Inside the warped reality of ‘sovereign citizens’
A new wave of lawless anti-government groups are overwhelming police forces and law firms. How did this happen?
“We are going home my friend, you are safe,” Antonio Mureddu tells an elderly man rising from his hospital bed. The man, stout in stature and seemingly gasping for breath, is Joe McCarron — a COVID patient admitted to hospital in County Donegal, Ireland at the beginning of September. “You follow me,” Mureddu continues, assisting McCarron in putting his trousers on. “You stay behind me and nobody will touch you.”
It is September 14, 2021 and Mureddu is trying to remove McCarron from the hospital. In a video shared on Twitter, Mureddu can be seen arguing with hospital staff in a hallway while McCarron sits heaving for breath in a wheelchair. “We are walking away from the hospital and nobody is going to stop us,” he says. “If you stay here, they are going to f*****g kill you.”
The hospital staff in the video pays no mind to the ramblings of Mureddu, instead appealing directly to the wheezing McCarron. “I’m very worried about you”, a doctor tells the elderly man, leaning over his wheelchair. “I want you to stay. I think he [Mureddu] is saying something very dangerous… he is endangering your life.”
The doctor’s pleading words go unheeded. McCarron left the hospital that day with Mureddu, an Italian far-right supporter and proponent of the ‘Freeman of the Land’ movement, a group which believes laws don’t apply to them because they didn’t sign any contract with the state to be bound by said laws. The group shares ideologies with the so-called ‘sovereign citizen’ anti-government movement that has become widespread in the U.S. in recent years.
Joe McCarron would go on to die from COVID-19 on September 24. He had been rushed back to hospital days after his removal as his illness’ severity intensified, but it was too late. He was unvaccinated and did not believe in many of the life-saving measures that can be taken to prevent infection. It cost him his life.
The ‘sovereign citizen’ movement runs parallel with many other dark conspiracies theories including anti-vaxxing and QAnon, which have seen a resurgence in the era of misinformation, Trump and deep government distrust. Beliefs like those of Mureddu have risen in popularity throughout the pandemic as a form of resistance against government-imposed lockdowns and vaccine mandates, citing their belief in common law among other things as justification for their actions.
As the movement expands and adherents multiply, their practices have become more extreme in a bid to free themselves from the perceived shackles of government oppression.
A Law Unapplicable
The term ‘non-resident alien’ is just one of a rolodex of terms that can be given to the movement of individuals who believe that the laws of the land do not apply to them. Some refer to themselves as constitutionalists, others as freemen. The best known term for such individuals, however, is sovereign citizen.
The movement is rooted in racism and antisemitism and was first popularised in the late 60s and early 70s by a group of anti-government Christians known as the Posse Comitatus, who believed that non-white people were not human and that Jews had masterminded a satanic plot to take over the world. Since then, the beliefs of the group became more popular among the right-wing and countless imitators have cropped up in the past 50 years, with varying degrees of influence.
Regardless of the an individual’s denomination, the unifying trait present in all believers is the shirking of any notion that they can be tried under modern government statutes or legal codes. Most would ascribe themselves as living under the rule of “common law” — a legal system used by the Founding Fathers of America, which they believe has been replaced by a new anti-freedom legal system that is propped up by treasonous judges, corrupt public servants and evil politicians. All fiercely hold anti-government stances.
This adoption of common law allows adherents to claim immunity against every avenue of prosecution — and they often do so using bizarre documents among incorrect legal interpretations. For example, those stopped and investigated for traffic offences are prone to asserting their ‘right to travel’ and consider themselves as ‘journeying’, distinguishing it from the actual act of driving and thus exempting them from legal requirements on license plates, vehicle registration and driver’s licenses.
Most sovereign citizens use a theory known as the ‘strawman illusion’ in their attempt so wrangle free from any legal responsibilities. They argue that all individuals have two personas — one of flesh and another separate legal entity known as the aforementioned ‘strawman’. It is this latter persona which holds the burdens of debts, liabilities and other legal scenarios rather than the physical individual.
Experts have chalked this up to a gross, intentional misinterpretation of the legal terms of a ‘natural person’ and a ‘juridicial person’, with sovereign citizens wilfully extrapolating new meaning from these terms in order to further their goals.
In essence, the sovereign citizen movement feels like a precursor to the more recent QAnon conspiracy which took root during the presidency of Donald Trump, and posits that influential celebrities and Democrat politicians are in-fact part of a child-raping Satanic cabal of cannibals which controls the world. The distrust of officials and the replacement theory is seminal in both schools of thought, and is widely believed by many of the ideology’s adherents.
From Debt to Detonation
The acts of sovereign citizens can range from the relatively harmless (tax evasion, traffic violations, license disagreements) to the extremely violent. Most cases involving freemen and women are concerned with evasion of tax, non-payment of debt and other financial crimes that are relatively limited in their scope. Regardless, adherents are widely known to take up arms against belligerent forces. Their weapon of choice? Paper.
“Sovereign citizens and other anti-government groups affect the judicial system through a tactic known as ‘paper terrorism,’ clogging the courts with nonsensical, voluminous filings, phony lawsuits, and false liens,” writes Terri March-Safbom in a thesis analysing the tactics of sovereign citizens. Even for minor indictments, a barrage of court filings containing hundreds of pages can fill the desks of prosecutors and legal employees — all written in an unintelligible gaggle of legal terms that judges, staff and even sovereigns cannot fully understand.
The court must read and respond to all of these filings by law, thus protracting cases for months and even years. Overwhelmed prosecutors may be inclined to drop these cases when faced with such filings, simply being burned out by the immense amount of pressure being applied to them. This practice of ‘paper terrorism’ originated with the Posse Comitatus and persists right through to modern-day prosecutions.
