Third Circuit rules on confiscation of materials used to file fraudulent liens

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Third Circuit rules on confiscation of materials used to file fraudulent liens

August 1, 2008 08:31:00 am

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] on Thursday affirmed [decision; PDF] a decision to dismiss claims filed by fifteen current and former inmates alleging that various employees of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) [official website] violated their constitutional rights when they confiscated inmates' legal materials. After a DOC inmate filed fraudulent liens against a state court judge, a superintendent and the DOC secretary in June 2005, the DOC banned all materials related to the copyrighting of names, the filing of liens, and filings under the Uniform Commercial Code. Upon a search of the plaintiff inmates' cells, prison officials discovered these contraband documents and subsequently confiscated all of the inmates' legal materials, including items that had not been designated as contraband. The inmates filed suit, alleging that the seizures violated the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of Due Process as well as their right to access the courts and possess publications and legal materials under the First Amendment [LII texts]. The Court of Appeals dismissed the inmates' Due Process claims, noting that prison officials provided the inmates with three separate opportunities to reclaim their non-contraband property following the seizures, explaining that:

[A]n unauthorized intentional deprivation of property by prison officials does not violate the Due Process Clause if a meaningful postdeprivation remedy for the loss is available.

In affirming the lower court's determination that the DOC's confiscation did not unreasonably deprive the inmates of their right to possess publications and legal materials, the Third Circuit found that:

In light of the DOC’s experience with the inmate’s June 2005 filing, which demonstrated that fraudulent UCC filings are easy to file but burdensome to remove, along with the research that informed their judgment on this policy, we conclude that the defendants’ decision to engage in preemptive action in this case was reasonable

The court dismissed the inmates' claims that the seizures blocked their access to the courts, ruling that their initial pleadings were insufficient to support a claim. The court found that "the plaintiffs’ claim rested solely on the ground that the defendants confiscated their legal materials, contraband and non-contraband alike" and did not show an actual injury or that the inmates possessed no other remedy to compensate them for their lost claims.

Jurisdictions across the country have seen an increase in the malicious filing of fraudulent liens, which can cause great hardship for the affected parties. Some experts attribute the rise in such filings to a bizarre and convoluted new scam known as "redemption" [SPLC backgrounder], in which participants are told that every American has a "strawman" account created by the the US government. Participants pay large sums to obtain fraudulent instructions said to be grounded in the UCC. These materials claim to show how to access the government money in that strawman account, and participants are encouraged to exact financial revenge against government officials. In February, a Texas inmate was sentenced [DOJ press release] to 12 years in prison after he filed fraudulent liens against a US District Judge and Assistant US Attorney involved in the prosecution of his initial drug convictions.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.