Mr. Cornell’s difficulties begin, as far as the public record is concerned, with Chase Bank filing an action in Cook County Circuit Court to repossess a 2007 Nissan Altima from him. He never showed up to defend that case, and a default judgment was accordingly had against him on August 30, 2011, with a corresponding order to turn over the car immediately. This apparently spurred him to action, as it often will do, and he began participating in the case a couple of weeks later.
How he participated is currently locked up in the vasty file rooms of the Richard J. Daley Center, as Cook County still is on paper files for just about everything except docket reports. So, while I can see they exist, I cannot see, from here, what the substance is of the counterclaim that he filed; nor the substance of his answer; nor the precise action that subsequently drew a Rule to Show Cause on the 27th of September. However it may be, Mr. Cornell was due back in court on November 1, and on that day—well, I’ll let him tell the story in his own words (and punctuation), as given in his subsequent federal complaint:
Whereupon Mr. Cornell was also locked up in the Richard J. Daley Center (though, presumably, not in the file rooms), frisked, fingerprinted, and photographed. His attempt at shenanigans cost him seven days in the County Jail.7. On November 1, 2011, Plaintiff Quincy Cornell, entered court room 1401 to resolve the matter regarding JP MORGAN CHASE BANK vs. QUINCY CORNELL. When the clerk called the case, Plaintiff stood in the space between the public gallery and the courtroom Bar and stated his status for the record saying “Good afternoon judge, I’m here today on a special appearance as a Natural Person to resolve the matter of JP Morgan Chase Bank vs. QUINCY CORNELL”. Judge replied “what? Get out of here!” One of the bailiffs approached Plaintiff and told him to leave the court room.
8. When the clerk called the case the 2nd time, Plaintiff again stated his status for the record saying “Good afternoon judge, I’m here today on a special appearance as a Natural Person to resolve the matter regarding JP Morgan Chase Bank vs. QUINCY CORNELL”. Judge yelled “Approach the bench or I will have you arrested! I’m warning you!” Plaintiff replied “I conditionally accept your offer to grant and convey a security interest in my property upon presentation of an original genuine charging accusatory instrument for my inspection” Judge replied “you’re in contempt”.
9. The bailiffs then handcuffed Plaintiff and forcefully removed him from the court room. While being removed, Plaintiff asked Judge to see a lawful warrant granting the reasonable seizure of Plaintiff and his property. Plaintiff was not provided with any lawful warrant.
Now, the official record, such as I’ve been able to see it, is that Mr. Cornell was locked up for contempt for failing to comply with the default judgment. (This is according to a rather hastily scribbled order of the court.) One week later, the car was repossessed successfully, the contempt was purged, and Mr. Cornell was ordered released, rather worryingly, “as to this case only,” according to another handwritten order (this, evidently, written by the Plaintiff’s attorney).
Ordinarily, this would end the matter, but as we know, the sovrun mind is far from ordinary, and so Mr. Cornell hied himself down to the federal courts and filed a civil rights suit against Judge Eileen Burke and Sheriff’s officers Schassburger and Malone. He claimed that his 1st, 4th, and 14th Amendment rights (and some others) were violated, he claimed he was unreasonably seized and searched, and he demanded compensation in the aggregate of $7.3M. He did not mention the variety of paperwork that he had filed.
Not at first, anyway.
All of the defendants moved to dismiss the case. Judge Burke’s motion is probably the best for discussion purposes, partly because her counsel attached some of the original files, which help explain what happened in the circuit court. The response itself is fairly dry and technical, ultimately coming down to a combination of judicial immunity and Rooker-Feldman concerns (i.e., district courts can’t generally take appeals from state courts). One of the citations given for the former is the odd case of Mireles v. Waco, which is summarized in Judge Burke’s motion as:
Odd, and a little frightening, but very much on point.In Mireles v. Waco… the plaintiff was an attorney who failed to appear for the initial call of the judge’s morning calendar. The defendant judge ordered police officers to “forcibly and with excessive force seize and bring plaintiff into his courtroom.” Id. at 10. The police officers seized the plaintiff from another courtroom, where he was waiting to appear on a different matter. They “cursed him and called him ‘vulgar and offensive names,’ then ‘without necessity slammed’ him through the doors and swinging gates into [the judge’s] courtroom.” Id. Even though “a judge's direction to police officers to carry out a judicial order with excessive force is not a ‘function normally performed by a judge,’” the United States Supreme Court still held that the judge was acting in his “judicial capacity” for purposes of judicial immunity.