Crimes can range from the silly to the severe, and even celebrities have been known to express sovereign citizen views from time-to-time. In 2008, Wesley Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion. For over ten years, the actor had failed to file accurate tax refunds and was accused of attempting to defraud the system of upwards of 10 million dollars.
Following his indictment in 2006, Snipes responded to the court with a personally authored letter in which he declared himself to be a ‘non-resident alien’ of the United States and accused the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of seeking to ‘terrorize, enslave, rape or pillage’ American taxpayers. The letter ended with a threat.
“Warning — pursuit of such a high profile target will open the door for your increased collateral risk,” Snipes wrote. “I certainly don’t believe this is in your best interest.”
Snipes’ legal team denied that their client was suggesting actual bodily harm, although it is certainly difficult to read those last lines any other way. The government accused Snipes of being a tax protester and a proponent of the ‘861 argument’, a widely discredited theory which posits that domestic income of U.S. citizens is not taxable and argues such using a variety of obscure, pseudo-legal reasons. Snipes served his time and his since expressed remorse on his actions during that time.
However, not all cases involve a battle of words and papers. Documented cases of extreme violence are a stark reminder that while their beliefs may seem strange or comical, they can be a serious indicator of at best distrust of government, and at worst, mental instability.
One of the most well-known cases involving a sovereign citizen was that of Terry Nichols, a co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing which killed 168 people in 1995. His contempt towards the government had intensified in the years leading up to the attack, with Nichols attempting to renounce his U.S. citizenship as well as avoiding paying tax and credit card debts. Like Snipes had done, Nichols also declared himself to be a ‘non-resident alien’ in an attempt to evade legal responsibilities.
Following the siege and subsequent destruction of the Branch Davidian cult compound in Waco, Texas, Nichols and friend Timothy McVeigh ultimately planned and carried out the Oklahoma City bombing as revenge on the federal government for its overreach of power. Since then, the sovereign citizen movement has increasingly become a blip on law enforcement radar.
Dealing With The Devil
When charged with crimes or taken to court for their actions, citizens claim to not be bound by the power of the legal system. So how does the law deal with such people if they do not recognise the courts?
Just like all others, according to Teresa L. Todd of the Texas District & County Attorneys Association. “You can’t be lazy just because they’re crazy,” she remarks in an article advising lawyers how to successfully prosecute a sovereign citizens. “Prepare a sovereign citizen (SC) case as you would any other. In fact, be even more on your toes than usual because unrepresented SC defendants will not be bound by the rules of evidence or the boundaries of common decency.”
She argues that most sovereign citizen defendants need no help in alienating a jury with their strange belief system and disregard for order, so prosecutors need not attack or vilify the citizen to prevent stoking any jury sympathy. And prosecutors should expect “a crazy filing every day… to be personally slandered and defamed and… for the defendant to disrespect you, the judge, and the jury.”
Knowledge regarding sovereign citizens has become more widespread in law offices in recent years due to these remarkable tales of zany courtroom showdowns. However, awareness has also grown among many frontline police officers thanks to a campaign by former Arkansas police chief Bob Paudert. It was in 2010 that Mr. Paudert lost his son Brandon, also a serving police officer, during a routine traffic stop with followers of the sovereign citizen movement.
The man behind the wheel, a pastor named Jerry Kane, handed the officers stacks of nonsensical paperwork along with a homemade ‘traveller’s card’. His 16-year-old son Joseph sat in the passenger seat. Brandon Paudert and his colleague Bill Evans, unaware of the sovereign citizen belief system, were confused but did not feel they were in any danger over the disagreement. “Their guard was down to zero,” Mr. Paudert said in an interview with The Trace in 2017. “My son thought he’d stopped a pastor who was traveling, evangelizing… he wasn’t worried about his safety.”
However, unbeknownst to the officers, the Kanes had plotted an act of violence against the next officials who asserted their authority over them. As Evans attempted to frisk the driver, the 16-year-old boy got out of the car brandishing an AK-47 and opened fire, striking both officers multiple times and inflicting fatal injuries. The Kanes would go on to injure two more officers before they were killed in a gunfight with police as they tried to apprehend them.
Bob Paudert was leaving town with his wife for a long weekend holiday when he heard chatter on his police radio regarding officers down. When he attended the scene of the shooting, he had to shield his wife from the horrific events that had unfolded on the freeway.
Since that traumatic day, Mr. Paudert has been travelling the United States on a mission to educate officers on the dangers of the sovereign citizen movement — describing it as his “new passion.” During every one of his lectures, Mr. Paudert recounts to law enforcement the confrontation that killed his son and instructs them to take such individuals very seriously. This includes listening to the adherents claims without judgement, showing empathy by mirroring their behaviour and avoiding challenging or disregarding their beliefs in any way.
Mr. Paudert believes that information about the sovereign citizens and their beliefs might have saved the life of his son — and he is working hard to ensure that no other officer falls victim to such senseless violence. Perseverance on Paudert’s part has meant FBI policy now flags known sovereign citizens as potential domestic terrorists, giving officers some warning of what they may encounter.
“I don’t know if it’s beneficial to my health by reliving it every day,” Paudert said in an interview about his work with The Kansas City Star. “Sometimes, I have to take a break and pause to get through it. But the one good thing I get out of it is knowing that another officer can go home to their husband and wife at night. And particularly to their kids.”
With the work of Paudert and others bringing movements like those of the sovereign citizens to public attention, it is hoped that those who pose a threat to others with anti-government or conspiratorial beliefs are stopped before it is too late. But even in today’s modern world of near-constant surveillance and limitless information, cases like those of Kane seemingly slip through the cracks too often, leaving disaster and heartbreak in their wake.
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