Defenses against Sovereign Citizen Efforts to Delegitimize Legal Institutions

• In Event: Disinformation, Extreme Rhetoric and Online Toxicity in Politics

Abstract

In May 2021, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security released a national security report regarding domestic terrorism. The report categorized Sovereign Citizens as, Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists and noted that Sovereign Citizens were involved in 15% of the 84 FBI-designated domestic terrorism incidents in the United States between 2015 and 2019, the majority of which were violent in nature. For Sovereign Citizens, the primary point of contact between anti-government extremists and the state is in court, a venue in which Sovereign Citizens represent themselves (pro-se) while under the power of the state. Via the federalist structure of the US courts, regionally specific engagements with the anti-government far-right have been active through the court structure in the United States for over three decades. This paper explores the exchange between court and Sovereign Citizen; the variation in reaction as well as the relative success or failure of each strategy. It applies STMs to a corpus of 435 court decisions from cases involving Sovereign Citizens (2008-2017), identifying a plausible set of topics including killings and disappearances, freedoms of expression and movement, and labor rights, among others. Initial findings indicate topics vary markedly both over time and space, as jurisdictions test measures to contain Sovereign Citizens while maintaining legitimacy and circuits negotiate measures taken by lower courts.

Sovereign Citizens fundamentally reject the legitimacy of a central government, but specifically target a perceived overreach of law. Although supporters of these movements and ideas are mostly not violent, their refusal to pay taxes, adhere to laws requiring official documentation or license, and other governmental regulations have frequently led to clashes with the police and other governmental agencies, resulting in some cases in fatal violence (Bjørgo, T., & Braddock, K. 2022). Far-Right ideologies participate in projects of redemption, the desire for restoration of life ways within a territory or homeland that is guided by a shared historical understanding, one that may reflect an actual historical condition or could be a fictional interpretation of the past. Variance in project denotes the specific groups, but the in-group shared image is inherently tied to place and a place bound collective understanding of history. When submitting court documentation, Sovereign Citizens are expressing grievance but also articulating their redemptive project. While redemptive projects target other vectors of collective memory, Sovereign Citizens articulate a reorganization of law.

For far-right anti-government extremists, the court is both a space to confront the opposition and to relay their beliefs to others, particularly in instances where the proceedings are televised. The trials for Cliven (2011) and Ammon Bundy (2016), the most high-profile Sovereign Citizen cases, have been perceived as losses for the federal government. Through the events in Oregon, Ammon Bundy became a far-right folk hero, his acquittal a vindication of just cause and coverage of his case provided increased platform for Sovereign Citizen ideas. Cliven’s acquittal reflected an incompetent and unfair legal system. Trials of extremists preform both the standard goals of trials within democratic states (truth finding, retribution, rehabilitation etc.), and serve to meet societal and political needs (restoration of social peace, prevention and deterrence, closure or satisfaction for the victims).

Judges are often familiar with Sovereign Citizens and initial findings relay several strategies to minimize the impact on their courts, including citations of varied and to this point regionally specific precedent regarding Sovereign Citizen argumentation, the interrupting of speeches, limiting the length or number of legal submissions, or forcing professional council when the Sovereign Citizen has demanded to represent themselves. Some tactics appear to strike balance, while others have successfully baited courts into breaches of procedure.

Success for the state in these cases cannot be defined by successful prosecution. The assumptions of innocence aside, rendering the court illegitimate is the goal of Sovereign Citizens. Repeated submissions (the clogging of an already beleaguered legal apparatus) when Sovereign Citizens are the plaintiff, and the filing of non-binding precedent when Sovereign Citizens are the defendant are end results that relay institutional failure. Decisional confidence is a key factor in judicial independence (Rottman, 2015) To force overturn or non-binding case law brings the court into a realm of political conflict- at odds with itself and deviating from the value of apolitical legal structure valued in democratic states. (Chand, D. E, 2019)

Author

• Chelsea Elizabeth Joliet, CUNY Graduate Center