Pretend You're a Boat

[LPC]

Back in 2002, someone calling himself "Mr. Fed" posted the following in a forum addressing the subject of gold-fringed flags and admiralty jurisdiction:

Back when I was a federal prosecutor (hence the handle) I prosecuted several tax protestors for tax evasion; they always filed voluminous, curiously spelled motions saying that the court had no jurisdiction because it was flying a gold-fringed flag. Also heard one of the best lines ever from a judge:

Protestor: Your honor, because this court flies that gold-fringed flag, it is a court of Admiralty and has no jurisdiction over me.
Judge: I'll just pretend that you're a boat.

BTW, every one of these nimrods that I encountered had once held a government job -- and thus was paid by taxes.

The story sounds too good to be true, and I wish that there was a name that could be used to verify the story.

[Farmer Giles]

maybe the judge was serious. isnt the pretense that we are vessels? the Huntress case supposedly states that all revenue cases arise in Admiralty, and it comes as no surprise that the IRS in the U.K. is the inland revenue...as opposed to where you'd usually find it, on the sea up to the high-water mark.

all of which may be useless info; ok, so we're in Admiralty. Its law and it may apply. I dont have to know a law is there to feel its burden.

[Nikki]

Yahoo is my friend -- although it might be referring to apocrypha

for example, we find

11.17.2008 7:50pm
(link)Ex-Fed (mail) (www):
Ah, tax protesters. So much fun.

When I was a prosecutor, I had one who claimed that the United States District Court did not have jurisdiction over him because the courtrooms had American flags with gold fringes, which established that they were admiralty courts and not courts of general jurisdiction. Judge Hupp, God rest him, wryly said "I'll pretend you're a boat."

[Judge Roy Bean]

Nikki beat me to it. It was Hupp.

[webhick]

All Hail Hupp