How can you tell the difference between a house of cards and a house of bricks? Hit it with your fist.
Bloody-knuckled birthers continue their attack on President Obama, trusting to the theory that everything that follows from what they believe is an eligible President will fall down like a house of cards, once he is proven ineligible. Frequent filer Montgomery Blair Sibley has selected some folks who have a very personal interest in the house falling down, people convicted of fraud under a law President Obama signed May 20, 2009.
DCist.com reports the story that Sibley has created a motion template for people convicted under the 2009 Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act (the act makes it easier to prosecute cases of mortgage fraud and predatory lending). They can petition the court to have their convictions overturned because Obama isn’t really President, forcing, Sibley believes, the courts to adjudicate the President’s eligibility.
One wonders whether the creation of this template constitutes the practice of law, which disbarred Sibley is not permitted to do.
It’s a scheme worthy of Orly Taitz, who indeed is trying something quite similar regarding invalidating actions by Obama appointees (who aren’t really appointed because Obama, so she says, isn’t really President).
Read more:
Sibley has filed at least 47 SCOTUS petitions since 2000 and every one has been denied. He unsuccessfully defended the “D.C. Madam,” Deborah Jeane Palfrey. He has sued judges and even sued the U.S. Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court (twice!), and he reportedly once spent 77 days in jail for failure to pay child support. More here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302233.html
finding plaintiffs should be rather straightforward since, as with tax protestors and sovereign citizens, one cannot toss a birfer across a citizen grand jury without hitting a convicted fraudster.
Sibley, Klayman…we have a pattern.
I get the feeling that he’s going to end up getting hit with some mega-sanctions, then be all like “I just don’t know what went wrong!”
Someone should make a Birther/Lowlife Venn diagram.
Another bound-to-fail “can’t fail” DYI kit. They are so desperate about “standing” that they totally ignore the de facto officer doctrine. A simple motion to dismiss should kill any such case on the spot – failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, matter of law and not fact, end of story.
It’s been about a year since Montgomery Blair Sibley was first mentioned on this blog, and I am surprised that, according to the search box, the subject of “Big Pimpin’ Pappy” has never come up.
So I bring it up now. Just google it, you’ll find an endless supply of stories about the pimp who sued his clients, because it was obviously all their fault that he was in legal trouble. He was represented in this lawsuit by, yes, Sibley. See e.g. this.
It is obvious that Sibley doesn’t understand the De Facto Officer doctrine.
Courts have held under the de facto officer doctrine that acts and laws signed by persons acting in the capacity of their title are valid even if the person’s appointment or election to the office is legally deficient.
The court in Hamilton v. Roehrich, 628 F. Supp. 2d 1033 (D. Mn, 2009), articulated the rationale for this doctrine:
The de facto officer doctrine “`confers validity upon acts performed by a person acting under the color of official title even though it is later discovered that the legality of that person’s appointment or election to office is deficient.'” Nguyen v. United States, 539 U.S. 69, 77, 123 S.Ct. 2130, 156 L.Ed.2d 64 (2003), quoting Ryder v. United States, 515 U.S. 177, 180, 115 S.Ct. 2031, 132 L.Ed.2d 136 (1995). “The de facto doctrine springs from the fear of the chaos that would result from multiple and repetitious suits challenging every action taken by every official whose claim to office could be open to question, and seeks to protect the public by insuring the orderly functioning of the government despite technical defects in title to office.” Ryder v. United States, supra at 180, 115 S.Ct. 2031 [quotations and citations omitted]; see also, Hussey v. Smith, 99 U.S. 20, 24, 25 L.Ed. 314 (1878)(“The acts of such officers are held to be valid because the public good requires it,” and “[a] different rule would be a source of serious and lasting evils.”); Equal Employment Opportunity Comm’n v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 650 F.2d 14, 17 (2nd Cir.1981)(“The de facto officer doctrine was developed to protect the public from the chaos and uncertainty that would ensue if actions taken by individuals apparently occupying government offices could later be invalidated by exposing defects in the officials’ titles.”). “The doctrine has generally been applied to individuals who are in possession of an office, are performing the duties of the office, and who maintain an appearance of right to the office.” Equal Employment Opportunity Comm’n v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., supra at 17, citing Waite v. Santa Cruz, 184 U.S. 302, 323, 22 S.Ct. 327, 46 L.Ed. 552 (1902)
In Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. 87 (1810) although not a de facto doctrine case but the outcome was still the same. In Fletcher corrupt politicians in Georgia authorized the sale of vast acres of land to four land companies. The land companies then sold the acres to purchasers. After the sale, the corrupt politicians were voted out office and the new politicians voted a new law rescinding the sale thereby invalidating all titles to the purchasers. The issue before the court was whether or not a state statute can deprive bona fide purchasers of the acres they acquired from the land companies.
Chief Justice Marshall held that the new statute was invalidated and observed that each buyer had acquired “a title good at law, he is innocent, whatever may be the guilt of others, and equity will not subject him to the penalties attached to that guilt. All titles would be insecure, and the intercourse between man and man would be very seriously obstructed, if this principle be overturned.” Id at 133-134
As such, all of Obama’s appointments and acts that he signed into law including the 2009 Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act
We haven’t heard from that “gifted legal mind,” Jerry Collette, in quite a while. He last updated his “Do it Yourself Ballot Challenge” site eight months ago.
This is what happens when mentally insane people abuse the legal system…
What a frivolous and intentionally vexatious waste of time…
When was Sibley disbarred and in what state?
” . . . Sibley has been disbarred first in Florida in 2008 and then in a reciprocal action in the District of Columbia. The D.C. disbarment ruling contains the background of the case.”
http://gratewire.com/topic/meet-wnds-new-birther-hero-disbarred-lawyer-malicious-lawsuit-filer
here’s three for starters.
Those were all well done. Kudos.