandoned then I would put those materials in the garbage. I reassured Mr. Meads that I will apply the laws of Alberta and Canada, and that while he is in Court, he will follow the Court’s rules.
Mr. Meads’ reply was that was “unacceptable,” and he claimed that the “UCC” is “universal law,” according to the judge.
As the proceeding continued, according to the judge, Meads accused the court of “enticing me into slavery.”
Meads went on to insist that “the Bible is the ‘Maximus of Law’” before leaving the courtroom.
Read the judge’s reasoning and dissection of strange courtroom events in multiple cases.
Yesterday was another bad day for the legal profession’s noble members: They once again had to bear headlines about fraud schemes allegedly operated by colleagues past and present.
