Freeman Ordered To Pay Another $1,000 Fine Justices Say Jailed Man ‘Abused’ High Court With ‘Nonsensical Filings’
One of the anti-government freemen who surrendered after an 81-day standoff last spring has been ordered to pay another $1,000 fine and been told to stop bothering the Montana Supreme Court.
The justices unanimously chastised Rodney O. Skurdal on Thursday for a recent handwritten filing with the high court.
The court described the documents as “liberally peppered with Latin words and phrases, biblical admonitions and references to various laws from the Magna Carta to the Uniform Commercial Code.”
But, the court said, none of his filings has anything to do with cases pending in state courts. He should be dealing with the federal courts where he faces criminal charges, the justices said.
Skurdal is in the Yellowstone County jail on charges of conspiracy, bank and mail fraud, firearms violations and threatening to kidnap and kill a federal judge.
He was among the freemen who gave themselves up last June following their standoff with FBI agents on a foreclosed wheat farm near Jordan, Mont.
In one of the documents filed with the state Supreme Court last week, Skurdal contended “non-registered foreign agents” (the FBI), working for a “non-registered foreign corporation” (the federal government), came into Montana illegally and kidnapped him and his fellow “people of posterity.”
“Let the world know that the people and their public servants in Montana will not bow down to acts of terrorism,” he wrote. “Thank you, for America needs justice.”
In rejecting the 38 pages of records sent by Skurdal, the Supreme Court said he “repeatedly has abused Montana’s courts and its public officials with nonsensical filings.”
It recalled fining Skurdal $1,000 in July 1994 for such filings and said the money never has been paid.
The court clerk had been instructed not to accept any more documents from Skurdal until the fine is paid, but Skurdal’s latest writings were made under the name Rodney Owen.
The court, noting Skurdal’s appreciation for Latin, disposed of his filings with a Latin phrase saying: “Mountains will be in labor and an absurd mouse will be born.”
In other words, Skurdal went to a lot of trouble for nothing. The court ordered Skurdal to pay the second $1,000 fine immediately.
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