Commercial Affidavit of Truth: Not all it's cracked up to be

[amenmesse]

Originally Posted by Lawdog

"Strawman arguments" are those made by folks who insist that your name typed in all capital letters represents your "strawman" and not the real you.

You won't see me making any nutball arguments like that.

Strawman the imaginary being.
Various Items of Personal Property v United States, 282 U.S. 577
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bi...82&invol=5 77

"A forfeiture proceeding under R.S. § 3257 or § 3281 is in rem. It is the property which is proceeded against, and, by resort to a legal fiction, held guilty and condemned as though it were conscious instead of inanimate and insentient. In a criminal prosecution, it is the wrongdoer in person who is proceeded against, convicted, and punished. The forfeiture is no part of the punishment for the criminal offense. Origet v. United States, 125 U. S. 240, 245-247."

I truely wonder, was that Johnny Walker or Jack Daniels speaking as surety for this distillery? And oh, those pictures attached, gold fringe only for indoor flags, righttttttt. Sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don't Depends on how many nazis surround me. =))

[weishaupt1776]

Alright, ad hominem attacks towards one's character is not going to be tolerated toward Lawdog OR FROM Lawdog

Hate on the Game, not the players

This thread will be shutdown if this persists

[rottweiler]

Ed had to know he has a great big bullseye on his back without plates and then he has a loaded handgun and parks on school property to boot? How can Ed sanely believe the beast is going to let him get away with this in front of the little pagans at the indoctrination centers?

Then Ed challenges jurisdiction and waives it by telling the judge he didn't know the weapon was there.

People of unsound mind should hire an attorney or allow one to be appointed. As far as I am concerned Ed basically shot himself.

[trooper2ls]

I'm not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV or the internet.

I do, however, have a MS in computer science from MIT, class of '88. Majored in computer science at NCSU with a minor in organic chemistry. I obtained my BS in 3 years as I placed out of most of the freshman year courses. Attended private high school prior to that, graduated at 16 because I skipped 5th and 8th grades. Spent the past 20 years as chief technology officer for several fortune 100 companies. So basically I'm a Gates/Jobs era computer geek.

Now retired (Y2K fixes billed over $300/hr), I domicile in a 188 year old 6000+ sq ft greek revival mansion in western New York that is on the state and national historic registers. Paid cash for the house. Obtained allodial title to land last year. I also collect classic Jaguars, make my own bio-diesel and run a hobby farm on my property. Most of my current neighbors are Amish... I'm not. Married for 18 years now (to the same woman)

I have 3 cousins that graduated from UGA and provided me with a vivid mental picture of academic life there. (Big time party school .. booze, pot, cow tipping, etc.)

I used to live on Lake Lanier in Cumming, Georgia in a lake front house that I sold it for 1.1 million dollars. I sold to return to my western New York roots because Atlanta was becoming too much like Sodom and it was just too darn hot.

Never been arrested, never been to court, never even had a traffic ticket.

So in a nutshell I'm an old hippie computer geek with lots of free time and lots of money... well FRN's anyway.

So I guess in matters of law .. I'm totally unqualified. Oh well.

But in matters of life and liberty with no dependance on the system .. I'm happy with where I'm at.

..J

[Lawdog]

Originally Posted by trooper2ls

I have 3 cousins that graduated from UGA and provided me with a vivid mental picture of academic life there. (Big time party school .. booze, pot, cow tipping, etc.)

Cow tipping? LMAO!

Maybe your three cousins (assuming they even exist) are druggies. It doesn't make me one.

I'm proud of my alma mater. Last year, two Rhodes Scholars were selected from UGA. It was the ONLY public university or college in America to have two Rhodes Scholars for that year.

My professor of contract law, who herself was a UGA School of Law graduate, had clerked for Justice Blackmun on the Supreme Court. For those of you who don't know, serving a judicial clerkship there after law school is about the most prestigious thing there is. It leads directly to academia and jobs at the best law firms.

So go ahead, talk all the smack about my alma mater than you want. It just shows ignorance on your part.

[Lawdog]

By the way, since you mentioned you have "allodial title" on your land...if you think that means you can never lose the property to a foreclosure, or that it means you don't have to pay taxes, you're wrong. Contrary to myth, there is no "magic bullet" that will do that, whether you call it allodial title or anything else. The following case is a good example of the truth of what I am saying.

