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The state-of-the-art in what is best for children of divorce. Every parent, judge and family law attorney must view this video to save their children from the ravages of divorce.
Click Here to Learn More.

 
 
 
Antipeonage Act
Hello
The following is the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution for the United States. I have italicized, underlined and bold-typed some sections I found interesting which could have impact on the way courts treat and victimize people, especially the pro se, driving a lot of them into peonage.
It, apparently can also be utilized in bankruptcy cases as well.
 
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 U.S. Constitution: Thirteenth Amendment

Thirteenth Amendment - Slavery And Involuntary Servitude
 
Amendment Text | Annotations
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Annotation 1:
In 1863, President Lincoln issued an Emancipation Proclamation 1 declaring, based on his war powers, that within named States and parts of States in rebellion against the United States ''all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; . . .'' The Proclamation did not allude to slaves held in the loyalist States, and moreover, there were questions about the Proclamation's validity. Not only was there doubt concerning the President's power to issue his order at all, but also there was a general conviction that its effect would not last beyond the restoration of the seceded States to the Union. 2 Because the power of Congress was similarly deemed not to run to legislative extirpation of the ''peculiar institution,'' 3 a constitutional amendment was then sought; after first failing to muster a two-thirds vote in the House of Representatives, the amendment was forwarded to the States on February 1, 1865, and ratified by the following December 18. 4
In selecting the text of the Amendment, Congress ''reproduced the historic words of the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory, and gave them unrestricted application within the United States.'' 5 By its adoption, Congress intended, said Senator Trumbull, one of its sponsors, to ''take this question [of emancipation] entirely away from the politics of the country. We relieve Congress of sectional strifes. . . .'' 6 An early Supreme Court decision, rejecting a contention that the Amendment reached servitudes on property as it did on persons, observed in dicta that the ''word servitude is of larger meaning than slavery, . . . and the obvious purpose was to forbid all shades and conditions of African slavery.'' But while the Court was initially in doubt whether persons other than African Americans could share in the protection afforded by the Amendment, it did continue to say that although ''[N]egro slavery alone was in the mind of the Congress which proposed the thirteenth article, it forbids any other kind of slavery, now or hereafter. If Mexican peonage or the Chinese coolie labor system shall develop slavery of the Mexican or Chinese race within our territory, this amendment may safely be trusted to make it void.'' 7
"This Amendment . . . is undoubtedly self-executing without any ancillary legislation, so far as its terms are applicable to any existing state of circumstances. By its own unaided force and effect it abolished slavery, and established universal freedom.'' 8 These words of the Court in 1883 have generally been noncontroversial and have evoked little disagreement in the intervening years. The ''force and effect'' of the Amendment itself has been invoked only a few times by the Court to strike down state legislation which it considered to have reintroduced servitude of persons 9 and it has not used Sec. 1 of the Amendment against private parties. 10 A major change, however, has recently been wrought with regard to the scope of congressional power under Sec. 2 to enforce Sec. 1 of the Amendment.
Certain early cases suggested broad congressional powers, 11 but the Civil Rights Cases 12 of 1883 began a process, culminating in Hodges v. United States, 13 which substantially curtailed these powers. In the former decision, the Court held unconstitutional an 1875 law 14 guaranteeing equality of access to public accommodations. Referring to the Thirteenth Amendment, the Court conceded that ''legislation may be necessary and proper to meet all the various cases and circumstances to be affected by it, and to prescribe proper modes of redress for its violation in letter or spirit. And such legislation may be primary and direct in its character; for the amendment is not a mere prohibition of State laws establishing or upholding slavery, but an absolute declaration that slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist in any part of the United States.'' Appropriate legislation under the Amendment, the Court continued, could go beyond nullifying state laws establishing or upholding slavery, because the Amendment ''has a reflex character also, establishing and decreeing universal civil and political freedom throughout the United States'' and thus Congress was empowered ''to pass all laws necessary and proper for abolishing all badges and incidents of slavery in the United States.'' 15 But these badges and incidents as perceived by the Court were those which Congress had in its 1866 legislation 16 sought ''to secure to all citizens of every race and color, and without regard to previous servitude, those fundamental rights which are the essence of civil freedom, namely the same right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to inherit, purchase, lease, sell and convey property, as is enjoyed by white citizens.'' 17 But the Court could not see that the refusal of accommodations at an inn or a place of public amusement, without any sanction or support from any state law, could inflict upon such person any manner of servitude or form of slavery, as those terms were commonly understood. ''It would be running the slavery argument into the ground to make it apply to every act of discrimination which a person may see fit to make. . . .'' 18
Then in Hodges v. United States, 19 the Court set aside the convictions of three men for conspiring to drive several African Americans from their employment in a lumber mill. The Thirteenth Amendment operated to abolish, and to authorize Congress to legislate to enforce abolition of, conditions of enforced compulsory service of one to another and no attempt to analogize a private impairment of freedom to a disability of slavery would suffice to give the Federal Government jurisdiction over what was constitutionally a matter of state remedial law.
The latter case was overruled by the Court in a far-reaching decision in which it concluded that the 1866 congressional enactment, 20 far from simply conveying on all persons the capacity to buy and sell property, also prohibited private denials of the right through refusals to deal 21 and that this statute was fully supportable by the Thirteenth Amendment. ''Surely Congress has the power under the Thirteenth Amendment rationally to determine what are the badges and the incidents of slavery, and the authority to translate that determination into effective legislation. Nor can we say that the determination Congress has made is an irrational one. . . . Just as the Black Codes, enacted after the Civil War to restrict the free exercise of those rights, were substitutes for the slave system, so the exclusion of Negroes from white communities became a substitute for the Black Codes. And when racial discrimination herds men into ghettos and makes their ability to buy property turn on the color of their skin, then it too is a relic of slavery. . . . At the very least, the freedom that Congress is empowered to secure under the Thirteenth Amendment includes the freedom to buy whatever a white man can buy, the right to live wherever a white man can live. If Congress cannot say that being a free man means at least this much, then the Thirteenth Amendment made a promise the Nation cannot keep.'' 22 The Amendment, then, could provide the constitutional support for the various congressional en actments against private racial discrimination which Congress had previously based on the commerce clause; 23 because the 1866 Act contains none of the limitations written into the modern laws it has a vastly extensive application. 24 Whether the Court will yet carry its interpretation of the statute to the fullest extent possible is, of course, not now knowable.
Annotation 2:
Notwithstanding its early acknowledgement in the Slaughter-House Cases that peonage was comprehended within the slavery and involuntary servitude proscribed by the Thirteenth Amendment, 25 the Court has had frequent occasion to determine whether state legislation or the conduct of individuals has contributed to reestablishment of that prohibited status. Defined as a condition of enforced servitude by which the servitor is compelled to labor against his will in liquidation of some debt or obligation, either real or pretended, peonage was found to have been unconstitutionally sanctioned by an Alabama statute, directed at defaulting sharecroppers, which imposed a criminal liability and subjected to imprisonment farm workers or tenants who abandoned their employment, breached their contracts, and exercised their legal right to enter into employment of a similar nature with another person. The clear purpose of such a statute was declared to be the coercion of payment, by means of criminal proceedings, of a purely civil li ability arising from breach of contract. 26 Several years later, in Bailey v. Alabama, 27 the Court voided another Alabama statue which made the refusal without just cause to perform the labor called for in a written contract of employment, or to refund the money or pay for the property advanced thereunder, prima facie evidence of an intent to defraud and punishable as a criminal offense, and which was enforced subject to a local rule of evidence which prevented the accused, for the purpose of rebutting the statutory presumption, from testifying as to his ''uncommunicated motives, purpose, or intention.'' Inasmuch as a state ''may not compel one man to labor for another in payment of a debt by punishing him as a criminal if he does not perform the service or pay the debt,'' the Court refused to permit it ''to accomplish the same result [indirectly] by creating a statutory presumption which, upon proof of no other fact, exposes him to conviction.'' 28
In 1914, in United States v. Reynolds, 29 a third Alabama enactment was condemned as conducive to peonage through the permission it accorded to persons, fined upon conviction for a misdemeanor, to confess judgment with a surety in the amount of the fine and costs, and then to agree with said surety, in consideration of the latter's payment of the confessed judgment, to reimburse him by working for him upon terms approved by the court, which, the Court pointed out, might prove more onerous than if the convict had been sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor in the first place. Fulfillment of such a contract with the surety was viewed as being virtually coerced by the constant fear it induced of rearrest, a new prosecution, and a new fine for breach of contract, which new penalty the convicted person might undertake to liquidate in a similar manner attended by similar consequences. More recently, Bailey v. Alabama has been followed in Taylor v. Georgia 30 and Pollock v. Williams, 31 in which statutes of Georgia and Florida, not materially different from that voided in the Bailey case, were found to be unconstitutional. Although the Georgia statute prohibited the defendant from testifying under oath, it did not prevent him from entering an unsworn denial both of the contract and of the receipt of any cash advancement thereunder, a factor which, the Court emphasized, was no more controlling than the customary rule of evidence in Bailey. In the Florida case, notwithstanding the fact that the defendant pleaded guilty and accordingly obviated the necessity of applying the prima facie presumption provision, the Court reached an identical result, chiefly on the ground that the presumption provision, despite its nonapplication, ''had a coercive effect in producing the plea of guilty.''
Pursuant to its Sec. 2 enforcement powers, Congress enacted a statute by which it abolished peonage and prohibited anyone from holding, arresting, or returning, or causing or aiding in the arresting or returning, of a person to peonage. 32
 
