This week's WTF? discoveries on the internet - Two For the Price Of One

by Graham Email

For a change, instead of finding a web site (no shortage of those, but research has been lacking on my end due to lack of time), I will instead point readers to what may be the winner in the contest of Dumb Birther Legal Filings (2008 onwards).
The filing is by Paul Guthrie, who is not a lawyer, but clearly regards himself as superior to not only any lawyer that he might otherwise engage to argue on his behalf, but who also appears to consider himself to be superior to the entire US Court System. Guthrie posts online in various locales under the pseudonym of JediPauly and PadwanPauly, including the main website of Orly Taitz (WARNING - That site has been known to distribute malware).
Guthrie's filing against the United States of America has too many peculiarities to list, but one of the obvious ones on page 1 is his referral to an individual described as "de facto King Barack Hussein Obama II, the alleged President of The United States of America". This should give most people a clue as to where Paul Guthrie is coming from. He believes that the POTUS is an illegal usurper, despite a score in court cases against the POTUS (on eligibility grounds) of 0-201. However, Paul Guthrie is definitely persistent.
So, this WTF? gives you even better value for (no) money - not only a website, but also one humdinger of a court document.
The case that Guthrie is arguing, Guthrie vs. United States et al, is, on a legal level, one enormous eye-brow raiser from the very beginning. The history of the case can be found discussed here; suffice it to say that when one reads Guthrie's utterances, words like "completely barking mad" do suddenly start to form on my lips.
Summary: the Complaint alleges that a monarchy is being installed in the USA, and that the POTUS is in office illegally, and demands that a long laundry list of defendants be either forced to obey the law (according to Guthrie), and that the POTUS be removed from office, failing which they should be arrested for a whole host of offenses including treason.
Guthrie's case (such as it was) was dismissed by the judge on January 18th 2013, primarily because of a lack of jurisdiction. Undeterred, Guthrie then quickly filed an amended Complaint on 29th January 2013, plus demands for the removal of the judge and Relief from Judgment. Quite clearly, he has not read any part of "How to make friends and influence people". Demanding the removal of the judge hearing your case on the grounds that the judge is corrupt and has no legitimacy is low down on the charts of smartness. Unsurprisingly, Guthrie's attempts to bluster his way back into court were swiftly waved off; he was sent a letter reminding him that the case was closed.
So...he filed another complaint in a different venue. Almost-identical collection of pleadings were submitted. Then, just to up the ante, he filed an Amended Complaint on March 2nd, claiming that the FBI had given him the brush-off when he took his complaints to them. He then tried to serve (among others) John Kerry, John Boehner, and Eric Holder with subpoenas, and when that did not work, filed Motions To Compel with them, despite his Complaint having not even been accepted by the court (HINT: There can be no Motion To Compel unless the case has been accepted, and discovery has commenced).
The court system, noticing that with his new filing Guthrie was trying to end-run the original Dismissal, then moved to bring the hammer down on this latest extravaganza:

04/03/2013 16
ENTRY and Notice - The plaintiff is recycling claims put to rest in Guthrie v. Obama, et al., No. 1:13-cv-0080-JMS-DKL (S.D.Ind. Jan. 18, 2013). He shall have through April 18, 2013, in which to show cause why this action should not be summarily dismissed for the same reasons. Proceedings except as just directed are stayed until further order. Copy mailed. Signed by Judge Sarah Evans Barker on 4/3/2013.(MAC) (Entered: 04/04/2013)

Actually, this was generous. The courts were under no obligation to allow Guthrie to enter a counter-argument, but they did so out of politesse and respect for the judicial process (in other words, showing a lot more respect than Guthrie himself has shown up to this point).
Guthrie's reply to the Order To Show Cause is, by any standards, a doozy of doozies. Generally, to succeed in an Order To Show Cause, you have to demonstrate why the reasons given by the court for dismissal (in this case, a lack of jurisdiction) are not correct. As those brave people out there will soon discover by wading into his reply, Paul Guthrie believes that the normal rules of legal argument, clearly meant for lesser mortals, do not apply to him. In a nutshell, he has (in his own mind) created a stroke-of-genius argument against dismissal. President Obama is an illegitimate President, in office illegally. Therefore the entire court system, including all judges, is operating illegally. Therefore their rulings have no effect.
At this point, I should point out that if Guthrie really believes this to be true, then why the hell is he wasting his time writing Complaints for the court system in the first place...however, that might be a practical logical response. Paul Guthrie's pleadings are logical to a point, but neither practical or rooted in reality. This pleading will suffer the same fate as all preceding ones. The only reason why Guthrie will not be sanctioned is that in addition to being a pro se litigant, he is also pleading poverty.
In the meantime, for the intellectually and legally-minded, here is this week's entertainment...
UPDATE - The judge has brought the hammer down on Guthrie's latest filing, in blunt fashion.. After reminding Guthrie of the essential process for an appeal (i.e. the appeal should be focussed on why the decision was incorrect, and should not be attempting to repeat filing arguments, or introducing new information), the judge gets to the meat of the matter:

The plaintiff has responded with a compendium, a polemic. He reinforces his theory somewhat. He discounts the dismissal of the prior action as invalid. The asserted invalidity of the prior action made it an invalid decision to appeal. He does not, however, cure the jurisdictional defect.


And with that, the judge wrote "Dismissed".