901 S.W.2d 382 (Tenn.Ct.App. 1995)

The INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT BOARD OF the CITY OF TULLAHOMA,
Tennessee, the City of Tullahoma, Tennessee and
the Board of Public Utilities of the
City of Tullahoma, Tennessee,
Plaintiffs/Appellees,
v.
C.N. HANCOCK, Defendant/Appellant.

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, Middle Section, At Nashville.

February 15, 1995

Permission to Appeal Denied by Supreme Court May 30, 1995.

[Page 383]

Frank Van Cleave, Tullahoma, for plaintiff/appellee Indus. Development Bd. of the City of Tullahoma, Tennessee.

Stephen M. Worsham, Tullahoma, for plaintiff/appellee City of Tullahoma, Tennessee.

William C. Rieder, Tullahoma, for plaintiff/appellee Bd. of Public Utilities of Tullahoma, Tennessee.

C.N. Hancock, pro se.

OPINION

CANTRELL, Judge.

The Chancery Court of Coffee County granted summary judgment to the City of Tullahoma, its Industrial Development Board, and its Board of Public Utilities declaring void the appellant's "allodium title" laying claim to the Tullahoma Industrial Park. In addition the court enjoined the appellant from asserting any further claim to the property and assessed fees and costs against the appellant under Rule 11, Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure. We affirm the judgment of the Chancery Court and remand the cause to that court for the entry of a judgment for damages resulting from a frivolous appeal.

I.

In 1991 the appellant prepared and signed a document called an "Allodium Title" [(fn1)] making a claim to the land formerly known as "Camp Forrest" located in several Middle Tennessee counties. A part of the land is now occupied by the Arnold Engineering Development Center and a part comprises the Tullahoma Industrial Park. Asserting that the land had been unclaimed for more than thirty years Mr. Hancock registered himself and his heirs as the legal and lawful owners of Camp Forrest, and he filed the document with the Register of Deeds in Coffee County.

In 1993 Mr. Hancock contacted a prospective purchaser of land in the Tullahoma Industrial Park and asserted that he owned the property and could make the purchaser a better deal. The plaintiffs then brought this [Page 384] action to remove the cloud on their title and for damages and injunctive relief. The chancellor granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs, declared the allodium deed void, and held that Mr. Hancock had no legal interest in the Tullahoma Industrial Park. The decree also enjoined Mr. Hancock from slandering or libeling the title to the property and awarded each of the plaintiffs a judgment for the expenses incurred because of Mr. Hancock's violation of Rule 11, Tenn.R.Civ.Proc.

II.

Mr. Hancock raises fifty eight issues on appeal. We will not deal with them individually but we will address all that are necessary to establish the legality of the action taken. The first broad category we will address pertains to the legal existence of the plaintiffs and the existence and jurisdiction of the Coffee County Chancery court.

[Part of opinion redacted due to 10000 character limit].

The Sovereign Man Defense

Mr. Hancock disputes the authority of the courts over him because he is a "sovereign man" and can be sued only insofar as he consents to the jurisdiction of the courts. He [Page 385] does acknowledge that the Supreme Court, as a constitutional court, would have jurisdiction over him, but he argues that all courts created by the legislature are powerless to render a judgment against him without his permission.

We do not know of any authority for such a proposition. None of the authorities cited by Mr. Hancock bear out his contention. It is our opinion that there are no "super citizens" under our form of government and that it is beyond the power of the legislature to create such a class. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the states from denying equal protection of the laws to any person within the state's jurisdiction. Creating a class whose members were not subject to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts would deny the rest of us equal protection. This same argument was made and rejected in a criminal case, State v. Keller, 813 S.W.2d 146 (Tenn.Crim.App.1991), where the court upheld a criminal sentence imposed on a "sovereign man" by a legislative court. We find Mr. Hancock's claim to immunity to be entirely without merit.
III.

With respect to Mr. Hancock's arguments on the merits of the case--the defects in the title to Camp Forrest and the authority, or lack thereof, of the various title holders to convey the property--we find that he lacks the standing to raise them. He has no interest in the property that is affected one way or the other. His "allodium title" is no more than a naked claim to property which he has never had an interest in and has never possessed. Without an interest in the property Mr. Hancock has no standing to raise any question concerning its true ownership. Rainey v. Rainey, 795 S.W.2d 139 (Tenn.App.1990).