The Court looked to the meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment in interpreting two enforcement statutes, one prohibiting conspiracy to interfere with exercise or enjoyment of constitutional rights, 33 the other prohibiting the holding of a person in a condition of involuntary servitude. 34 For purposes of prosecution under these authorities, the Court held, ''the term 'involuntary servitude' necessarily means a condition of servitude in which the victim is forced to work for the defendant by the use or threat of physical restraint or physical injury, or by the use or threat of coercion through law or the legal process.'' 35
 
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Annotation 3
In a wide range of situations the Thirteenth Amendment has been unsuccessfully pressed into service. Thus, under a rubric of ''services which have from time immemorial been treated as exceptional,'' the Court held that contracts of seamen, involving to a certain extent the surrender of personal liberty, may be enforced without regard to the Amendment. 36 Similarly, enforcement of those duties which individuals owe the government, such as service in the military and on juries, is not covered. 37 A state law requiring every able-bodied man within its jurisdiction to labor for a reason able time on public roads near his residence without direct compensation was sustained. 38 A Thirteenth Amendment challenge to conscription for military service was summarily rejected. 39 A state law making it a misdemeanor for a lessor, or his agent or janitor, intentionally to fail to furnish such water, heat, light, elevator, telephone, or other services as may be required by the terms of the lease and necessary to the proper and customary use of the building was held not to create an involuntary servitude. 40 A federal statute making it unlawful to coerce, compel, or constrain a communications licensee to employ persons in excess of the number of the employees needed to conduct his business was held not to implicate the Amendment. 41.
To help those affected by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama,
   
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The purpose of this website is to introduce you to an Act of Congress that folks seem to have forgotten over the years.  This statute is the Antipeonage Act of 1867.  It currently exists as 42 U.S.C. §1994, which is the civil provision, and 18 U.S.C. §1581, which is the criminal provision.   Just to keep you from thinking that I am talking about a  myth, you may look these statutes up in the United States Code.
 
The Antipeonage Act is appropriate legislation Congress passed to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude except as a punishment for a crime.  It is not the least bit unconstitutional, because it is authorized by an Appropriate Legislation Clause.  What the Antipeonage Act does is that it defines as null and void any attempt by virtue of state law to establish, maintain, or enforce the service or labor of any person as a peon in liquidation of a debt or obligation, or otherwise.  Any enforcement of such is a felony punishable by a fine of not more than $250,000 and imprisonment for not more than 20 years.  If however, there is a kidnapping involved, say what happened to Dawn Case, imprisonment may be for any term of years to life.
 
Peonage is thus legally required labor to pay a debt or obligation. That child support is covered by the Antipeonage Act is argued in my briefs filed in Knight v. Maleng, 9th Cir. 00-35625.   The United States Supreme Court denied review of this case on October 1, 2001.  That sucks, but there are millions of us nationwide, and for those of you who are not fighting back, what the Hell is stopping you?  Answer: You.  When you stop stopping you, that is the beginning of us stopping them.  The day you stop being afraid of them is the day they start being afraid of you.  With the Antipeonage Act, they have a lot to fear.  Please click here for the need for numbers, money, and publicity.
The Support Enforcement Justice Files. Lists of State and County Employees are available at www.lbloom.net  We now expose the financial incentives and interrelationships of the judges and attorneys responsible for this tragedy at the County level!
The Space Shuttle ColumbiaA Tribute to the HeroesWhy We Fly
Or go to mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/01_31_01_releases/cydonia/ and download Photo M18-00606 and look at the Slag Pile.  Look at the ground immediately to the east of the Slag Pile.  We better find out what that is.
Comment on the OBSCENE UN-AMERICAN Amunrud decision by the Court of Appeals on December 27, 2004 by Judges William W. Baker, Faye C. Kennedy, and Mary Kay Becker.
When a dad is dead, Social Security pays his family far more than he could possibly pay in child support while ALIVE.  So next time you condemn a deadbeat dad, tell him what a selfish jackass he is for continuing to breathe.

For their sponsorship of Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox Sucker's www.paykids.com his Paykids Foundation, boycott the listed sponsors, including Art Van Furniture, Meijer Stores, Michigan State Medical Society (warning, the MSMS website does not like to let you out when you click the back button), SBC Communications, and Michigan Health and Hospital Association and tell them why you are boycotting them!  Go to the Michigan Enemies of Freedom Page and read letters by Stan Rains and Terry Lear for more information as to why, and read Domino's Pizza, Inc.'s letter to me in response to my concerns about PayKid's use of Domino's Pizza gift certificates as a prize in their loathsome Billboard contest, which was CANCELLED!!

Not to be outdone, we are announcing our own billboard contest!

Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik is now on record as saying that imprisonment for child support is PEONAGE, and he promises to direct the civil rights divisions of the Department of Justice to crack down on states that in their family law practices violate the 13th Amendment, the 14th Amendment, and the Antipeonage Act.  Way to go Badnarik!!!

Recently, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an article by Michelle Nicolosi on the trafficking of humans, and she actually used the term "debt bondage" to describe their condition!  We call that "peonage" Ms. Nicolosi!  Guest columnist Tom Thompson wrote an editorial column about how slavery is booming in the 21st Century.  Employers are constantly looking for ways to get labor without paying living wages for it.  It really helps when the "at-will doctrine" is there for the employer but NOT there for the employee.  What he describes he calls "debt slavery".  We call that "peonage" Mr. Thompson.

