- R. v. Cassista, 2013 ONCJ 305: http://canlii.ca/t/fxs0b
His lack of insurance was identified at a roadside stop for speeding. On appeal Cassista did not challenge the trial court’s finding he had no insurance: para. 5. He now complains he was denied a fair trial because the trial judge refused to hear his applications:
On appeal Cassista trotted out a couple stereotypical and erroneous beliefs: that he could ‘travel’ under common law as motor vehicle legislation only applies to corporations, and in any case he had not consented to that legislation: para. 7.6. Indeed the trial Justice did refuse to hear the motions. She reviewed the history of proceedings, commented that the defendant was playing “fast and loose with the Court” and declared “motion shmotion” , ‘enough is enough” and that “this process has been abused enough”. She directed that the trial proceed and it did - over the defendant’s pouting. The issue now is whether the trial Justice committed an error of law in proceeding in this way or whether a miscarriage of justice was occasioned.
Justice Duncan gets right down to business and classifies him as an OPCA litigant and concludes that his arguments are garbage:
His argument on statutory interpretation flows from the usual inability to understand the word “including” (para. 10), which I will return to a little later. His argument on consent is equally incorrect:8. It is apparent that the defendant is an “Organized Pseudo-legal Commercial Argument” (OPCA) litigant of the type described, labeled, dissected, and exposed by Alberta Associate Chief Justice Rooke in Meads v. Meads [2012] A.J. No 980. While the defendant has not identified himself by any of the many names embraced by OPCA litigants, such as “Freeman on the Land”, it is clear that his approach bears many of the OPCA hallmarks and characteristics. For example, his writings show a fondness for Latin phrases and citation of legal dictionaries. He practices the bizarre “dual/split person” routine, identifying himself to the court as “Shawn-Alan of the family Cassista” and accompanies this self-identification with mumbo-jumbo about artificial persons and natural persons and being one or the other or both (Ref: Transcripts December 20 2010, May 27 2011: see Meads para 206; para 245; para 417 ) .
9. More importantly, both of these motions brought by the defendant are grounded on easily recognizable, well-worn OPCA arguments – frequently raised and uniformly rejected by the Courts (see Meads para 71). They are based on a central OPCA theme that the litigant is not bound by the law or subject to the authority of the courts. The theme and many of its iterations have been identified in Meads and thoroughly rebuked as nonsense.
Eviscerates! Eviscerates! I think more judgments should include that verb when evaluating in-court argument.11. The second motion sought a stay of proceedings on the grounds that:
“ the Crown’s claim of the Defendant’s obligation to enter into a private insurance contract is not in harmony with fundamental principles of law and long upheld rights based on self-evident truths of necessity”
While none too clear, it appears that this argument is based on the contention that the law cannot oblige the defendant to do something - in this case obtain and maintain auto insurance - unless he consents. Put another way, it is a contention that a person can unilaterally opt-out of a law. In his brief [3] submission before me on appeal, the Appellant confirmed that that was indeed his position. Again Meads identifies and eviscerates the argument (Meads para 174; para 379-38, para 405-6).
Oh, and footnote [3] is amusing:
Now things get interesting – Cassista argues he was not given a fair chance to advance his arguments. But should the court put up with this stuff? And if so, then for how long?[3] It was brief because I cut him off when it became apparent what nonsense he was arguing.
Justice Duncan goes on to investigate whether the trial had been delayed too long, and then offended Cassista’s right to a trial in a reasonable time, per Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s. 11(b). The trial had had taken over two years, which was an “extraordinary delay”: para. 18. Upon detailed analysis, shockingly, it turns out Cassista himself was the author of these delays. The timeline is detailed at para. 21 for interested readers.12. It is beyond doubt that every litigant before the court has the right to be heard. But how much of a hearing is he entitled to? Clearly the Court is not obliged to sit passively and patiently until the litigant exhausts his breath, decides to stop and sits down. A Court is entitled to give arguments and motions short shrift. But how short is too short? The answer must depend on the circumstances, including the nature of the argument and the bona fides with which it is presented.
13. In my view, OPCA arguments are entitled to the shortest possible shrift. They are patently without merit and, as shown in Meads, have never been successful in any Court. They are arguments that are not fact or case specific and therefore can have no more merit in one case than in another – that is, none. As neatly summarized by Justice O’Donnell in R v Duncan [2012] OJ No 6405 in dealing with OPCA arguments:
Such arguments are a waste of the court's time and resources, a selfish and/or unthinking act of disrespect to other litigants and deserving of no further attention, energy or comment.
14. Moreover OPCA strategies and arguments are not bona fides but rather are designed and presented with intention to disrupt. They are scams that abuse the legal process. (Meads para 70 -71) They require a strong and swift judicial response. In Meads the Court suggested that OPCA material should not even be accepted for filing by the Court clerks and, if accepted, should be reviewed by a judge and “without further submission or representation by the litigants” be rejected (Meads para 256).
