Jerome Theodore, Schiefen, Sui Juris Citizen of South Dakota state c/o General Delivery Hudson, South Dakota state In Propria Persona Under Protest and By Special Visitation Only UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF SOUTH DAKOTA SOUTHERN DIVISION UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [sic], ) Case Number CR-96-40003 ) Plaintiff [sic], ) ) NOTICE OF PLEA AND v. ) PLEA IN ABATEMENT; ) NOTICE OF MOTION AND JEROME T. SCHIEFEN [sic], ) MOTION TO STAY PROCEEDINGS ) FOR FAILING TO COMPLY WITH Defendant [sic]. ) GRAND JURY SELECTION POLICY; ) AND NOTICE OF CHALLENGE AND ) CHALLENGE TO ) CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATUTE: ) 28 U.S.C. 297, 517, 518, ) 1861, 1865, and 1867(d),(e); ) F.R.Cr.P. Rule 6(b)(2); ) F.R.Evid. Rule 201(d); ) Full Faith and Credit Clause ________________________________) COMES NOW Jerome Theodore, Schiefen, Sui Juris, Citizen of South Dakota state and Respondent in the above entitled matter (hereinafter "Respondent"), to reserve His fundamental Right to abate all jury actions in the instant case, and to Petition this honorable Court for a stay of the instant proceedings, pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. 1867(d), pending proper review of the Respondent's challenge to the constitutionality of 28 U.S.C. 1865, and to provide notice of same to all interested parties. The offensive statute follows: Plea in Abatement, Motion to Stay, Challenge to Statute: Page 1 of 9 1865. Qualifications for jury service (a) The chief judge of the district court, or such other district court judge as the plan may provide ... shall determine solely on the basis of information provided on the juror qualification form and other competent evidence whether a person is unqualified for, or exempt, or to be excused from jury service. ... (b) In making such determination the chief judge of the district court, or such other district court judge as the plan may provide, shall deem any person qualified to serve on grand and petit juries in the district court unless he -- (1) is not a citizen of the United States eighteen years old who has resided for a period of one year within the judicial district; .... [28 U.S.C. 1865, emphasis added] In stark contrast, it is the policy of the United States that all citizens shall have the opportunity to be considered for service on grand and petit juries in the district courts of the United States. To be constitutional, and to be consistent with its legislative intent, the term "all citizens", as that term is used in 28 U.S.C. 1861, must be construed to include also Citizens of the freely associated compact states who are not also citizens of the United States (a/k/a "federal citizens"): 1861. Declaration of policy It is the policy of the United States that all litigants in Federal courts entitled to trial by jury shall have the right to grand and petit juries selected at random from a fair cross section of the community in the district or division wherein the court convenes. It is further the policy of the United States that all citizens shall have the opportunity to be considered for service on grand and petit juries in the district courts of the United States, and shall have an obligation to serve as jurors when summoned for that purpose. [28 U.S.C. 1861, emphasis added] Plea in Abatement, Motion to Stay, Challenge to Statute: Page 2 of 9 Respondent hereby gives notice to all interested parties of His sworn (verified) statement of law and facts which constitute a substantial failure to comply with the Constitution for the United States of America, as lawfully amended (hereinafter "U.S. Constitution"), and with the provisions of Title 28, United States Code, Section 1861: Declaration of Policy. See 28 U.S.C. 1867(d) and (e). The grand and petit juries consisted of members all of whom were citizens of the United States, not necessarily Citizens of South Dakota state. See Dyett v. Turner and State v. Phillips infra; Right of Election; voter registration affidavits; U.S. v. Griffith, 2 F.2d 925 (1924). By way of introduction to the crucial matters of fact and law which are discussed at length in Respondent's sworn (verified) statement, which is hereby incorporated by reference as if set forth fully herein, this honorable Court is hereby respectfully requested to take formal judicial notice of the additional standing authorities on this question: We have in our political system a Government of the United States and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of its own .... Slaughter-House Cases [United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)] [emphasis added] A person who is a citizen of the United States** is necessarily a citizen of the particular state in which he resides. But a person may be a citizen of a particular state and not a citizen of the United States. To hold otherwise would be to deny to the state the highest exercise of its sovereignty, -- the right to