Over at the Seattle Weekly, Nina Shapiro wrote her take on modern slavery and human trafficking.  This resulted in these letters to the editor on the subject. "Debt bondage".  "Debt slavery".  Why can't people just call it peonage?

The women themselves admit it's slavery:  Click here for their Yahoo! Group Ex Husband Now My Slave.

Recently, I challenged a contempt prosecution with a Statutory Writ Action in King County Superior Court.  What happened is that the State actually admitted into evidence hard copies of pages from this web site and some of the War Posters.  They appear to be trying to punish me for exercising my right to freedom of speech with a contempt prosecution and to be prejudicing the family court commissioners against me.  I suppose their defense is that it is as impossible to prejudice a family court commissioner against a noncustodial dad more than he already is as it is impossible to prejudice a Nazi against a Jew more than he already is!

In Knight v. Schmitz, 9th Cir. 01-35459 I argued that excessive child support orders violate the parent's fundamental rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.  This effort was killed by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which brings me to ask this question:  How come the Lovings were able to attack the validity of their old state court felony conviction for unlawful marriage in a class action civil lawsuit brought in federal court?   I realize Feldman came down in 1983, but Rooker has been there since 1923.  I wonder if the federal judiciary and the Senate and Presidents who appointed it decided that the Civil Rights Revolution of the 1960's and '70's is something we cannot allow to happen again?  How else can we explain the rapid and complete embrace of Younger and Rooker-Feldman?

  After the Washington Legislature passed the WorkFirst Act in 1997, I have had several opportunities to challenge its validity.  In response to two letters from the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services threatening license suspension, I brought action in the state courts to have this multi-subject bill struck down on the grounds that multi-subject bills are prohibited by the Washington Constitution.  The briefs are listed on the page Knight v. DSHS, Wash. Court of Appeals No. 46753-1-I.

 Finally in September 2001, the DSHS decided to actually suspend my driver's license.  Even though I previously filled out a change of address form that was effective for both of my vehicle registration and for my operating license, they are pretending that they "lost" this document and mailed the notice to an address different than either my old address or the new address I notified them of.  What's more, they've acknowledged my change of address for vehicle registration, just not for my vehicle operating license!!!

 We would not want to start trusting the government now, do we?  Our government does everything it can to disabuse us of that notion!!

  How I found out was that I started being pulled over and charged with driving while license suspended.  This has resulted in several new actions.  The pleadings are listed on Knight v. Seattle, No. C02-201R Knight v. Mercer Island, No. C02-879L, and Knight v. Serpas, No. C02-1641C.  We have a VICTORY in Mercer Island v. Knight!  On January 17, 2003, the charges were dismissed with prejudice on remand because the City of Mercer Island elected to not continue the prosecution.    After that, on March 11, 2003 the King County Sheriff's Department served me the licenses suspension paperwork that should have been properly served before.  So now we have the Administrative Procedure Act adjudication in Knight v. State of Washington and DSHS.  And, it appears that the King County Prosecutor does not understand collateral estoppel, I have had to fight a new battle and this time plead collateral estoppel!  The way I was treated by all too real Judge Pro Tempore Leonard Stephen Rochon has inspired the good folks at Li, Miles, and Furlong, my imaginary law firm, they are located at 451 Fahrenheit, Suite 16, Seattle, Washington, to draft a dummy motion to vacate decisions by fictional Judge Pro Tempore Olive Howell, on behalf of that made up character, Lenora Blanchard.  Lenora Blanchard may be a real character, but she is not a real person. Just imagine her sister Virginia Blanchard!  And I ultimately won this fight!  See the CQ54646KC main page for this lovely little dustup.

 In No. C02-879L, Judge Lasnik not only dismissed my action on September 25, 2002, he barred me from litigating in federal court concerning child support issues. .tif file.  Of course, I will appeal.  This is the consequence of my having to fight this battle virtually alone.  Had we some concerted activity, we could have achieved a different result.  Before filing an appeal, I filed my Motion to Amend Judgment to illustrate how wrong this is.  On January 30, 2003, he denied my Motion.  On to the Ninth Circuit, with a Motion for Stay of Judgment Imposing Litigation Bar Pending Appeal, FRAP 8.  Which Judge Lasnik immediately deniedWe made this motion in the Ninth.

 To show the all purpose nature of attacking Washington laws as being based on multi-subject bills, Mr. James Mullins has blessed my decision to post the Brief of Appellant the attorneys I work with have filed in State v. Mullins, Washington Court of Appeals Division One, No. 49183-1-I. This is an assault on the Violence Reduction Act of 1994, which included changes in gun control laws.  On November 25, 2002, Judge H. Joseph Coleman wrote an Unpublished Opinion affirming the superior court result.  He was joined by Judges Susan Agid and Anne Ellington.  Jim  filed a Petition for Review with the Supreme Court of Washington.  In fairness to this panel of judges, I must say that they were caught between the rock of In re Boot which upheld the VRA (though not cited and argued by the State in its Brief), and the hard place of Amalgamated Transit which reversed Boot's essential logic to toss Initiative 695.  As for the Smith and Cruz test, State v. Schmidt, the 5-4 split decision denying the claim that the VRA firearm provisions constitute and ex post facto law when applied to old felony convictions, did presume retroactive effect while not addressing how the Smith and Cruz decisions apply to the VRA.

     In Washington Association of Neighborhood Stores v. State of Washington, (2003) 149 Wash. 2d. 359, 70 P. 3d. 920, the Supreme Court of Washington upheld Initiative 773, the Tobacco Tax Initiative.  That is fine as far as that goes, but they weaseled on what they said about Article II Section 19 in Amalgamated Transit.  In Neighborhood Stores, the 5 justice majority in an opinion written by Charles W. Johnson (joined by Barbara Madsen, Faith Ireland, Tom Chambers, and Charles Smith)  said that necessity of implementation was not necessary to prove "rational unity" in a bill with a general title.  Never mind that is exactly what they said in Amalgamated Transit and Burien v. Kiga about the Tim Eyman Initiatives.  They now say that "rational unity" is demonstrated where each provision is necessary to implement the other provisions, rational unity may also be demonstrated if the provisions "directly relate" to each other and to the title.  Unfortunately the dissent written by Justice Richard Sanders and joined by Gerry Alexander, Susan Owens and Bobbie Bridge fails to criticize this "clarification" of the test for rational unity in Article II Section 19 challenges to multi-subject bills.  What they criticize is that if the Initiative does not mandate appropriations for health care, then it violates the subject in title part of Article II Section 19.  This line of reasoning is further developed in Citizens for Responsible Wildlife Management v. State of Washington, (2003) 149 Wash. 2d. 622, 71 P. 3d. 644.  Fortunately, Citizens rejected a suggestion that Initiatives be given less deference than Acts of the Legislature, both are to be given the same scrutiny.  If only they would live up to that and not deny review to such cases where the Court of Appeals rejected an Article II Section 19 argument in an unpublished decision.  But then, that is one of the reasons that the unpublished decision rule trashes the expectation for consistent application of the law.  It frees the appellate courts from having to live with decisions in which they deliberately deviate from precedent to shaft a citizen, attorney, or an argument they do not like.  To say that the judges are not political is like saying the ocean is not salty.  While the Supreme Court of Washington sometimes grants review to unpublished decisions, they don't have the same incentive to do so unless the press is covering it like brown covers shit.  And hot damn if the press usually doesn't even mention such cases while editorially criticizing Tim Eyman for presenting two subject Initiatives!  That ranks up there on the hypocrisy meter with editorially whining about the corrupting effects of campaign contributions while charging more for political ads than for commercial ads.

