Here’s One Citizen Who Doesn’t Feel Obliged to Knuckle Under to the Law

Virginia Ulrich has theories. My goodness, does she have theories!

Right now she’s fighting a traffic citation for letting her teen-age daughter drive her 1977 Oldsmobile Regency without a license last November.

The fine is $82 if she would accept it. She won’t.

She thinks the court has no jurisdiction over her, the state has no right to require driver’s licenses, and the cops are merely extortionistic “street gangsters.”

At last count, she has filed 11 motions with the Municipal Court, totaling 150 pages and detailing, among other things, her minimalist belief that, if a citizen has not signed a contract agreeing to abide by a certain law then he or she cannot be punished for violating that law.

She is representing herself without an attorney.

In legalese, that’s called propia persona, which means “as for himself.” In Ulrich’s case, it could mean, “Wait until you get a load of this !!”

In her papers, all done up on legal forms, she quotes the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution (particularly the 14th Amendment), the Dred Scott decision, the 1849 California Constitution, Black’s Law Dictionary and the Federalist Papers.

Also, references to God, Susan B. Anthony, the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Founding Fathers and more.

Ulrich, 48, who lives on Mt. Soledad and once was on the La Jolla Town Council, also used the same strategy to beat a previous traffic rap.

That time she was stopped for not having license plates, registration or insurance (she still doesn’t). She snowed the system with paperwork and finally the case was dismissed when the cop missed a court date.

She won’t accept mail with a ZIP code because she feels it implies she bows to federal governmental authority.

Next Tuesday she’s set to argue in Municipal Court in favor of her motion in her latest case asking for “a white Christian judge who is judicially unbiased and who will rule according to the law as it is written.”

Although the case is being handled by the city attorney, Ulrich has tried to subpoena Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller so she can get his response to her theories.

She wants a jury trial (not allowed for ticket cases) and has submitted 27 suggested jury instructions.

“I’m persistent,” Ulrich said.

Cops on Lookout for Michelangelo

It says here.

* The cops come and go, talking of Michelangelo.

San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen has ordered a memo read at roll call, warning all 1,800 officers to be on the lookout for the Michelangelo computer virus set to go off today. It isn’t quite a shoot-to-kill-order, but it’s close.

Any cop who spots the virus on his microcomputer should call the Dirty Harrys at Data Services, armed with anti-virus software.

* Campaign called on account of rain.

Leighton Worthey, 19, has decided not to run for mayor of San Diego. He was unable to hustle up the 2,000 signatures or $500 to get on the ballot.

The storms washed out his plans to hold a back-yard barbecue fund-raiser.

* KFMB radio newsman Reid Carroll on the county’s latest budget crisis: “Like ‘Nightmare on Elm Street,’ it’s a story line that is spooky and familiar.”

* The San Diego school district headquarters has a display of student-made models of famous buildings and the like.

One student has done the Parthenon. Updated to modern times.

It’s adorned with graffiti.

Costume Pays a Month’s Rent

America, land of opportunity.

Dave Webb, 29, a construction contractor, moved to San Diego from New Zealand to make a living. But times are tough, and suddenly the rent was due.

Then he heard that Dick’s Last Resort, a ribs-chicken-and-beer joint in the Gaslamp Quarter, was having a Mardi Gras party and a most-outrageous costume contest.

For two days he worked on his costume, and, come party night, he was a winner, a fast $500 that should cover his share of the rent quite nicely, thank you.

His winning costume?

On the front, a Test Tube Baby; on the back, a 24-hour Sperm Bank, with inflatable condoms, an ATM-like gizmo, and whirling feather dusters (don’t ask).

“The concept was mine,” Webb explains.