With the tax season upon us, many of us are assembling various receipts, completing IRS forms and hoping for a refund. However, there is a segment of society that will not be paying their taxes. Not because they cannot afford them, or because they have made special arrangements with the government, but because they simply do not believe they have to pay taxes.

These individuals, referred to as “sovereign citizens,” believe they are a government unto themselves and that taxes are illegal. Individuals who subscribe to this ideology pose particular challenges to law enforcement because they do not believe they are required to abide by laws. Registration plates or inspection stickers are unnecessary to them ”“ as are speed limits.

A sovereign citizen does not believe law enforcement officers have any “right” to control them and do not honor their authority. Consequently, when a sovereign citizen encounters a law enforcement officer, he may willfully disobey them, video and/or audio record them, and wage legal arguments at inappropriate times.

Last year, a York County deputy sheriff and a Maine State trooper from Alfred encountered a sovereign citizen during their official duties. Both officers took the appropriate law enforcement steps; however, the sovereign citizen took some unusual steps to “get even” with the two lawmen. Those steps included illegal financial obligations, in the form of liens, placed on each officer for various “violations.”

Last year, the Maine Chiefs of Police sponsored a two-hour block of training on this important topic. There is a lot of information on the sovereign citizen beliefs and ideology, so this column can only provide a brief overview about the movement.

Basic Beliefs

A sovereign citizen will be the first to say that they love America, but do not believe in its evolution. They are strict constitutionalists, and believe that the federal and state governments have evolved into “for profit” corporations, leaving the only true government as county government.

The ideology has its roots in the white supremacy thinking because they believe that the only true U.S. citizen is a person born here. The thinking is a bit skewed because, if they truly believe that, the only true citizens would be American Indians. Nevertheless, sovereigns have identified immigrants, refugees and people of color as not being true Americans.

Sovereigns believe the “proof” may be found in the U.S. Constitution: Sometimes the word “citizen” is capitalized and other times it is not. Whenever the word is not capitalized, it refers to naturalized citizens and when the word is capitalized, it refers to individuals who were born in the United States, they believe.

Redemption Theory

Why do so many people subscribe to the sovereign thinking? Partly because of the “Redemption Theory” aspects of the ideology, which purports that each citizen has $630,000 stashed away in a secret vault.

In brief, President Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard for our currency during the Great Depression. To do so, he issued an executive order demanding all citizens exchange precious metals, to include gold, for paper currency. This order also placed a moratorium on banks.

Redemption theorists explain that during that same time, the government issued Social Security cards and contemporary birth certificates.

The theorists offer that the Social Security cards and birth certificates are to keep track of citizens because the government placed its citizens as collateral for loans from foreign countries; in other words, each citizen became a “straw man” for the government. The U.S. Government received $630,000 for each citizen that is set aside in a vault somewhere waiting for the citizen to declare his/her sovereignty and collect.

Sovereign citizens believe the “proof” that birth certificates were used as collateral may be shown by the red “stock certificate” type numbers affixed to each birth certificate. Further proof is shown because each birth certificate is printed on bank note paper, they say.

Declaring Sovereignty

There are no schools or organized training regarding the sovereign citizen movement. Consequently, many citizens who may be down on their luck, or are looking for a quick path to wealth, will grasp the ideology and the Redemption Theory. These individuals will declare their sovereignty and want their money. Unfortunately, the “proof” of the collateralized money is a series of suppositions and false beliefs.

Many sovereign citizens come under the scrutiny of law enforcement because they refuse to abide by society’s rules, and when they are challenged, they usually counterattack through civil disobedience or, like in the case in York County, through the county clerk system by placing false liens on an officer. While the liens are facetious, they can disrupt a credit check and cause a lender some pause when they find an supposed undisclosed debt.

York County Courthouse

Debra Anderson has been the York County registrar of deeds for 12 years. She related that about three years ago she started encountering citizens who subscribe to the sovereign citizen ideology.

She noticed documents with a red thumb print affixed on them. When she questioned the documents, she learned that sovereigns will affix a red thumbprint on a document as “proof” that the document is from a “flesh and blood” person, and not the “straw man” the government created when the government collateralized them.

Anderson said many of the sovereigns are “pretty insistent” and want to record something that is not recordable, causing an inordinate amount of her staff time. Nevertheless, her staff ensures that all records are authenticated and notarized prior to being recorded.

Legislation

Christopher Parr, an attorney with the Maine State Police, became a subject matter expert on the sovereign citizen movement and realized that law enforcement officials must be protected.

Parr drafted legislation to address this inappropriate activity. His bill, LD 206, was signed into law last year. The law provides protection to all public officials in the performance of their duties, and ensures that their personal finances are insulated from the grasps of these misguided individuals.

Last year, Parr received the Maine Sheriff’s Association “Presidential Award” for his work on this law and his dedication to duty.

— Submitted by William L. King Jr., chief deputy of the York County Sheriff’s Department. This column will be on hiatus during the race for York County sheriff, due to King’s candidacy.