On June 3, 2003, in the case of Bennett v. State of Washington, No. 29173-8, the State Court of Appeals, Division Two upheld the WorkFirst Act as a single subject bill without ANY analysis of its contents under the test for rational unity established in Amalgamated Transit, Burien v. Kiga, Neighborhood Stores and Citizens.  Because of the generous 250 megabytes offered by Zero Catch, and because I contacted Mark Bennett, who has supplied me computer file copies of his briefs, I have, with his permission, posted his briefs with the reference page for Bennett v. State of Washington.  We are also moving for leave to file a Brief of Amici Curiae with the Supreme Court of Washington in that case.  It was granted.  However, Mark Bennett's Petition for Review itself was ultimately denied.

Needless to say, we had to rewrite the dummy briefs we have placed on this website to account for Neighborhood Stores and Citizens.  As you can see from reading these briefs, we can still make a powerful argument against these multi-subject bills, if the two parts of Initiative 695 or Initiative 722 do not "directly relate" to each other, which is the only way by which Amalgamated Transit and Kiga can be sustained, then the same can be said for the WorkFirst Act and the other bills challenged in these dummy briefs and the real briefs we have filed on behalf of myself and James Mullins.  We cannot change these already filed briefs, of course, but do take Neighborhood Stores and Citizens into account when drafting your challenge to a multi-subject bill.

 I do not fault the folks at Lane Powell who challenged Initiative 773.  I am certain that they did a very good job.  If they used the briefs posted on this website as part of their research, then the function of this website has been performed.  Lane Powell need not confirm or deny looking at this website as part of their research.

 We have done research on behalf of another client finding that liquor law violations are vulnerable because the original Liquor Control Acts of the 1930's easily embraced more than one subject and some of the bills passed since then amending the liquor laws breach the firewall between defining crimes and non-criminal matters.  City ordinances are also governed by the single subject limitation.  We posted a brief with the client referred to by the dummy name Gloria N.X. Celsius, represented by Justin Case of Li, Miles, and Furlong.  In real life, John R. Scannell presented this argument on behalf of Sun H. Winegar, for whom we Move for Discretionary Review.

Winslow Bainbridge is a strange fellow.  Juanita Kirkland found him intriguing at first but her infatuation dimmed and she got creeped out by his manner and telephone calls.  She obtained a protection order under chapter 10.14 RCW and the City of Seattle charged him with violating the order.  Upon a little research, the good folks at Li, Miles, and Furlong determined that SMC 12A.06.180 does not cover protection orders granted under chapter 10.14 RCWThey brought a motion to dismiss on behalf of their client Winslow Bainbridge.  It turns out such a charge is better made under SMC 12A.06.190.  But not to worry, we can analyze the Ordinance that created SMC 12A.06.190 for multi-subjectness.  Our challenge to SMC 12A.06.180 as being based on multi-subject Ordinances is still valid for the client who is charged with violating a domestic violence related protection order.

Another of Justin Case's hypothetical clients, Millie Graham, is charged with a felony count of violation of RCW 69.50.401(f).  Her son Michael Graham  was busted for delivering a controlled substance and she put him up to it.  Our motion to dismiss the charge on the grounds that subsection (f) was added by a multi-subject bill, Laws 1987 chapter 458.  Michael Graham was charged with delivering more than two kilograms of a Schedule I or II controlled substance, cocaine, RCW 69.50.401(a)(1)(i)(B).  He's in a heap of trouble and Li, Miles, and Furlong is gonna have to go the distance to save his butt. Senior partner Qiahao Yiqian Li has joined Justin Case in representing him. Take a look at Laws 1971 1st ex. sess. chapter 308, the Uniform Controlled Substances Act, chapter 69.50 RCW. Take a good look at RCW 69.50.301-312. I would say that it provides for regulation and licensing of LEGAL manufacturing and distribution of controlled substances, which is a different subject than defining CRIMES.  In addition to the UCSA, there is Laws 1989 chapter 271, the Omnibus Alcohol and Controlled Substances Act.  Anytime you see the word "Omnibus" in the name of a bill, you know that it is the product of everyone and their kid brother coming to the Legislature with their wish list and the Legislature accommodating the wishes.  Congress is allowed to do that but the Washington Legislature is prohibited by Article II Section 19 of the Washington Constitution.  The reason I increased Michael Graham's quantity of cocaine to five pounds is to better establish his standing to challenge this lovely multi-subject monstrosity.  It not only breaches the firewall between defining crimes and providing for non-criminal matters, it breaches the often enforced firewall between funding and appropriations measures and provisions affecting substantive rights.  Here is the Michael Graham Brief.

Justin Case wrote a brief for Ella Vader, arrested for possessing amphetamine with intent to deliver.  Laws 1998 chapter 82 actually contains a provision that declares itself null and void absent the passage of a funding bill by June 30, 1998.  Tsk.  Tsk.  Tsk.  It makes you feel like the school teacher with a particularly creative bunch of excuse makers.  And then there is his client Magnus Olsen, arrested for possessing a firearm at Rainier Beach High School.  We will provide the motion to dismiss.

You will be seeing more briefs along this line, as we draft multi-subject bill challenges to a whole bunch of RCW's. For parties, we'll use dummy names such as Roman Miles, Bonnie Lake, and Franklin Stove unless our client agrees to allow us to use the actual brief on this website. My favorite dummy corporation is Imperial Quartz, Sand, and Gravel, Inc., I hear they've retained Li, Miles, and Furlong.  Not to mention Smith Foundry and Machine Shop, Inc. and Cooper Container Corporation.

 It's really very simple: You have a client adversely affected by an RCW.  Well, shucks!  You just waltz on over to the Law Library and look up all of the Laws of Washington that went into the statute.  You find a multi-subject bill creating or amending the statute, you have a good faith motion to dismiss or argument on appeal, if prior to the amendment, the statute did not prohibit your client's actions.  Such as owning a long firearm after a felony conviction. We can blast BIG UGLY HOLES in the Revised Code of Washington this way and force the Legislature to re-pass all of the provisions in single subject bills.

 The problem is the absolute lack of similarity of the Supreme Court of Washington decisions in In re Boot, which upheld the obscenely multi-subject Violence Reduction Act because all of the subjects are related to violence reduction, and Amalgamated Transit, which struck down Initiative 695 because one provision was not necessary to implement the other. Then Neighborhood Stores revises that to the "directly relate" test. WELL, WHICH IS IT? If the relatedness of all of the provisions of a bill to the subject of its title render it single subject, regardless of how many firewalls between appropriations and substantive law, defining and punishing crimes and non-criminal matters, etc. are breached, then Initiative 695 is a single subject bill. If the lack of direct relationship of each provision to each other provision  is what defines a bill as two subject, then the Violence Reduction Act, the WorkFirst Act, the Omnibus Alcohol and Controlled Substances Act, the Uniform Controlled Substances Act, the Liquor Control Act, and many other bills are all void as multi-subject bills.

