Sovereign Citizens: A Psychological and Criminological Analysis

By Christine M. Sarteschi

This brief serves to educate readers about the sovereign citizen movement, presenting relevant case studies and offering suggestions for measures to address problems caused by this movement. Sovereign citizens are considered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to be a prominent domestic terrorist threat in the United States, and are broadly defined as a loosely-afflicted anti-government group who believes that the United States government and its laws are invalid and fraudulent. Because they consider themselves to be immune to the consequences of American law, members identifying with this group often engage in criminal activities such as tax fraud, “paper terrorism”, and in more extreme cases, attempted murder or other acts of violence. Sovereign Citizens is one of the first scholarly works to explicitly focus on the sovereign citizen movement by explaining the movement’s origin, interactions with the criminal justice system, and ideology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springer
• Release date: Jul 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9783030458515

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

C. M. SarteschiSovereign CitizensSpringerBriefs in Psychologyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45851-5_1

1. The Origins of the Sovereign Citizen Movement

Christine M. Sarteschi¹  

(1)

Chatham University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Keywords

AntigovernmentPosse ComitatusChristian identity adherentsPatriot movement/militiaAnti-federalist groupsTax protestors

The original version of this chapter was revised. The correction to this chapter is available at https://​doi.​org/​10.​1007/​978-3-030-45851-5_​8

Antigovernment sentiments have existed for many years. This chapter will discuss the short history and evolution of the antigovernment, sovereign citizen movement. It includes a discussion of groups, with similar ideas.

While there is no official history of the sovereign citizen movement, various other movements, beginning in the 1950s, have operated in similar ways using similar tactics. These include tax protestors, the Posse Comitatus, Christian identity adherents, patriot movement/militia (Loeser 2015; Berger 2016), and anti-Federalist groups (Perliger and Sweeney 2019). A common thread that exists amongst these aforementioned groups is their extreme dislike for government, their often-racist beliefs in the form of white supremacy, and their willingness to abuse the court system and to harass public officials (Loeser 2015). These groups will be discussed below.

1.1 Tax Protestors

The tax protest movement can be traced back to the 1950s. Much like modern day sovereign citizens, tax protesters were known to have used snippets of law and in some cases, biblical quotes, to justify their illegal behavior. One individual commonly associated with the movement is Arthur Porth, a building contractor from Wichita, Kansas (Berger 2016). Mr. Porth began filing court claims back in 1954, attempting to recover his income tax payments. Despite his many court room losses, Mr. Porth continued the fight against his paying income taxes. The judge who was associated with the case at the time, stated that Mr. Porth was fanatical in his belief in the unconstitutionality of the taxing and monetary system in the U.S. (Porth v. the United States of America 1971). The court noted that his antipathy and fanaticism led to his 1967 conviction on tax evasion charges. He was sentenced to five years in prison (Levitas 2001).

Though Mr. Porth was largely unsuccessful in many of his efforts, he engaged in a number of tactics that are still attempted by sovereign citizens These include:

Issuing illegal arrest warrants against officials who were allegedly violating the Constitution.

Arguing that the 16th amendment (which authorized Congress to tax income) was unconstitutional because it was passed with the 15th amendment that freed slaves and as a result, only African Americans are expected to pay taxes (Semerad 1995). A later argument involving the 16th amendment suggested that it was never properly ratified because several states passed versions with variations in wording or punctuation (Baker 1986).

The idea that paper money is not backed by gold or silver; taxpayers are not obligated to pay taxes because Federal Reserve notes are not dollars (Semerad 1995).

Filing blank tax returns with the exception of a statement pleading the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment Return) (Levitas 2001), a tactic common among far-right constitutionalists (Semerad 1995) utilized by others attempting to avoid paying their fair share.

Arguing that wages gained from working are not taxable because they are an equal exchange for labor and thus no one makes a profit (Baker 1986).

Attempting to utilize the fringe-on-the-flag strategy which suggested that they are free and sovereign individuals because they have no contract with the state (Baker 1986).

Other well-known tax protesters were eventually convicted and also sent to prison. This included Armen Condo, leader of the Garden Grove, California based Your Heritage Protection Association which, at its peak, claimed to have 27,000 members. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) successfully prosecuted Condo on 41 counts of tax and mail fraud. He was sentenced to eight years in an Arizona prison and fined over $93,000. Personality-wise, Condo was described by those who knew him as being the most glib person (Baker 1986, p.1). Subsequently, the IRS was said to have brought nearly 600 Heritage Protection Association members to civil court and prosecuted another 30 on criminal charges.

Another victory for the government involved the prosecution of Dennis Riness of Tustin-based TEA, an Association of Twentieth-Century Patriots (Baker 1986). This Orange County, California group was said to have had between 3000 and 4000 members at its peak. After pleading guilty to aiding and assisting in the preparation of false income tax returns, Riness was sentenced to 13 months in prison, ordered to pay a $5000 fine and mandated to engage in community service. Riness had also been involved in tax shelter schemes involving a church. Eventually, the IRS succeeded in revoking its tax-exempt status. Soon thereafter, the association was effectively curtailed.

The aforementioned IRS victories, which helped lead to a significant reduction in the number of tax protesters, stemmed not only from prosecuting the offenders but enacting harsher penalties, including jail time and significant fines (Baker 1986). New laws made it more difficult for individuals to get away with not paying their taxes. Since then, laws surrounding tax penalties have continued to become more stringent. In 2008, for instance, the actor Wesley Snipes was sentenced to three years in federal prison for willfully failing to file his tax returns (The New York Times, 2008). According to The New York Times, Mr. Snipes was a member of American Rights Litigators, an organization that is alleged to have engaged in tax evasion schemes (2008). The organization was run by one of Mr. Snipes’s codefendants, Mr. Kahn. During his trial, Mr. Kahn represented himself and refused to recognize the judge’s authority, two common courtroom tactics used by sovereign citizens. Mr. Kahn was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

1.2 Anti-Federalist

Researchers categorize sovereign citizens as belonging to multiple movements including antigovernment, the far-right, and also anti-Federalist (Perliger and Sweeney 2019). The anti-Federalist movement emerged in the 1970s and its main goal was to undermine the federal government. Perliger and Sweeney (2019) explain that the movement was guided by three main ideas: (1) that the government is seeking to strip Americans from their rights; (2) a shadow government, controlled by the United Nations, would be a part of the New World Order and would be the result of a left-wing globalist conspiracy (Pitcavage 2001); (3) high-ranking Jewish conspirators are attempting to overtake the U.S. government. In their conspiracy-oriented belief systems, they also fear that the U.S. has already been corrupted by foreign actors (Perliger and Sweeney 2019). Many of these same ideas underlie the thinking of sovereign citizens.

1.2.1 The Posse Comitatus

Some researchers contend that the sovereign citizen movement has its roots in the Posse Comitatus (Valeri and Borgeson 2018; Loeser 2015). Posse Comitatus is a Latin term that means power of the county (Toy n.d.). It is the legal power granted to sheriffs and other county officials to summon armed citizens for the purpose of keeping peace (Kopel 2015). The historical origins of the Posse Comitatus can be traced back to ninth-century England at a time when citizen involvement in policing matters was mandated by law (much like jury duty) (Kopel 2015). With the development of formalized police agencies, the need for citizens to act in this role has significantly