Hollister v. Soetoro: Case Dismissed, Attorney May be Sanctioned
Submitted by Phil on Thu, Mar 5, 2009157 Comments
Here’s the actual Order:
The full memo from Judge Robertson follows, including my commentary (all commentary about this dismissal associated with the previous Hollister v. Soetoro posting has been deleted; feel free to comment on this posting)…
My commentary, especially for the “illegitimizers” out there:
- “The issue of the President’s citizenship was raised,vetted, blogged, texted, twittered, and otherwise massaged by America’s vigilant citizenry during Mr. Obama’s two-year-campaign for the presidency, but this plaintiff wants it resolved by acourt.” With all due respect to the judge, he has similarly bought into the faulty premise that somehow the electoral process properly vets candidates for the presidency when he should be reasonably expected to know that no such law exists that requires any kind of vetting to be done on the part of a presidential candidate. He therefore has introduced a “strawman” premise to his opinion (ironically, he correctly employs this same concept concerning Mr. Hollister).
- “Mr. Hollister is apparently Mr. Berg’s fallback brainstorm, essentially a straw plaintiff, one who could tee Mr. Berg’snative-born issue up for decision on a new theory: If some “value” could be assigned to the “duties” the plaintiff thinks he might someday be called upon to fulfill under the Commander-in-Chief, then those “duties” could be deposited in the registry of this Court as the res whose distribution is to be decided by a suit in interpleader!” Big score by the judge on this one. I, too, have wondered from the beginning what Mr. Hollister had been doing as the Plaintiff in this case.
- “The filing and service of the complaint required private counsel to appear for President Obama and for Vice President Biden (whose citizenship is not challenged but who was presumably considered a necessary party in a suit seeking to unseat the President). Those counsel have moved to dismiss, asserting both that this Court has no jurisdiction (Rule 12(b)(1)) and that the plaintiff has stated a claim for which relief cannot be granted (Rule 12(b)(6)).” Again, the judge hit this one out of the park: what is Mr. Biden doing as a Defendant in this case? Also — and get this, “illegitimizers” — the Court cannot rule on a case like this because there is no law requiring the substantiating of eligibility; that’s why the Court has no jurisdiction in this matter. It’s one heck of a catch-22, but nobody ever said that pursuing the question of eligibility was going to be easy.
- “John D. Hemenway, on the other hand, is a member of the Bar of this Court. He may have been enlisted by Messrs. Berg and Joyce as a foot soldier in their crusade, but he is nevertheless directly responsible to this Court for the pleadings that have been filed on behalf of the plaintiff. Because it appears that the complaint in this case may have been presented for an improper purpose such as to harass; and that the interpleader claims and other legal contentions of plaintiff are not warranted by existing law or by non-frivolous arguments for extending, modifying or reversing existing law or for establishing new law, the accompanying order of dismissal requires Mr. Hemenway to show cause why he has not violated Rules11(b)(1) and 11(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,and why he should not be required to pay reasonable attorneys fees and other expenses to counsel for the defendants.” This could be an “epic fail” on the part of Mr. Hemenway. Presumably, he knew what he was getting into should the case have turned out the way it has. If he didn’t expect this — and I am making a speculative observation here — I don’t think that Messrs. Hemenway, Berg and Joyce would be enjoying a very friendly relationship at this point.
Despite the judge’s dry and somewhat sarcastic sense of humor, he has made some excellent points concerning this case. Now that some more verbose orders are being made public for why such a case was dismissed, it’s time to learn a few things:
- Nobody is going to be able to challenge the President per the above directly, as every Court, to date, has dismissed cases if not for lack of standing, then certainly for lack of jurisdiction because there is no law that governs requiring eligibility substantiation;
- Any and all Plaintiffs in other eligibility cases need to fully think through all the ramifications of the petitions they’re bringing for the Court’s consideration. Unfortunately, it appears to me that Mr. Berg took too much of a shotgun approach for this case and based his hopes on too much faulty reasoning; the idea of pursuing a case is to win while simultaenously minimizing hazards;
- Eligibility may have to be dealt with at the State level.
Update: Citizen Wells questions the judge on his decision.
A current listing of eligibility lawsuits can be found here.
-Phil
[...] eligibility with respect to the presidency. For any Judge to attempt to opine on the subject, as has been done before when there is no legitimate reason to do so, shows further anecdotal evidence that the Judiciary [...]
Phil,
Politijab has posted the Response to Show Cause Order from Hemenway/Berg.
http://www.politijab.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=675
Oops a little help…
I put the post I was replying to(Pete’s) in quotation marks and my comment is below.