"The Washington Federation of State Employees case, In re Boot, the Jenkins, Acevedo, and Knight cases cited by Boot, and Amalgamated Transit, Burien v. Kiga, Washington Assoc. of Neighborhood Stores v. State, and Citizens for Responsible Wildlife Management all found that the bills and initiatives at issue had general titles.  All held that all that was necessary was that there be 'rational unity' in all of the provisions with respect to the subject of the general title.  However, Amalgamated Transit, Kiga, Neighborhood Stores. and Citizens together established a test to determine rational unity:  Each and every provision of a bill or initiative with a general title must directly relate to each and every other provision, or it lacks rational unity.  As an example, had the Uniform Controlled Substances Act been passed without the 300 series sections concerning the lawful uses of controlled substances by the health care industry, it would meet the Amalgamated Transit rational unity test.  The provisions providing for law enforcement powers and responsibilities directly relate to the provisions defining crimes and the penalties for the crimes.  These provisions do not directly relate to the provisions concerning lawful health care uses of controlled substances and vice versa.  Amalgamated Transit made this exact point with Initiative 695: absent the section providing for a vote on all tax increases, all of the other provisions would have had rational unity with the repeal of the MVET and the establishment of the flat $30 license tab fee.  Because the previous decisions concerning the Violence Reduction Act, the Omnibus Alcohol and Controlled Substances Act and other omnibus bills do not analyze these bills under the direct relation test subsequently established by Amalgamated Transit and Neighborhood Stores, these omnibus bills passed by the Legislature must be re-analyzed under this test for there to be 'rational unity' in the way this state's courts interpret Article II Section 19."

 

You want to stick it to the seat belt Nazis?  We join the clickitstickit campaign with our challenge to a seat belt citation.

This website will continue on.  We will just keep adding more and more information.  The reason there is only text, lots of links in blue, and so little graphics is to pile on as much information as possible for the bytes of server that I am using.  Other ways of fighting this battle, might be to sue a deputy sheriff and his elected boss for bad faith arrest.  If an arrest is the crime defined by 18 U.S.C. §1581, then of course it is bad faith and he has no immunity to a 42 U.S.C. §1983 assault.  If you have other ideas, feel free to pursue them and then e-mail me about them.  I would also appreciate those who link to this site from their sites. I will happily return the favor.

 Mike Galluzzo is going at it in Ohio!  He is challenging the practice of a court assigning custodial and non-custodial parent status upon an UNANSWERED MOTION!!!  This link is to my page where, with his permission, I post pdf files of some of his pleadings in Galluzzo v. Champaign County Court of Common Pleas, S.D. Ohio No. C3-01-174 and his appeal, 6th Cir. No. 04-3527.

I have also tried my hand as a fiction writer, you can find samples of my fiction at my Neanderthal Return website.  If you wish to support me in my endeavor, purchasing my novel Neanderthal Return from www.authorhouse.com is a great way to do it. A good friend of mine, Ivy Rose Nightscales, has placed her book of poetry, Garden of Words, on www.authorhouse.com.  If you like poetry, please give her book a look.  And for a better understanding of our problems, there is Blind Baseball - A Father's War, by A. Green, also on www.authorhouse.com.

Over the years, I have written letters to the editor of our local papers.  Most were not published, but a few were.  Enjoy.  Some very important comments on the continuing erosion of our freedoms are in these letters.  To show that I have my lighter moments, my comment on the Area 51 phenomenon.

I have done my own versions of some of the famous war posters.  Click War Posters to find them.  You should love them, they are great satire.

We have allies in this fight: Click here for links to some of our allies.  One ally is Mr. Perry Manley.  He was prosecuted for child support contempt and had the case dropped.  He was recently reported on the front page of Real Change.

Then on June 20, 2005 he went into the United States Courthouse in Seattle with something that looked like a grenade.  After 20 minutes of negotiations, he was shot and killed by police.  Related article.

 We are very saddened by this turn of events.

The way to honor Mr. Manley is to fight to make America live up to her promises of freedom and to demand that that NO INTEREST OF GOVERNMENT IS SO COMPELLING AS TO JUSTIFY THE VIOLATION OF ANY RIGHTS PROVISION OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION OR THE 50 STATE CONSTITUTIONS!

Perry recently wrote an e-mail to Representative Jay Inslee (D) Washington on these issues.  The congressman is either a dunce or he disrespects our intelligenceOn this link you can read his response to Mr. Perry and my response to that.

In response to comments that Perry abandoned his family and his responsibilities, please consider that his divorce case is Kitsap County No. 89-3-01537-0  and he is listed as the RESPONDENT. Please consider that RCW 26.09.080 declares that property division shall be "without regard to marital misconduct".  It is the policy in Washington that a wife can sabotage her marriage and then fleece her breadwinning husband and HE HAS NO DEFENSE AND NO WAY TO STOP IT!!!! It matters not whether he ever did anything wrong. The Administrator of the Washington Courts now has a superior courts lookup page where you can search for almost every case in the Washington superior courts since 1970.

After he was killed at the United States Courthouse, his ex-wife was interviewed on local television news. (Best if you have broadband, Videos are slow download for the dial-up modem)  She said that it was all about the money, as in "Don't tell me what to do with my money!"

Well, yes it is.  That is what the American Revolution was all about.  That is what motivated the Minutemen at Lexington and Concord.  That is what the flag with the rattlesnake and the caption "Don't tread on me" meant.  Mr. Manley would have been happy to raise his children but his ex-wife and a government gone mad took that away from him.

And then they did not have the good sense to just leave him alone after stripping his family away from him.  They treaded on him.

  Commentary by Roger F. Gay at www.mensnewsdaily.com

 Commentary by David R. Usher at www.mensnewsdaily.com

After these terrible events at the federal courthouse, Judge Thomas S. Zilly is quoted by press reports as not really understanding what relief Perry was asking for.

So I thought I would go and look up Perry's federal case.  It is Manley v. State of Washington et al, W.D. Wash. No. C03-167Z:

Complaint pdf file a big sucka, 1,613 kb (They say patience is its own reward.  Yeah, right!) It is all of the attached exhibits, of course.  You will please notice that some of these exhibits include pleadings from State v. Manley, King County No. 02-3-04633-2 SEA listed on this web page.  Perry used a res judicata or collateral estoppel argument that having bailed on the state court contempt case when he asserted the protection of the Antipeonage Act, the state was now barred from claiming the validity of any of its efforts to enforce the support order and therefore, under the federal civil rights statutes he quotes therein, he was entitled to declaratory and other relief in the federal court.

Yet Judge Zilly, who was actually admitted to the Washington State Bar Association in 1962 on the strength of having completed a course of study in the law and passing the bar exam, claimed he could not understand what it was Perry was asking for.  Said so in an Order requiring Perry to file an Amended Complaint.  Which Perry did listing all of the federal statutes and legal grounds that grant the federal courts the power to act.  While one might not blame Judge Zilly for concluding that Perry was being sarcastic, neither can one blame Perry for being sarcastic.

Judge Zilly dismissed the case with an Order, and that is the basis for Perry's claim that the judge, by allowing the Constitution and laws of the United States be violated after having been duly and properly informed of their violation, committed treason.

I suppose Perry's paperwork could have been better written.  If you will look at my pleadings listed on my Knight v. Maleng, 9th Cir. 00-35625, W.D. Wash. No. C00-151Z page, you might conclude that I did a better job of apprising Judge Zilly of the Antipeonage Act and of the relief he could grant.  He just did not grant it.

I also list links to neutral source of information.

Please click here for my reaction to the terrible destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  As angry as I am about the government violating my rights, there is no way in HELL I would support the use of civilian jetliners built by Boeing, the company I once worked for, and their innocent passengers, to commit such acts of mass murder.  It is an Act of War by those who certainly do not believe in American freedom.  This nation can count on my full support in resolving these terrible events as it can count on all noncustodial parents who are also American citizens.

