On July 5 of last year, Judge Keathan Frink of the 17th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida logged on to Zoom to preside over a hearing and found himself staring at a man with an American flag cape wrapped around his shoulders, an American flag bandanna around his head, and a picture of Abraham Lincoln (also wearing a flag bandanna) on his T-shirt. With a thick beard and fair skin, he looked like Randy Savage, the irascible 1980s professional wrestler. He introduced himself as Reverend Justice.
Florida has a reputation for eccentrics, but this one stood out, in shades of MAGA, Parrothead, and hippie counterculture all blended together. He'd shown up at a Fort Lauderdale civil rights rally three days earlier, marching in the rain with thousands of social justice activists. And his picture fronted a website for the Church of Universal Justice, a nonprofit registered just days earlier that calls Abraham Lincoln a prophet and implores visitors to “become not just believers, but active participants in the Divine mission of The Almighty Universal Justice.”
Through various populist manifestoes, the site reveals the man behind it all and explains his crusade. Michael Peter is the embattled owner of a small beverage company who found himself embroiled in a civil lawsuit involving his business, and then battling uphill against an aspect of the judicial system itself. At issue: a longstanding federal precedent that makes it impossible for businesses to defend themselves without high-priced lawyers, an expense that could drive Peter and his company to ruin—and possibly already has.
Small-business entrepreneurs confronting this dilemma face a terrible choice:
