Last Friday was a bad hair day for a Kansas “sovereign citizen.”  Following a conviction for an inoperable tag light and driving while suspended, Dane Knoblauch appealed to the Kansas Court of Appeals raising certain sovereign citizen arguments such as lack of jurisdiction of the district court, and that Dane’s “driving” was not really “driving” since he had only been “traveling” while operating his car.

In its short opinion, the appellate panel quickly found nothing of value in Dane’s 46-page self-represented brief.  The judges said that Dane’s lengthy document “consists almost exclusively of various tangents and diatribes, asserting [that] he is somehow exempt or immune from being subject to the laws of Kansas as a sovereign citizen.”  “Such arguments have been found by other courts as ‘completely without merit, patently frivolous, and will be rejected without expending any more of this Court’s resources on their discussion’ . . . Simply put, ‘an individual’s belief that his status as a sovereign citizen puts him beyond the jurisdiction of the courts has no conceivable validity in American law.”

Dane’s “complaints are based on his subjective view of the law, which is not the law.”  “The law in the State of Kansas is set forth by our Legislature and applies equally to all persons in the State, irrespective of their individual consent and regardless of what they may wish it to be.  In other words, everyone in this State must follow the law as defined by our Legislature.”

Mic drop.

~ Colin