I believe I have an explanation as to why these crazies hate us.

On the issue of violence, I must comment on the sad case of Tacoma Police Chief Brame.  Yes, we protest the loose and rather inclusive definitions of domestic violence, and the lack of due process when it comes to establishing restraining orders that seriously restrict the freedom of the respondents, particularly where the facts do NOT meet even these expanded definitions of domestic violence.  But spouses should refrain from physically assaulting each other and ought not to murder each other.  An interesting revelation is that I do not believe that those who lash out at their wives and girlfriends are motivated by the same issues that motivate us to oppose, with arguments as to law, the support orders, their enforcement, or even anti-harassment orders.

Click here for a brief history behind the Antipeonage Act.

Congress reacted to the practice of peonage in New Mexico Territory as described in this site's History page, when it passed the Antipeonage Act, original statute recorded at 14 Stat 546.  New Mexico used its peonage system to enforce all kinds of debts and obligations: debts arising from express or implied contracts, awards for attorney's fees, tort judgments, and the duty of a husband to support his wife and children, whether divorced or not.

I kid you not!  When we use contempt proceedings, arrest, and imprisonment to enforce orders to pay child support, orders that can be complied with only by employment, we commit the crime defined by 18 U.S.C. §1581.  Everyone involved with enforcing support orders is guilty of this crime: the prosecutors, the deputy sheriffs who serve the warrants, the judges and family court commissioners who issue the warrants and blatantly order noncustodial parents to seek employment or punish them for quitting employment, the custodial parents and their attorneys who bring contempt actions or actions to establish child support, and the welfare agencies who actively establish and enforce support orders and pursue those noncustodials who, like Atlas, shrug when overburdened.  All of these people are CRIMINALLY liable.

 Click here for a list of some of our enemies, people who violate our rights under the 13th Amendment and the Antipeonage Act.  Please read about an interesting trend with respect to elected county prosecutors in some of the western states. One enemy is Michael Hlinka, Toronto Radio Personality.  Then there is Representative Jay Inslee (D) Washington.  He is either a dunce or disrespects our intelligence.

All can and should be indicted by the local United States Grand Jury.  If you are on the Grand Jury, you do not need the permission of anyone, not the Assistant United States Attorney who presents you with cases to indict, and not the judge who supervises you.  YOU and only YOU, can decide whether to indict or "no true bill" a case.  YOU can decide what crimes to investigate, issue your own subpoenas, review the paperwork that comes in as a result of the subpoenas, and question people you target for possible indictment for any felony defined by the laws of the United States.

Why do this?  Integrity of the law.  When we create an exception to the protection of the laws to allow us to "go after" a group of people we think are not doing their share, we open the way for all to lose their Constitutional rights.  If the duty to support a child justifies denying a parent the protection of the Thirteenth Amendment, then what is to stop the government from ordering any parent, with or without custody of her children, into forced labor and visiting upon said parent all of the indignities currently imposed upon the noncustodial parents?  Answer: NOTHING.  Say a state agency, Child Protective Services, investigates a family and decides that while the children are not being abused or neglected, the parents are not earning enough money to "properly support" the children.  The father works his 40 hours a week plus overtime, but he is non-union blue collar and worried about his job being shipped to China or Mexico.  He does not make much more than minimum wage.  However, they do not use food stamps or other public benefits and take care of themselves, even though the mother stays home with the kids.  The state social worker decides that the father is doing all he can, but the mother must work at least 20 hours per week to better financially provide for the children.  What is to stop the social worker from getting a court order REQUIRING the mother, on PAIN OF CONTEMPT PROCEEDINGS, ARREST, AND IMPRISONMENT, to work at least 20 hours per week?

Answer:

NOTHING.  NOT IF WE HAVE ALREADY CONCEDED THAT THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT DOES NOT PROTECT THE FATHER IF HE IS NO LONGER MARRIED TO THE MOTHER OR NEVER MARRIED TO THE MOTHER.

That is what we are talking about! Please forgive us for being frustrated with all of the "sheeple" who refuse to "get it" and tolerate what we do to the noncustodial parents.  If the Thirteenth Amendment does not protect the noncustodials, it does not protect ANY parent!  You who are on the Grand Jury can start fixing this problem RIGHT NOW with the enforcement of 18 U.S.C. §1581, not to mention 18 U.S.C. §2 aiding and abetting, and 18 U.S.C. §241, conspiracy to deny civil rights.  The rest of you can start fixing this problem by getting off your rear ends and doing the heavy lifting necessary to make our republic work the way it was designed to work.  You do not have to vote to re-elect the problem.  You could vote for the other guy even if you have to hold your nose.   You can always get rid of her the next time around.  You can use the initiative process (but use it wisely).  Lest you think that "it won't do any good" ask yourself when was the last time you saw kilometers on road signs in the United States?  When WE the PEOPLE say we don't want something, we get listened to.  We just have to say it in numbers. And feel free to exercise your First Amendment rights as to this issue, it is how we protect the other Amendments.

Letter to New Zealand Member of Parliament Muriel Newman.  She is at muriel.newman@parliament.govt.nz In this letter I make what I believe to be the kind of argument that just might get through the thick skulls of those who cannot otherwise seem to grasp that this is a vital issue of FREEDOM, without which, we CANNOT be the parents our children need.

The "natives" are restless, and the power structure knows it.  People simply do not trust government.  Asked about re-electing the problem, voters will tell you that the opposite party nominee, if there is one, is often not a viable alternative.  Meaning the Republican is too much of an anti-abortionist, too much in the thrall of "big business" or too "law and order" to be one likely to promote greater respect for constitutional rights.  Or the Democrat is too much of a "tax and spender," too "disrespectful of the Second Amendment," or too much into "avant-garde" ideas such as mandatory seat-belt laws, banning tobacco smoking everywhere, the Metric System, public support for ugly and offensive art, or engaging in the hate campaign against noncustodial fathers along with the social conservative Republicans, to be one likely to promote greater respect for constitutional rights.  Both are all too willing to sell those rights for federal funds.

So people who have been abused by Child Protective Services, now called the Children's Administration, by the child support system, by excessive taxes, by smoking restrictions, by enforcement of the marijuana laws, by irrational court decisions, by a complete lack of response by the local government or school district for their concerns, will enthusiastically collect signatures for Tim Eyman because he is trying to starve the system that abuses them of its operating funds.  People are afraid of CPS, they do not trust them.  Why is that?  One explanation starts with the celebrated case of William and Kathleen Swan.  Those who have been abused by this state's agencies are inclined to believe that they were railroaded.  After a dispassionate and fresh review of State v. Swan, (1990) 114 Wash. 2d. 613, 790 P. 2d. 610, I am inclined to agree, though I freely admit that my life experience causes me to have this inclination.  Please review my quick and dirty analysis of this decision and how this case has lead to the nightmare we know so well in Wenatchee and other places where there were mass prosecutions for child sexual abuse properly known as Salem style witch hunts. It is interesting to note that recent books and web sites on the subject of people believing unreasonable things list the allegations of a massive child sexual abuse ring in Wenatchee and the proposition that Bill and Kathy Swan sexually abused their daughter and her toddler neighbor, as being on a par with the proposition that crop circles are made by somebody other than Earth humans.