declare who are its citizens. [State v. Fowler, 41 La. Ann. 380] [6 S. 602 (1889), emphasis added] There are, then, under our republican form of government, two classes of citizens, one of the United States and one of the state. One class of citizenship may exist in a person, without the other, as in the case of a resident of the District of Columbia; but both classes usually exist in the same person. [Gardina v. Board of Registrars, 160 Ala. 155] [48 S. 788, 791 (1909), emphasis added] There are over 100,000 elementary and secondary schools in the United States. ... Each of these now has an invisible federal zone extending 1,000 feet beyond the (often irregular) boundaries of the school property. [U.S. v. Lopez, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (1995)] Plea in Abatement, Motion to Stay, Challenge to Statute: Page 3 of 9 As a Party to the instant case, the Respondent hereby challenges the indicting grand jury, and the convicting petit jury, on the ground that such juries were not selected in conformity with section 1861 of Title 28, because Citizens of South Dakota state who are not also citizens of the United States (a/k/a federal citizens) are disqualified from serving by virtue of their chosen Citizenship status. See 28 U.S.C. 1867(e); Right of Election; 15 Statutes at Large, Chapter 249 (Section 1), enacted July 27, 1868; jus soli; jus sanguinis. Specifically, the offensive statute forces the following unconstitutional result upon Citizens of South Dakota state who choose not also to be citizens of the United States (a/k/a federal citizens): citizen of Citizen of Qualified United States South Dakota to serve Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No No Yes No ** This result ("**") violates the Tenth Amendment by disqualifying Citizens of South Dakota state from serving on federal grand and petit juries when they are not also federal citizens, thus denying to accused Citizens of South Dakota state a grand jury of Their Peers when a grand jury consists of federal citizens only. Plea in Abatement, Motion to Stay, Challenge to Statute: Page 4 of 9 An intentional discrimination against a class of persons, solely because of their class, by officers in charge of the selection and summoning of grand and petit jurors in a criminal case, is a violation of the fundamental Rights of an accused. See Cassell v. Texas, 339 U.S. 282; Atkins v. Texas, 325 U.S. 398; Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U.S. 354. Such a violation is not excused by the fact that the persons actually selected for jury service otherwise possess the necessary qualifications for jurors as prescribed by statute. State v. Jones, 365 P.2d 460. Discrimination in the selection of grand and petit juries, as prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, means an intentional, systematic noninclusion because of class. There are two (2) classes of citizenship in America. E.g. Gardina supra. The statute 28 U.S.C. 1865(b)(1) specifically excludes those classes of Citizens who are not mentioned. Inclusio unius est exclusio alterius. The following statute dramatically demonstrates that Congress appreciates the difference between the two classes, and knows how to discriminate between "white citizens" (read "state Citizens") and "citizens of the United States" (a/k/a federal citizens). The Civil Rights Act, 14 U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 27, which was the forerunner of the so-called 14th Amendment, amply shows the intent of Congress, as follows: ... [A]ll persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color ... shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States ... to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens. [emphasis added] Plea in Abatement, Motion to Stay, Challenge to Statute: Page 5 of 9 Once a prima facie case for the existence of purposeful discrimination is made out, the burden shifts to the prosecution to prove otherwise. See Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U.S. 545. Reliance on the so-called Fourteenth Amendment to resolve this matter is moot, because the Fourteenth Amendment was never lawfully ratified, and because the authorities cited supra allow for the possibility that a Person can be a state Citizen without also being a federal citizen, whether or not the Fourteenth Amendment was lawfully ratified. See State v. Phillips, 540 P.2d 936, 941 (1975); Dyett v. Turner, 20 Utah 2d 403, 439 P.2d 266, 270 (1968); Full Faith and Credit Clause; 28 Tulane Law Review 22; 11 South Carolina Law Quarterly 484; House Congressional Record, June 13, 1967, p. 15641 et seq. As such, there is no constitutional provision which makes a federal citizen also a citizen of the Union state in which s/he resides, nor is there any constitutional provision which states that the validity of the public debt shall not be questioned. The judicial history of American citizenship is a subject which is rich in nuance and