First off, forgive me for even making a post about this during the Covid-19 crises while the State of California is confining people to their own homes and requiring people to wear masks to protect its residents.
Obviously the State of California can pretty much do what it wants. For example, it is undisputed, that legal rights to your children are a liberty protected interest already decided by case law under the US Constitution. I think this right to the “care, control and companionship” of your own child falls under all three categories of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness combined. However the State of California regularly seizes emergency custody of children, then temporary custody of children, and too often, terminates the parents rights (“TPR”) making the child a juvenile dependent of the State without the corresponding due process rights for a liberty protected interest regardless of whether a parent is a citizen or sovereign citizen or if the child has a social security number.
The State of California is required to give you due process rights (formal written laws) before it can take away your right to live, before it can take you into custody, and before it can take your custodial rights to your property from you (your house). In fact, in another blog we outline how the State of California gives you jury trial rights before your landlord can remove you from his/her rental. So how does being a Sovereign citizen protect you from unwarranted governmental interference in your family? It doesn’t. A recent interesting United States Supreme Court (“SCOTUS”) case popped up regarding Tyson Timbs, a convicted drug dealer and a potential thief who resides in Indiana.
Indiana took temporary custody of Timbs’s Land Rover when it took Timbs into custody in 2013. In early 2019, SCOTUS told Indiana to release its custody of the Land Rover back to Timbs. You can read about it here. Indiana figured it could clarify its formal written laws, subject to strict scrutiny and keep sole custody of the Land Rover. This year, even though the Land Rover is only 7 years old, Indiana sort of conceded to shared custody and returned the Land Rover to Timbs. Timbs will lose shared custody of the Land Rover if he fails to keep insurance on it or if he tries to transfers his share of custody of the Land Rover to anyone else, including his family members.
Bottom line, go ahead and waste your time and energy, as a parent, trying to be a “Sovereign Citizen” or fail to give your child a social security number or refuse to enter into any contracts you believe the State of California wants to hold with you so it won’t be able to charge you with “breaching” them. Raise Your Rights’ concern is for children brought into California’s family or juvenile dependency courts and not about Sovereign Citizens in general. These false ideas and promotions have repeatedly been shown not to hold up in court, ever. If the State of California seizes emergency rights to your child, it has repeatedly given him/her a permanent federal social security number. If the State of California finds out you didn’t pay federal taxes (so you probably didn’t pay state taxes either) both the IRS and FTB will come after you successfully. If you don’t work or pay taxes, then most likely you also don’t receive direct non-taxable governmental assistance. I am not an accountant but I am pretty sure your unemployment checks this year are also subject to tax, unless they weren’t high enough in total to reach the taxable income threshold. In regards to your child? Children need security, safety, food, shelter, etc. to thrive and they are not resilient to harsh living conditions which is the subject of another blog so if you are a Sovereign citizen you still have a duty to provide for your children. They also need divorcing parents to #ResolveConflictQuickly.
Indiana still hasn’t comply with the federal court instructions to return Timb’s Land Rover to him and the lesson learned is that your state can pretty much do whatever it wants.