15. Accordingly, it is my view that the only hearing that such arguments are entitled to is to have the Court read and appreciate the grounds upon which the motion is based. If the motion contains incomprehensible gibberish or discloses patently ridiculous or meritless arguments or raises known rejected OPCA themes, then the Court is entitled to dismiss the motion or refuse to hear it - without further inquiry, representation or submission.
16. In this case the record is not clear that the trial Justice went even this minimal distance and informed herself as to the substance of both of the motions - though it is also not clear that she did not. She did refer to the “corporations” argument at one point (p10) and commented that the defendant was “playing” and that “enough was enough”. The other motion was not mentioned but that may be because it was incomprehensible or at least not easily described with a label. The impression however is that, given the history to that point, the justice refused to hear any more motions at all, no matter what their character or content. Her similar treatment of the 11b motion supports this impression.
17. But even assuming that the trial Justice did not go far enough and failed to conduct what I consider to be the minimal review of the defendant’s material, it is my view that he suffered no miscarriage of justice as a result. This is because, had the trial justice read the motions or even gone further and heard submissions, it is inevitable that the motions would have been rejected and dismissed. They had no merit. There is no point in awarding a new trial, particularly in these protracted proceedings, in order to have another justice conduct a brief scrutiny of the defendant’s motions before dismissing them.
The Crown did not appeal the $5000 fine, which is the statutory minimum. Justice Duncan goes on to comment that persons such as Cassista require additional deterrence:
So, that’s the case, how about the man?32. The Crown has not appealed sentence and I will not increase the sentence on my own initiative. I would suggest however that in the future trial courts should give serious consideration to elevated fines, licence suspensions, and vehicle impoundment in cases such as this.
Well, first off, he’s a 9/11 Truther. And you rude American’s won’t let him in to visit the site of the controlled demolition:
His business and trade? Tax evasion scammer: http://www.largetaxreturn4u.com/
I suspect Burnaby49 will be able to elaborate on this, but the scam here is that the taxpayer buys something like art in bulk, donates it to a charity, and then claims the donation on the retail rather than wholesale value. Cassista facilitated the process.
Cassista has a lovely blog where he explains to interested readers all about being a Freeman-on-the-Land: http://nomoretyranny.org/blogg/?page_id=2
It’s pretty routine.
Just one more website, but it’s a fun one: http://www.shawnalancassista.com/
This is Shawn’s Claim of Right Declaration of Dominion. That’s an alternative nomenclature for a Freeman document often called a Notice of Understanding and Intent and Claim of Right. These documents are mailed to senior government officials and allegedly allow the author to ‘opt out’ of the law and obligation. Sometimes their authors believe all one has to do is publish one of this ‘agreements’ online and that will do the trick too. Cassista falls into the later category.
Freemen spend an inordinate amount of time and effort on these things, as these are the magic keys that in their ideology allow escape from state authority. They are often customized, an assemblage of other related precursors. Cassista, or now known as “Cy”, has prepared a quite detailed one.
Part 1 restates a hodge podge of actual legal principles, legal maxims (some hideously irrelevant), philosophical and religious proclamations and quotes, and so on. Knitted together these form the restatement of True Law. Many are just stupid. Others are simply fiction:
Part II is his “Declaration of Domain” – what he says his rights are. Remember I mentioned there’s a little issue with how Cy defines person? Here we go:“Every person is a human being, but not every human being a person.” Omnis persona est homo, sed non vieissim.
Huh. And Cy had a copy of Black's Law Dictionary. Why didn't he look up "including" in that, in any edition?Whereas it is my understanding that in Canada’s Interpretation Act, section 35 (1) “person”, or any word or expression descriptive of a person, includes a corporation; “includes” means: “confines within” …
Part II continues to go on and on, decrying various politicians as Traitors, that he owns the “CANADA CORPORATION” “by virtue of my birth within the lines upon a map of the Country Canada”, that Cy is free and controller of his own fate and “Whereas I AM NOT PLAYING and” using the name of his name breaches his trademark and warrants a fee of $50,000 in gold, yadda yadda yadda… and claims “… ownership of my Birth Certificate in the corporation known as CANADA held within the Cesti que Trust and demand the physical delivery of the Original Birth Certificate.”
And though you never saw this webpage, you had 90 days from March 19, 2010 to disagree, otherwise:
Part III is just a usual Fee Schedule – effective three years retroactive! – which weirdly enough has some of the most reasonable rates I have ever seen on one of these, though admittedly there are more irrational amounts embedded in Part II as well.Failure to register a dispute against the claims made herein and then successfully defeating these claims first in a public recording and then in a proper court of law will result in an automatic default judgment securing forevermore all rights herein claimed and establishing permanent and irrevocable estoppels by acquiescence barring the bringing of charges under any Statute or Act or Regulation against my self the free will sovereign man commonly known as Cy, aka Shawn-Alan of the Cassista family, exercising these lawful and properly established rights, freedoms and duties.
Something I sometimes do with these documents is simply take passages and Google search to see from whence they come. There’s a promising new discipline of Internet archaeology in tracing these materials, their origin and evolution.
Worth a PhD at least.
SMS Möwe
