Ryan Bundy, one of the leaders of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge siege last year has declared himself an idiot. Sadly, this isn’t out of some sudden realization, but an attempt to get himself out of the deep legal trouble he got himself into.
In a legal document filed by Bundy, he declared:
“i; ryan c, man, am an idiot (layman, outsider) of the ‘Legal Society’; and am an idiot (layman, outsider) of the ‘Bar Association’; and; I am incompetent; and; am not required by any law to be competent.”
As ThinkProgress notes, Bundy is attempting to use a certain brand of weird and totally useless legal defense — sovereign citizenship.
According to him, neither his home state of Nevada nor Oregon are in the United States. Instead, that’s just Washington D.C.. Sovereign citizens theorize that they can give up their U.S. citizenship, reverting to being “common-law” state citizens, meaning U.S. laws don’t apply to them.
Bundy’s use of random semicolons and lower case is an attempt to free himself from perceived government ownership. Believing that the government has control of all citizens whose names appear in all-caps on legal documents, sovereign citizens do this in a misguided attempt to be free of their clutches.
According to OPB, Bundy has declared himself a creation of god, as opposed to a person with legal obligations, exempting him from the laws he has broken. Hilariously, he’s also that any previous signatures of his on legal documents are now null and void. Does he think he’s his own judge already?
Bundy is cool with the federal government’s existence under certain circumstances, such as if they’re transferring money to him. He’s asking the government to pay him millions of dollars, according to Raw Story.
Bundy wants at least $1 million to be a defendant in his own trial. This was cut down from a demand of $100 million that he asked for previously. Times must be hard for lunatic militiamen.
This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg of his idiocy. Bundy has even offered to serve as his own judge or bailiff for a cool million. He also expects $800 million in compensation for his arrest.
Remember the hate mail the militia got during the siege? I wonder if the mail he gets when he’s in jail will be as entertaining (video is NSFW.)
Featured Image Screenshot Via YouTube Video.