Mr. Cornell’s response to the motions to dismiss is where the sovrun gibberish springs into full flower. It covers a lot of ground: the court was acting outside of its authority; judges may not be granted immunity because of the prohibition on titles of nobility; the judge is a traitor; the Constitution is the supreme law (or maybe contract); there was no subject matter jurisdiction; an unrebutted affidavit, etc.; special appearance, etc.; admiralty court, etc.; only a court which has oaths of office has any standing; the order for contempt was drafted after the arrest, so it’s invalid; the court allowed fraud upon the court; no arrest in civil matters; Rooker-Feldman doesn’t apply when there’s a fraud on the court; the U.S.C.A. 4th Amend. Right was clearly established (not entirely sure what that means); the officers got fair warning, so they had no right to do what they did; and that’s before we even get into the exhibits. Get out your Gibbrush bingo cards for the first page of Mr. Cornell’s “Notice of Answer and Counterclaim and Liability of 3rd Party Defendant” (in this case, counsel for the bank): we have an “In Admiralty,” Quincy vs. QUINCY, special appearance, “unschooled in law,” and “saving to suitors,” all on the first page, and then it gets into the unrebutted affidavit, complete with all the “and Affiant believes that no such evidence exists.” And then the Affiant (Mr. Cornell) “notices” that the attorney for the plaintiff is guilty of obstruction of national bankruptcy. And then there’s some A4V hocus-pocus, and then a demand for $4.8M (in “functional currency of the United States”).
One footnote to this last item. The claim is actually for DOLS, rather than dollars, as in, “being in total four million- eight hundred thousand DOLS ($4’800’000.00),” (punctuation in original). DOLS, of course, commonly appears on bank checks (especially older ones done on check-writing machines). I’m not sure if this is another fork to the mythology, or else what it is.
Anyway, then we get into the “Private International Remedy Demand,” and the “Debt Collector Disclosure Statement re: ‘Offer of Performance’ “. Whew.
Yet again, I’m not sure if this is one particular line of sovereign citizen theory at work, or a mashup of a lot of internet legalish text. Some of the themes are familiar, but I’m not sure how many of these are commonly seen together.
Onward. The district court was not as impressed as I am with this collection of words, and dismissed the case. It agreed that judge had judicial immunity, and as for the officers, it found no fault in their actions in performing common intake procedures.
Mr. Cornell then acted according to that old legal maxim: “If at first you don’t succeed, go upstairs and annoy the appellate court instead.” And so he did, claiming that Judge Burke isn’t immune, and therefore his detention was invalid. And the court heard him out. And, in the end, it agreed that there was a subject matter jurisdiction problem, but not in a way that was favorable to Mr. Cornell:
And there the matter rests, barring an appeal to the Supreme Court. So we can see that this is yet another success to mark up for the sovereign citizen theory of contracts: instead of having his car repossessed, Mr. Cornell, through a substantial investment of time and printer ink, managed to draw the wrath of a circuit court judge, a seven-day stay in the jail, and the attention of the federal court system, in addition to having his car repossessed.On appeal Cornell contests the district court’s conclusion that Judge Burke enjoys immunity and maintains that his detention was invalid. But we must first turn to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, since, as a jurisdictional issue, it precedes affirmative defenses such as immunity. See Taylor v. Fed. Nat’l Mortg. Ass’n, 374 F.3d 529, 535 (7th Cir. 2004); Garry v. Geils, 82 F.3d 1362, 1365 (7th Cir. 1996); Wright v. Tackett, 39 F.3d 155, 157–58 (7th Cir. 1994). District courts have no jurisdiction to adjudicate “cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005). Cornell’s central claim is that Judge Burke improperly ordered him seized under her contempt order; in essence, he is inviting a district court to review Judge Burke’s contempt order. Because a contempt order qualifies as a state-court judgment, Rooker-Feldman divests the district court of jurisdiction to review it.