Bogus Liens Gum Up Gears of Justice

Linda Ray thought it was funny at first when an anti-government activist slapped a lien on her home, her bank account and four family autos.

The Arkansas woman’s amusement quickly turned to anger when she had to go to court half a dozen times and miss work to get the lien removed. The man eventually was convicted of filing an invalid lien, but not soon enough to spare Ray significant hassle.

“It’s just been an ongoing barrage of filings and suits that I’ve had to constantly respond to,” said Ray, a case coordinator in Pulaski County Circuit Court in Little Rock.

In growing numbers, court workers, judges, sheriffs and police officers nationwide are being targeted by nuisance suits and liens filed by citizens dissatisfied with the way the American courts dispense justice.

These disaffected Americans are a quiet but fast-growing part of the anti-government movement, largely overshadowed by the militia movement that attracted attention after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

Some use legal-looking documents to gum up the gears of justice. Many no longer recognize the American judicial system at all: Meeting in living rooms, motels, bingo halls and public libraries, they hold so-called common-law courts and hand out their own form of justice.

“While authorities play catch-up trying to cope with the threat of the anti-government movement’s militias, common-law courts have surged past the militias as the most influential and rapidly growing element of the anti-government phenomenon,” said Joel Dyer, a Denver author who has written extensively on the movement.

Now numbering in the hundreds, common-law courts have taken root in nearly every state--not just places like Montana and Texas, where anti-government sentiment has erupted in violence. Nearly three dozen states have responded by passing laws to discourage fraudulent filings.

Robert Getz Jr., chief clerk at the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas in Pennsylvania, said he receives common-law court papers replete with messages from the Bible at least once a month.

“These people are not going away,” he said. “They will continue to agitate the system. They think it is not their system--that it’s not what our forefathers intended.”

In Ohio, about 1,000 to 1,500 activists have filed so many bogus papers that Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer is convinced the common-law courts are more than a passing phenomenon.

“They’re sort of chipping away at the institution,” said Moyer, co-chairman of the national Conference of Chief Justices’ new committee on common-law courts. “They slow down the court system for others who are there for legitimate purposes.”

The way common-law court supporters read the Constitution, Magna Carta and other documents, theirs is the only constitutional court in the land. Public employees who try to enforce such things as foreclosures, zoning ordinances or motor vehicle regulations often are tried in their courts and found guilty in absentia.

Legally, anyone can file a lien on someone else’s property as security for the payment of a debt. In many of these cases, however, no real debt is owed; the lien is a form of paper harassment. How-to kits and tips for filing bogus liens are available on the Internet.

Texas common-law court activist Jesse Enloe, who has fielded hundreds of calls from people interested in setting up courts across the nation, said he doesn’t know anyone who has filed a lien without just cause. “There are some nuts out there, but don’t paint everybody with the same brush,” he said.

Enloe said public officials often are given two or three chances to respond before liens are filed.

“These people who have filed these liens have been damaged and they have no other recourse for remedy,” he said.

Enloe is vice president of the provisional government for the separatist Republic of Texas, which has its own People’s Court of Common Law that meets monthly at a motel in Arlington. The court grants sovereignty to citizens disenchanted with government and the courts.

As sovereigns, they are told they no longer have to recognize the federal government--to have a Social Security number, for instance, or pay taxes. But Enloe insists none of the adherents is anti-government.

“We all believe in government. We just don’t want an oppressive, tyrannical government that doesn’t obey the law,” Enloe said.

Until a victim works through the courts to get them removed or persuades credit-report companies that they are bogus, such liens can disrupt credit ratings and delay efforts to get loans and sell property.

Jeffrey Davis, a circuit judge in Pennington County, S.D., has been hit with at least six bogus liens in the last few years.

“My wife has spent hours trekking back and forth to credit agencies,” Davis said. “She had to make sure they weren’t put on our credit history.”