Opinion
3:21-mc-3-BJB
10-06-2021
IN RE RASHEED MALIK MOOREESE EL
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Benjamin Beaton, District Judge.
Mooreese El filed a three-page document titled “OFFICIAL NATIVE SOVEREIGN NATION IDENTIFICATION:MANDATORY ACCEPTANCE: USC” and paid the filing fee for filing a miscellaneous action in this Court. The document purports to be a notice to the “State of Kentucky, Jefferson County Probate Court, the Jefferson County Prosecutor; all federal, state, county, local, municipal and corporate law enforcement [and] bail agencies” that they are “PRECLUDED FROM ALL ACTIONS against Royal Consular Rasheed Mooreese Malik El I and ALL Members of his/her Noble Religious Society M.S.T. of A. Grand Major Temple II/Aulcoarah Private Society of Mu'urs & Moors en Al Morocco/Al Marikanos/Americase Royal Temple #1.” DN 1 at 1. The document cites the “United States Supreme Court case ruling 13-01313-FCH WASH DC in favor of Cherokee Freedman Descendants (2017). United States Eastern District of Michigan Federal Case 3-20-mc-500006, and Michigan Department of State USS Lien #.” Id. (excessive capitalization removed). Elsewhere, this document states that federal case 3:20-mc-5006 “estops and precludes any and all proceedings, actions, investigations, taxations, searches, seizures, detentions, warrants, et al, pertaining to Aff:Divine Minister Rasha Malik Mooreese EL I or his property[.]” Id. (same).
Mooreese El's filing asks for no relief from the Court, but instead purports to preclude proceedings, investigations, taxation, detentions, warrants, and other legal actions from being brought against him. This purported “notice” has no legal significance; Mooreese El cannot bind corporations, bail agencies, or federal, state, and local officials with respect to his fictitious notions and unintelligible procedural documents, which have the hallmarks of being pseudo-legal documents created by the Moorish sovereign-citizen movement. “So-called sovereign citizens believe that they are not subject to government authority and employ various tactics in an attempt to, among other things, avoid paying taxes, extinguish debts, and derail criminal proceedings.” Gravatt v. United States, 100 Fed.Cl. 279, 282 (2011). The sovereign-citizen movement espouses the belief “that as a result of eighteenth-century treaties the United States has no jurisdiction over its Moorish inhabitants.” Bey v. State, 847 F.3d 559, 559-61 (7th Cir. 2017).
Courts have repeatedly rejected, as frivolous, arguments based on the theory of sovereign citizenship. See, e.g., United States v. Sterling, 738 F.3d 228, 233 n.1 (11th Cir. 2013) (“Courts have been confronted repeatedly by [sovereign citizens'] attempts to delay judicial proceedings and have summarily rejected their legal theories as frivolous.”); United States v. Benabe, 654 F.3d 753, 767 (7th Cir. 2011) (“We have repeatedly rejected [the defendants'] theories of individual sovereignty, immunity from prosecution, and their ilk.”); McCormack v. Hollenbach, No. 3:18-CV-P617-RGJ, 2019 WL 360522, at *2 (W.D. Ky. Jan. 29, 2019) (“Sovereign citizen arguments are recognized as frivolous and a waste of court resources.” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). “Claims based on ‘sovereign citizen' theories may be dismissed without ‘extended argument' as patently frivolous.” Adkins v. Kentucky, No. 3:18-MC-26, 2018 WL 6528462, at *1 (W.D. Ky. Dec. 12, 2018) (quoting United States v. Ward, No. 98-30191, 1999 WL 369812, at *2 (9th Cir. May 13, 1999)).
Under Apple v. Glenn, dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is appropriate when the allegations “are totally implausible, attenuated, unsubstantial, frivolous, devoid of merit, or no longer open to discussion.” 183 F.3d 477, 479 (6th Cir. 1999). Because the legal theories espoused in this action are frivolous, the Court, by separate Order, will dismiss this lawsuit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.