Religious-right Oregon Citizens Alliance guru Lon Mabon has come up with some unusual legal tactics in response to a lawsuit accusing him of fraudulent transfers of funds to avoid paying a 1992 judgment that was awarded by the court after the OCA's Scott Lively assaulted Catherine Stauffer in a Portland church. An Oregonian editorial criticized his "bizarre" and "crackpot" behaviors and "weird courtroom antics" (23 February 2002), one of which was to accuse the judge of being an "impostor."
A right-wing lunatic-fringe fundamentalist kook had alerted Lon that due to a clerical error, the printed version of some judicial oaths had omitted a couple of words and a comma. And so Lon decided that he didn't have to obey court orders made by an "un-oathed judge." And he further decided that these two missing words and a comma constituted a constitutional crisis of a "corrupt judiciary" who had "falsified their Constitutional oaths" and who thus had a "fictitious jurisdiction" empowered by their "fictitious oath." He got up on his high horse and began screaming in court that these judges were "impostors":
"Protest: Without a constitutional oath … you have no lawful office. Foreign alleged judge, you have a duty to claimants not to lie, cheat or steal from them."
"A rebel Oregon Judge who does not uphold Oregon's required Oath is committing treason against the Oregon Constitution, the Law of the Land, and the People."
"With all due respect, the Defendents-in-error remind the above-styled court that impersonating a judge is a Class C Felony."
"Admit that you are an impostor or face the consequences."
The consequences were that the judge had Lon hauled off to jail in handcuffs for contempt of court. Lon later claimed that the police officers had violated their own oaths by obeying an un-oathed judge. When they booked him into jail, he screamed, "You can't have my fingerprints! They belong to me!"
Even after 42 days and 7 hours in jail, Lon's heart remained hardened: "I will not proceed even one inch before any so-called judge who does not have a signed constitutional oath of office on file … where every 'i' is dotted and every 't' is crossed, every word is exact and every comma in place. Then, and only then, will I consent and proceed."
By the way, the clerical error had been corrected, but next Lon began screaming that it's still not the right oath!
There are two oaths in the Oregon constitution, the original and the amended, with minor clerical discrepancies between them. Because the amendment was rather sloppy, it turns out that technically the amended version is the oath for Supreme Court judges but the original version is the oath for Circuit Court judges, and there has been some confusion because they're so close. Legal experts say that either version is valid, but Lon's nit-picking Fundamentalist literalism claims otherwise.
Here's a line-by-line comparison of the Oregon constitution, Article VII (Original), Section 21, with the oath of Ronald E. Cinniger, sworn on October 30, 2001, and filed with the secretary of state on November 1, 2001:
Oregon Constitution: "I _______ do solemnly swear (or affirm)
Cinniger: "I, Ronald E. Cinniger, do solemnly swear (or affirm)
that I will support the Constitution of the United States,
that I will support the constitution of the United States,
and the constitution of the State of Oregon,
and the constitution of the State of Oregon,
and that I will faithfully, and impartially discharge
and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge
the duties of a Judge of the Circuits Courts of said State
the duties of a Judge of the Circuit Court of this State,
according to the best of my ability,
according to the best of my ability,
and that I will not accept any other office, except Judicial offices
and that I will not accept any other office, except judicial offices,
during the term for which I have been elected.—
during the term for which I have been elected.
Line 1: inserts two commas
Line 2: changes the cap C in "Constitution" to lowercase
Line 4: omits the comma after "faithfully"
Line 5: omits the incorrect "s" on "Circuits," which the printed edition of the Oregon constitution follows with "(sic)"; omits the "s" on "Courts"; changes "said State" to "this State"
Line 7: changes the cap J in "Judicial" to lowercase; adds a comma after "offices"
Line 8: omits the dash after the period
Heaven forbid that mere Circuit Court judges claim the commas and lowercase letters reserved for the Supreme Court! In the twisted mind of Lon Mabon, these minor clerical errors make the judge an "impostor."
"Do you see the gravity of the situation?" he wrote in a letter to supporters, claiming that this "false oath" threatens both God and the freedoms of constitutional government.
Oregonians can decide for themselves whether these commas and capital letters constitute the dramatic constitutional crisis that the religious-right Lon Mabon seems to imagine.