detail, as demonstrated in Respondent's sworn (verified) statement. For example, at a time when those Islands were in the federal zone, the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands found that "citizenship," strictly speaking, is a term of municipal law and, according to that Court, it is municipal law which regulates the conditions on which citizenship is acquired: Citizenship, says Moore on International Law, strictly speaking, is a term of municipal law and denotes the possession within the particular state of full civil and political rights subject to special disqualifications, such as minority, sex, etc. The conditions on which citizenship are [sic] acquired are regulated by municipal law. There is no such thing as international citizenship nor international law (aside from that which might be contained in treaties) by which citizenship is acquired. [Roa v. Collector of Customs] [23 Philippine 315, 332 (1912)] Plea in Abatement, Motion to Stay, Challenge to Statute: Page 6 of 9 Indeed, international law is divided roughly into two groups: (1) public international law and (2) private international law. Citizenship is a term of private international law (also known as municipal law) in which the terms "state", "nation" and "country" are all synonymous: Private international law assumes a more important aspect in the United States than elsewhere, for the reason that the several states, although united under the same sovereign authority and governed by the same laws for all national purposes embraced by the Federal Constitution, are otherwise, at least so far as private international law is concerned, in the same relation as foreign countries. The great majority of questions of private international law are therefore subject to the same rules when they arise between two states of the Union as when they arise between two foreign countries, and in the ensuing pages the words "state," "nation," and "country" are used synonymously and interchangeably, there being no intention to distinguish between the several states of the Union and foreign countries by the use of varying terminology. [16 Am Jur 2d, Conflict of Laws, Sec. 2] [emphasis added] Congress does refer to the Union states as "countries." See 28 U.S.C. 297. RELIEF SOUGHT Wherefore, Respondent petitions this honorable Court for an indefinite stay of the proceedings in the instant case, pending proper review of the substantial issues of law and fact which are alleged in this Motion and which are contained in Respondent's sworn (verified) statement which is attached hereto and incorporated by reference as if set forth fully herein. In the event that Respondent should prevail on said issues, Respondent reserves His fundamental Right to abate all jury action(s) in the instant case, because of the unlawful class discrimination which is exhibited by the Jury Selection and Service Act, 28 U.S.C. 1861 et seq. Executed on: _________________________ Plea in Abatement, Motion to Stay, Challenge to Statute: Page 7 of 9 Respectfully submitted, /s/ Jerome Theodore Schiefen Jerome Theodore, Schiefen, Sui Juris Citizen of South Dakota state All Rights Reserved without Prejudice /s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S. Citizen of Arizona state, federal witness and Counselor at Law Plea in Abatement, Motion to Stay, Challenge to Statute: Page 8 of 9 PROOF OF SERVICE I, Jerome Theodore, Schiefen, Sui Juris, hereby certify, under penalty of perjury, under the laws of the United States of America, without the "United States," that I am at least 18 years of age, a Citizen of one of the United States of America, and that I personally served the following document(s): NOTICE OF PLEA AND PLEA IN ABATEMENT; NOTICE OF MOTION AND MOTION TO STAY PROCEEDINGS FOR FAILING TO COMPLY WITH GRAND JURY SELECTION POLICY; AND NOTICE OF CHALLENGE AND CHALLENGE TO CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATUTE: 28 U.S.C. 297, 517, 518, 1861, 1865, and 1867(d),(e), F.R.Cr.P. Rule 6(b)(2); F.R.Evid. 201(d); Full Faith and Credit Clause by placing one true and correct copy of said document(s) in first class United States Mail, with postage prepaid and properly addressed to the following: Office of the United States Attorney United States Department of Justice Federal Building Sioux Falls, South Dakota state Attorney General Department of Justice 10th and Constitution, N.W. Washington DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Solicitor General Department of Justice 10th and Constitution, N.W. Washington DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Executed on: _____________________________ /s/ Jerome Theodore Schiefen __________________________________________ Jerome Theodore, Schiefen, Sui Juris Citizen of South Dakota state All Rights Reserved without Prejudice Plea in Abatement, Motion to Stay, Challenge to Statute: Page 9 of 9 # # #
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U.S.A. v. Jerome T. Schiefen