Sharon Keeter, the owner of a rental property in Raleigh, NC was fined by the city by letter indicating she owed $350 dollars because a renter was allegedly not mowing the lawn. After allowing the 10-day appeal time to lapse, Sharon decided to engage in a dramatic act of “nuisance to state” by showing up to pay the fine in all pennies, nickels and dimes. The city employees, who initially claimed they would accept the “legal tender” coins, then required Sharon to follow them to the bank. When the bank refused to accept the legal tender (a violation of law) the police were called on Sharon who informed her that she would either have to bring back the coins rolled the next day, or stay while they were counted. Refusing to be extorted with a threat against her own valuable time, Sharon willingly complied and waited for two hours so the coins could be counted and she could obtain a receipt.
“They made a point, I can make a point and somebody’s got to make a point in order to get crazy fines eliminated.”
The video below gives an overview of the events:
Sharon’s act of intentional nuisance is certainly corageous and made what would otherwise have been an easy profit for city revenue grabbers a very time-consuming and costly endeavor. However, she has several tactical and legal remedies that could have been applie prior to the expiration of her optional appeal, that could have been even more impactful in standing down the city plunderers by exposing the fictions behind their very credibility. This approach, however, requires a principled understanding of the very nature of governments and not merely an objection based on the amount or severity of the fine imposed. Below is an overview of how Sharon or a property owner facing a similar “nuisance assessment” by a city could challenge the fine using the city’s own theater of “due process.” The approach and detail of the strategy may vary given the local procedures imposed by different cities.
- File with the municipal court, and serve the inspecting officer and city prosecutor with a “motion to dismiss” the violation charges based on failure to state a cause of action.
- Appear in person to whatever hearing or procedure is offered after contacting the city regarding the appeal.
- Ask strategic questions of the judge or other overseeing official designed to expose the lack of standing and proper basis for a cause of action, as well as the biased nature of the proceedings as being a conflict of interest between the judge’s being employed by the very party bringing the action (the city or state).
- If permitted to question the officer responsible for the assessment, use a tactical line of questioning designed to expose the officer’s lack of qualification or factual knowledge necessary to bring a valid cause of action.
By allowing the appeal time to lapse and paying the fine, Sharon essentially gave away the most critical part of the battle by acknowledging the legitimacy of the cause of action behind the fine and the city’s factual jurisdiction over her.
Government entities, at every level, operate fundamentally on a total fiction… the fiction that there is such a tangible, definable thing as “the state” or “the city” apart from the individuals that act supposedly on its behalf. They also operate on the provably invalid presumption that citizens exist, owing a “duty of allegiance in return for a duty of protection.” Such citizens do not exist, because no such duty of protection exists as courts all across the country have consistently held when asked to enforce a duty of protection in individual cases. This basic disconnect with reality poses a fatal tactical flaw inherent to virtually any bureucratic prosecution or assessment. They can’t connect their fictions to you in any factual way! Since the presumption in law is that a “fact not appearing is presumed not to exist” this makes them unable to connect their claims of jurisdiction to your individual situation. For more information on tactical strategies of bureaucratic damage control surrounding this principle, please visit http://www.marcstevens.net