” Pete says:
March 8, 2009 at 11:59 am
Phil,
They have enough lawyers to argue the point that the 14th Amendment supersedes the ‘original’ Constitutional meaning. Look at your own website/blog, the Obama supporters have posted legal opinions and referenced outside legal opinions to that effect many times. The Obots are absolutely certain that the 14th Amendment, and prior case law based on it, is in effect. How obvious does it have to be!! Obama record release would be the basis for a legal opinion, hopefully by the SCOTUS, that backed up the Obots opinion. Then, SCOTUS has spoken and it is a done deal. What are missing here are the records! Why? The only logical explanation left is that they demonstrate CRIMINAL behavior, and can not be released.
Any Obots wish to post an alternate, believable scenario? Please educate me.”
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86755.pdf
“7 FAM 1111.2 Citizenship
(TL:CON-64; 11-30-95)
a. U.S. citizenship may be acquired either at birth or through naturalization.
b. U.S. laws governing the acquisition of citizenship at birth embody two legal
principles:
(1) Jus soli (the law of the soil), a rule of common law under which the place of a
person’s birth determines citizenship. In addition to common law, this principle is embodied
in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the various U.S. citizenship and
nationality statutes.
(2) Jus sanguinis (the law of the bloodline ), a concept of Roman or civil law under
which a person’s citizenship is determined by the citizenship of one or both parents. This
rule, frequently called “citizenship by descent” or “derivative citizenship”, is not embodied in
the U.S. Constitution, but such citizenship is granted through statute…..”
The rest of this publication is s good read on dual citizenship, what constitutes US soil for under the jusidiction of, and how the US government defines the 14th ammendment, etc..
The 14th as far as “at birth citizenship status” is concerned only deals with the jus soli portion of our laws.
The jus sanguinis portion is dealt with in our handling of dual citizenship and other issues concerning the parentage of the citizen.
This combined with de vattel’s definition of natural born citizenship and John Jay’s letter being placed at the original constitutional convention at the time of the insertion of the present wording of the clause(It originally was worded the exact same way except the word citizen was in the place of NBC.).
Have no fear Barry Soetoro does not have natural born citizenship.
It only needs to get to argument and discovery.
I posted this before in the wrong thread…One that apears to be too old to get attention so I am resubmitting it here:
The Judges have reprimanded the attorneys in some cases for harrassing and nonsense lawsuits.
As far as I could ascertain the Judge in the first Berg case was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1994(?). Of course Hillary is for now SoS and would lose her position as SoS if Barry was unseated.
Most likely the Judge in question is a DEM((A search of donors should be made to see if the Judge is on the Barry campaign donor’s list.), owes allegience and legal baggage to Bill Clinton and by inference Hillary, most likely voted for Barry in the general(Find out if judge has a Barak Obama bumper sticker on his car and had campaign signs on his lawn?), is on the short list to become the next SC justice especially if Ginsberg were to retire for health reasons, and he were to return a descision that favors Barry Soetoro.
This Judge has discernable conflict of interest when hearing any case involving Barry Soetoro and did not recuse himself from hearing the case.
Further this discernable conflict of interest can be shown by the very fact this Judge has decided w/o argument or discovery that Barry is eligible to hold the office same as the above mentioned congress, electors, SoSs, etc..
How did this judge come to the conclusion that Barry was in deed eligible?
One would have to conclude by the same method the congress, electors, SoSs and everyone else involved in blocking the cases so far has… By hearsay evidence!
The certification on factcheck, their examination of said certification, any uncrossexamined statements by any Hawaiian official et al.
Could some semblance of an appeal be made based on these facts and may even overturn this and any other Judge’s cititation of the need for standing in these cases, frivilous and harrassing rulings etc..
The plaintiff attorneys should be able to turn the table on the Judge and demand the defense attorneys pay their fees based on the defense attorneys use of questionable legal manuvering and citing a legally unverified document as proof instead of addressing the charges as the plaintiff attorneys are officers of the court, are pressing for the investigation of a crime and and as such are under that weight to press suits that involve crimes against the constitution(By citing the eligibility clause they have shown they believe a crime is being committed.) and perjury by the usurper president(Ditto if Barry Soetoro is a name in connection w/the usurper president stating he went by no other name in his past?).
Perhaps the plaintiff attorneys risk getting cited for contempt but even that could be construed as bias when these facts are presented in an appeal.
What do you think?
I hope people understand the significance of the judges actions. Most lawyers go their entire career without ever having a lawsuit dismissed. A lawyer has losses, even losses on summary judgment, but to be dismissed is an unmitigated disaster. It means your case was crap from the start.
Lesson to everyone who paid far too much attention to Berg and his antics – any fool with the filing fee can file a lawsuit. The filing alone is meaningless. Don’t get all excited until you see if the lawsuit goes anywhere.
Practical Kat,
Here is John McCain’s Birth Certificate (copy):
http://johnmccain.dominates.us/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=145
And here you can enlarge: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9934044/John-McCain-Birth-Certificate
Military Records
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/mccain_post_card_word%5B1%5D.pdf