In Hickman v. Block, Silveira v. Lockyer, and Nordyke v. King, the Ninth Circuit did to the Second Amendment what the Ballek Court did to the Thirteenth Amendment Here is my comment on that and why rights must be considered held by individuals or they are not rights.  Any Fourth Grader who passes the Basic Skills Test can see that what comes before the comma is simply a explanation of necessity for the right that is stated after the comma. That is what the Fifth Circuit concluded in United States v. Emerson, (9th Cir. 2002) 270 F. 3d. 203, 227, and what Judge Gould concluded in his Special Concurrence in Nordyke. However, having found that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to keep and bear arms, the Fifth Circuit then failed to enforce the right in the case of a restraining order obtained in a domestic relations case.  I criticize that too, because often the threats at issue in such restraining orders are made in the heat of high emotion by people who are not ordinarily a danger to society. Once the emotions cool down, most such people have no intention of ever carrying out the things they say.  The finding of fact is not made by a jury of our peers, but by a judge with all of the institutional prejudices and blindnesses that come with being a judge, particularly in family law including the blindness to the Thirteenth Amendment and the Antipeonage Act extensively illustrated by this website.  For an example of the perfectly legal if somewhat strange behavior that can result in a restraining order, see our dummy brief for Winslow Bainbridge.  Facts as innocuous as described therein do result in restraining orders, often with exclusion radii as long as 500 yards.  It is not rational to deprive Winslow of his right to keep and bear arms, not on the basis of any actual stalking or surveillance he perpetrated, but only on the unsupported belief of such surveillance by a nervous ex-girlfriend. And certainly not on the basis of strange phone calls that do not include any legally definable threats, but only denials of such threats.

  Not infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is the only guarantee that a well regulated militia can be formed, whenever such proves necessary for the security of a free state, regardless of the circumstances.  Sawed off shotguns and fully automatic rifles may be the weapons such a citizen's militia needs to deal with the emergency at hand.  The state that infringes such right is not a free state, and has made the Faustian bargain Ben Franklin warned against, trading an essential liberty for the illusion of security.  To say that the Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual right is like saying imprisonment for child support is not imprisonment for debt and saying that coercion of employment to pay child support is not involuntary servitude.  It is an absurdity.

    Because this website is visible around the Planet Earth, I sent a Letter by e-mail to the High Court of Australia concerning their recent decision in Dow Jones & Company v. Gutnick.  Consider this question if you will:  You publish a pamphlet within the State of Washington and distribute it within the State of Washington, anticipating that you would be governed by the defamation law of Washington as developed within Article I Section 5 of the Washington Constitution and the First Amendment.  An Australian obtains a copy of your printed material.  She gets on an aircraft and takes it home to Australia.  You have no control over this.  She then passes it around to her friends in Australia.  An Australian mentioned in your pamphlet believes himself to be libeled.  Should he be allowed to sue you in an Australian court under Australian libel principles and not under Washington defamation law as developed within our constitutional guarantees?  The High Court of Australia said yes.

    A defense to such an Australian action is suggested by Yahoo!, Inc. v. La Ligue contre le Racisme et l'Antisemitisme, (N.D. Cal. 2001) 145 F. Supp. 2d. 1168 and 169 F. Supp. 2d. 1181Yahoo! obtained a declaratory judgment in the American court that a French court order requiring it to render inaccessible to computer users in France portions of its auction service wherein Nazi artifacts and propaganda is offered for sale and any links through its browser to web sites with allegedly pro-Nazi viewpoints and allegedly in support of the proposition that the Holocaust did not happen is unenforceable in the United States because such enforcement offends the First Amendment.

The Ninth Circuit three judge panel made their decision in the appeal of this on August 23, 2004.  I apologize for not seeing this sooner, but I have been busy.  Judges Ferguson and Tashima ducked the issue by vacating the district court decision on grounds that the French organizations had not yet made themselves proper parties to any proceeding in California.  Yes, they sued Yahoo! in a French court over activities Yahoo! conducted in California and obtained a French court order requiring Yahoo! to perform certain activities with respect to its servers located in California: Either remove the Nazi artifacts from its pages where users may offer items for sale, or block such pages from being available to Internet surfers within the territories under French jurisdiction.  Such territories include France, Corsica, St. Pierre and Miquelon, and a few other scattered possessions.  Fines and damages are being assessed everyday that Yahoo! does not comply.  Yahoo! France is excluded from this judgment.  However, Ferguson and Tashima found that no American court can decide whether enforcement of a foreign court order offends the United States Constitution and other American law until such time the foreign parties avail themselves of the jurisdiction of any American judicial or administrative agency to enforce such order.  And on February 10, 2005, the Ninth Circuit vacated this three judge panel decision and has agreed to re-hear it en banc.

The problem with this, and Judge Brunetti nails this home with his dissent, is this:  Yahoo! will now have to suffer increasing liability in a foreign jurisdiction with its rights as an American corporation held in limbo until La Ligue deigns fit to attempt to collect on its French court judgment in the United States.  La Ligue can thus pick the time and place to start such an American lawsuit, including such time when the American against whom it has such judgment is financially or otherwise embarrassed and therefore at a reduced ability to defend such an action.  Yahoo! can handle this because it has become a large presence on the Internet and can therefore retain the legal representation necessary to handle any foray by La Ligue into any American court.  Such a foray by La Ligue will also command media coverage of the sort that deters chicanery by the judges.  But many of us Americans of more modest means, including myself, can be harassed by people like La Ligue, or in my case, more likely a foreign feminist organization, who could obtain judgments against us in their foreign courts and then harass us in American courts when we don't have the resources of Yahoo! with which to fight back and the media attention that provides incentive to the judges to be respectful of our rights under the United States Constitution.

 I would hope the Ninth Circuit, in en banc, adopts Judge Brunetti's position.  If not, then we need to lobby Congress to pass a bill providing the federal courts with the jurisdiction necessary to allow Americans sued overseas to obtain protection against any foreign judgment offensive to our American constitutional rights.  Otherwise, our right to freedom of speech, at least with respect to the Internet, can be seriously chilled by foreign jurisdictions which, to put it mildly, do not share our values of freedom of speech.

British libel judgments are likewise unenforceable, and so are Australian libel judgments, particularly if rendered in the courts of Queensland and New South Wales.  Queensland and NSW do not consider truth of the speech to be an absolute defense to an action for libel.  At least Victoria, where Gutnick originated, does.  But even in Victoria, the burden of proof is different than in the United States.  In Victoria, a libel defendant, such as Dow Jones and Company, is required to prove the truth of its statement.  In the United States, a defendant merely has to prove that it had a good faith belief in the truth of the statement.  Public figures, such as celebrities and politicians, must prove actual malice on the part of the alleged defamer.  Liberace, as an example, won a libel suit by showing that the defendant had no evidence or reason to believe that Liberace was a homosexual.  The defendant maliciously said so.  But O.J. Simpson has no reasonable chance to win any libel suit against any person who calls him a wife killer. (Unless he becomes a resident of Australia.)  He was acquitted in the criminal trial, found financially responsible for the deaths in a civil trial, and Jay Leno can joke about him finding the "real killer" in the mirror with impunity.

