Sheriff Andy Hughes confirmed investigators arrested 61-year-old Travis Lee Lambert on Friday, and charged him with misdemeanor unlawful practice of serving as a lawyer in Houston County.
Hughes said the charge stemmed from Lambert filing motions or requests in court on behalf of his girlfriend, Janet Tharpe Hancock. Hancock, 60, also of Andalusia, was convicted in August of felony third-degree burglary. She also has two pending felony forgery charges in Houston County.
“He’s one of those sovereign citizens,” Hughes said. “He’d been filing motions, like a motion for dismissal on her case.”
At the time of Hancock’s conviction District Attorney Doug Valeska called it the first in the state for someone who claimed to be a sovereign citizen. He said the jury convicted Hancock of burglarizing a residence on Limestone Court in Dothan. Valeska said Hancock contended she was a sovereign, and that the laws of the Unites States did not apply to her.
60 and still able to break into people's houses and carry off their stuff. She's considerably more lively than most tps. Perhaps she can lead morning exercises in prison.
Capt. Antonio Gonzales of the Houston County Sheriff’s Office said investigators arrested Travis Lee Lambert, 61, on Friday and charged him with misdemeanor unlawful practice of serving as a lawyer in Houston County.
“From what it looks like, Mr. Lambert was filing motions or requests on behalf of his girlfriend who’d been convicted of third-degree burglary in August,” Gonzalez said. “He was pretending to be her lawyer, even though he wasn’t a real lawyer.”
I forwarded this to our local prosecutor. They seem convinced they can't bring anyone up on charges for UPL. I think they just don't want to get sucked into the sov'run rabbit hole, never to see the light of day again.
Capt. Antonio Gonzales of the Houston County Sheriff’s Office said investigators arrested Travis Lee Lambert, 61, on Friday and charged him with misdemeanor unlawful practice of serving as a lawyer in Houston County.
“From what it looks like, Mr. Lambert was filing motions or requests on behalf of his girlfriend who’d been convicted of third-degree burglary in August,” Gonzalez said. “He was pretending to be her lawyer, even though he wasn’t a real lawyer.”
I think that the standard ought to be whether you are *authorized* to practice law, and not whether you are practicing "lawfully." A lot of us might get prosecuted under the latter standard, because I have seen lots of people with law licenses file motions and pretend to be lawyers even though they're not "real lawyers."
[/tongue-in-cheek]
Dan Evans
Foreman of the Unified Citizens' Grand Jury for Pennsylvania
(And author of the Tax Protester FAQ: evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html)
"Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Capt. Antonio Gonzales of the Houston County Sheriff’s Office said investigators arrested Travis Lee Lambert, 61, on Friday and charged him with misdemeanor unlawful practice of serving as a lawyer in Houston County.
“From what it looks like, Mr. Lambert was filing motions or requests on behalf of his girlfriend who’d been convicted of third-degree burglary in August,” Gonzalez said. “He was pretending to be her lawyer, even though he wasn’t a real lawyer.”
I think that the standard ought to be whether you are *authorized* to practice law, and not whether you are practicing "lawfully." A lot of us might get prosecuted under the latter standard, because I have seen lots of people with law licenses file motions and pretend to be lawyers even though they're not "real lawyers."
[/tongue-in-cheek]
In those courts, it's not if you belong to the Bar Association, you have to have Denny's Rewards Card.
Supreme Commander of The Imperial Illuminati Air Force
Your concern is duly noted, filed, folded, stamped, sealed with wax and affixed with a thumbprint in red ink, forgotten, recalled, considered, reconsidered, appealed, denied and quietly ignored.
In those courts, it's not if you belong to the Bar Association, you have to have Denny's Rewards Card.[/quote]
Last week I was in Fairbanks and drove by "The Denny's". It is the highest Denny's court in the land. I didnt' have my rewards card with me, but there were a couple of indicted ham sandwiches in there that needed representation before the jury ate them. Didn't see Shaeffer Cox anywhere.
For those outside the profession, the practice of law is limited to those who have been "admitted to the bar" -- "the bar" being a common designation of the profession and its practitioners. This admittance is regulated by the judicial system itself - that is to say, by the judges and not by the advocates themselves. The state's highest court supervises the procedure and has the final say, but it entrusts the day-to-day management to the practitioners via the official lawyers' association set up by the state's highest court -- that is, the State Bar Association {note: in some instances, a voluntary organization of lawyers also exists, with a somewhat different name, and this is not to be confused with the bar organization set up under the supreme court supervision}. Nowadays, in most states, graduation from a recognized law school is a prerequisite. In a very few states (where lawyers are in short supply) the fact of graduation from one of that state's own law school schools is considered sufficient, without the exam, to obtain admission to that state's own bar.
The precise method of obtaining admission to the bar has evolved over the centuries. Originally an individualized interview and approval by a judge was commonly used. Then a standardized bar exam, originally each exam individually worked up in each state separately by the local experienced practitioners. When it became obvious that writing clear questions with the correct answers, and keeping the different exams approximately equal in difficulty, was a serious problem, the National Commission of Bar Examiners was formed to work up a system of nationwide testing.
So membership in the American Bar Association (a voluntary organization) or any similar unofficial organization does not confer admission to the profession, nor is it required. Mountebanks have presented themselves as members of some obscure group, deceiving some people, and hoping to deceive judges, into thinking this means that they are bona fide members of the profession.
Travis Lee is three years down the road from the events related in the previous postings and as feisty as ever. But he's getting on, approaching retirement age. So he, and his buddy William Peter Witwicki, came up with the ideal retirement scheme. Let the government fund the next decade of their twilight years.
In my opinion a poorly written article. Between the headline, the three opening paragraphs, and the text under Witwicki's beaming mugshot photo it blares out "Men sentenced to prison for false charges against Coffee sheriff" four times before you get down to details.
It took a lot of heavyweights to bring down a pair of geriatric losers who filed a few fake lawsuits;
Strange commended those involved in bringing these cases to a successful conclusion, crediting Assistant Attorneys General Ternisha Miles Jones and John Hensley of the Attorney General’s Criminal Trials Division; Paul Hodos, Intelligence Analyst, Counterterrorism Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigations; and Special Agents of the Attorney General’s Investigations Division.
No word on Janet Hancock. She might still be in jail;
Although the prosecution said the wording in Witwicki’s lawsuit mirrored that used by members of the sovereign citizen movement, both defendants denied membership in the movement.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".