Since Mr. Hancock has no standing to litigate questions of title to the property, the court was competent to render its judgment, and as there are no disputed facts in the record on the other issues raised, we affirm the chancellor's order.

IV.

Under Tenn.Code Ann. § 27-1-122 this court may award damages for prosecuting a frivolous appeal. The appellees assert that Mr. Hancock's appeal is frivolous and we agree.

A frivolous appeal is one that is "devoid of merit," Combustion Engineering, Inc. v. Kennedy, 562 S.W.2d 202 (Tenn.1978), or one in which there is little prospect that it can ever succeed. Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Edition. In an attempt to establish his claim to property to which he has no colorable title, Mr. Hancock has appealed the chancellor's decision making the same baseless assertions that he made in the trial court. His appeal is so devoid of merit that it must be adjudged frivolous.

The judgment of the trial court is affirmed and the cause is remanded to the Chancery Court of Coffee County for the entry of a judgment for damages, including reasonable attorneys' fees, resulting from the frivolous appeal. Tax the costs on appeal to the appellant.

TODD, P.J., and LEWIS, J., concur.

---------
Notes:

[(fn1)] "Allodium" means land held absolutely in one's own right and not subject to feudal duties or burdens. Black's Law Dictionary, Fourth Edition.

[weishaupt1776]

Okay here is the logic:

If members here provoke Lawdog, whether he instigated it or not; the spats perpetuate between both parties.

If you respond to lawdog in the same way he may attack you, you have already lost, because you have lost your composure thus letting him rope you in.

As a result, i get private complaints from people about why I should ban, even though they are the ones who have sunk to his level by advancing an ad hominem attack, or have initiated an attak w/o a Lawdog provocation

This puts me in an uncomfortable postiion, because if I were to ban him, I'd have to ban some of you just to be fair

SO, HERE"S THE BIG QUESTION:

If I ban lawdog, do you want me to ban you, too?

[moishanb]

LAWDOG doesn't need to be banned, he teaches me what to expect when confronting our adversaries. They all drink the same Kool-aid from the same punch bowl.

All the facts in the world cannot change the truth.

[trooper2ls]

Originally Posted by Lawdog

By the way, since you mentioned you have "allodial title" on your land...if you think that means you can never lose the property to a foreclosure, or that it means you don't have to pay taxes, you're wrong. Contrary to myth, there is no "magic bullet" that will do that, whether you call it allodial title or anything else.

So how can a property be forclosed that has no mortgage on it?

After paying the public debt attachment to the state comptrollers office and receiving the allodial title to the property I un-recorded the deed from the county. I received a statement from the local assessor recently for 2008 showing a ZERO tax due this year. Keep in mind that my property is in a major rural area and we have virtually no government services. Even fire protection is provide by a completly volunteer company of which I'm a member.

Georgia real estate law is very, very different than western New York. Hence the reason attorneys specialize and localize their expertise ... because there is no practical way to cover it all with competence.

Best of luck to you and your practice. After 10 years in Georgia, I have no desire to return. I must admit though.. that Atlanta has the best strip clubs in America. Comparable to the Canadian ballet.

..J

[Lawdog]

Originally Posted by moishanb

LAWDOG doesn't need to be banned, he teaches me what to expect when confronting our adversaries. They all drink the same Kool-aid from the same punch bowl.

All the facts in the world cannot change the truth.

Truth? The truth is, I don't give my personal, unsupported opinion on here. I quote the actual law...Constitutions (federal and state), statutes, and case law.

As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once explained, “the only definition of law for a lawyer’s purposes is something which the Court will enforce.” Letter to Sir Frederick Pollock, 7/3/1874. Or, more famously: “The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact and nothing more pretentious are what I mean by the law.” The Paths of the Law (1897).

Using an argument that has lost time and time again in court, and expecting a different result, is just silly. In the realm of tax protester arguments, some of them have been refuted for so long by so many published, precedential decisions which can be found by even the most basic research that the courts are fining people $5000 (or more) if they persist in pressing the argument after having been warned it is frivolous.