 Another defense to a libel or defamation lawsuit in a foreign court is suggested by Young v. New Haven Advocate, (4th Cir. December 13, 2002) ____ F. 3d. ____.  This American federal appeals court decision found that  newspapers in Connecticut who publishes some of their content on the Internet cannot be sued in a court in the State of Virginia, including a federal district court in Virginia, unless there is a showing of "minimal contacts" with the State of Virginia as required by the 5th and 14th Amendment due process clauses.  Merely publishing content on the Internet which can be downloaded and read in Virginia, does not grant a Virginia court or a federal court located in Virginia in personam jurisdiction over the party who posted the material on the Internet, to hear a claim for libel or defamation.  Mr. Young, a Virginia prison warden, made the Gutnick argument: the allegedly defamatory information was posted on the Internet by defendants who  knew he was a Virginia resident, who knew that content posted on the Internet can be downloaded in Virginia, and the damage to his reputation occurred mostly in Virginia.  While the federal district court agreed with Mr. Young, the federal Court of Appeals disagreed and reversed the denial of motion to dismiss the suit.  Young cited a copyright infringement case, ALS Scan, Inc. v. Digital Service Consultants, Inc., (4th Cir. 2002) 293 F. 3d. 707, which set a standard for interstate Internet cases.  Both Fourth Circuit cases find that a plaintiff must show that an out of state Internet web master specifically aimed his content at an audience within the state the plaintiff wishes to bring suit.  In the case of New Haven Advocate and the Hartford Courant, most of the content is aimed at Connecticut residents, i.e. local weather reports and real estate want ads.  Therefore, the Connecticut newspaper cannot be sued in Virginia merely because its web site can be read in Virginia.  This is in direct conflict with the finding in Dow Jones & Company v. Gutnick.

 To take advantage of this defense, do not aim your content at an Australian audience.  Most of the content on this web site concerns American law and those who enforce such American law (or fail to, depending upon which American law we're referring to).  While an Australian citizen may work in the United States for an agency that enforces child support orders and therefore be in a position to take umbrage at my assertion that she is thus violating 18 U.S.C. §1581, she cannot say that such assertion is aimed at an Australian audience, even if Australians can download this website in Sidney and Melbourne.  Even if I aim this web site at an Australian audience, say by listing Australian citizens who arrested American noncustodial parents found within Australia with the intent to enforce the American support orders (when I obtain such information, I might do that), and therefore say they violate 18 U.S.C. §1581, I can still assert in an American court that any judgment obtained in such a suit is unenforceable in the United States without offending the First Amendment, because I can show a good faith belief in the truth of such statement, and Australian courts do not consider that to be good enough defense to a libel action.

In the decision made April 7, 2003 in Virginia v. Black, I must say the Supremes did a pretty good job.  I would concur with Justice O'Connor's opinion, but I understand where Justice Thomas comes from in his dissent.  A quick look at the facts:   There are two events from which this case originates.  The one case, involving Mr. Black, was a Klan rally on private property with the owner's permission and participation.  It appears to be a typical Klan rally: speeches, songs, standing around in a circle in white robe and pointy hat costumes, and a 25 foot tall cross was lit up while they sang Amazing Grace.  Doesn't that just make your skin crawl!  To say that this gathering is not protected would be a terrible departure from previous First Amendment jurisprudence (Brandenburg v. Ohio, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School Dist., Texas v. Johnson, and R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul).  In the other case, several teenagers angry with a black neighbor who spoke to their mother about their shooting guns at a target range, retaliated by burning a small cross in the neighbor's back yard.  The Supreme Court struck down the Virginia statute in question, but they said that a state can regulate the behavior of those who trespass on private property with a clear intent to intimidate so long as the statute is content neutral and dependent upon the traditional legal tests for determining when speech constitutes an unprotected threat of violence.  Simply put, when people gather for a private rally on private property, their speech and expression, including burning a cross, is protected as long as there is no direct "true" threat.  Even if we cannot stand that it was a Klan rally with a burning cross and seriously disagree with the sentiments expressed therein.  But in the case of the two kids who burned a cross on a neighbor's lawn, perhaps Virginia can prosecute them if they rewrite the jury instructions to require proof of the element to intimidate.  I must agree with this.

However, when it comes to intimidation, there are distinctions that must be made if we are to have freedom of speech that is legally protected.  Those who enforce support orders may be intimidated by this website asserting that what they do is the felony of peonage.  1) It is the purpose of any criminal statute, including 18 U.S.C. §1581, to intimidate people from committing the actions it proscribes.  That is a legitimate form of intimidation.  2) Those who oppose a government policy, including on the grounds that it violates another government policy long forgotten but not repealed, have to be able to express their opposition without being subject to charges of "intimidating" or "harassment" or "making threats".  Simply put, I am protected in my speech as long as I do not come out and say that those who violate 18 U.S.C. §1581 in the enforcement of child support will be "dealt with", or some other expression indicating illegal violence.  However, if I say that I will continue to plead the Antipeonage Act and encourage others to do so, and while that can lead to the criminal prosecution of those who enforce support orders, the possibility of criminal prosecution is the legitimate outcome of our being right about the meaning and the purpose of the Antipeonage Act.  Those who violate it should suffer consequences.  But my saying so is not a "true threat" and it is protected by the First Amendment, Virginia v. Black being one of many cases that supports this position.

As another practical matter, what about a film company producing a movie where the plot involves a Klan rally?  Mississippi Burning comes to mind.  So noted in Justice O'Connor's opinion in Virginia v. Black.  Granted, everyone understands that actors in white robes are playing parts, not being the parts.  But that cross will burn for as many "takes" as the director deems required to get the scene right.  More kerosene will be added to the burlap as necessary to keep it flaming.  No doubt the producers of Mississippi Burning scrounged up Klan artifacts and replica Klan artifacts for use as props.  A costumer had to fill an order for Klan robes and pointy hats.  Nevertheless, I have never heard of such a movie production company prosecuted for displaying a burning cross.

Likewise I have never heard of a movie production company being prosecuted for its use of Nazi flags, uniforms, and artifacts.  Movie industry costumers may have made more Nazi uniforms than were made in Germany during the Nazi era.

A comment on the French laws against Nazi artifacts and propaganda:  Numerous artifacts including flags, Hitler Youth daggers, armbands, and even copies of Mein Kampf signed by Adolf Hitler himself, were brought home by American troops as souvenirs and spoils of war. (And soon, perhaps paintings and posters of Saddam Hussein and elegant fixtures from his palaces, maybe even a Republican Guard arm patch or two.) In this context, the items have a valid historical significance and are symbolic of victory over this regime, and not of this regime's "Triumph of the Will".  It is not surprising that such war souvenirs are offered for sale on Yahoo! and eBay.  Perhaps the French court can cut some slack for the heirs of those who liberated France who sell the artifacts they inherited.  Furthermore, France has allowed on her soil the filming of movies based on World War II.  Such movies necessarily require the use of Nazi artifacts and uniforms or replicas of Nazi artifacts and uniforms.  I guess we cannot sell copies of Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List or any Indiana Jones movie to French citizens living within France because of all of the Nazi artifacts and replica Nazi artifacts filmed in these movies.  And forget documentaries and entertainment movies that use clips from films produced or sponsored by the Nazi Propaganda MinistryThe History Channel had better censor itself where it broadcasts into French territory, which includes a couple of small islands, St. Pierre and Miquelon, that are a FEW MILES south of the Canadian province of Newfoundland.  To broadcast a documentary on Nazi propaganda out of Newfoundland or Nova Scotia could violate French law.

I hereby violate the French laws with this link:  I have no sympathy for the Nazi viewpoint, but to suppress free speech is to be like the Nazis.  The J.V. Bond Company just sells the stuff.  They do not appear to comment on it, other than as to the quality or condition of each item offered for sale.

Some additional commentary by Justice Hugo Black.

Antipeonage Act Site Map

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