ADL California Investigative Researcher Joanna Mendelson provided a briefing on the sovereign citizen movement on April 8 in partnership with the United States Marshal’s Office, Central District, to the 9th Circuit Chief Bankruptcy Judges and lawyer representatives.
The 9th circuit includes nine western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. The sovereign citizen movement is an extreme anti-government movement whose members believe the government has no authority over them. Participants learned how the ideology of this movement has led to a variety of pseudo-legal tactics and often disruptive courtroom behavior, as well as the use of retaliatory measures against judges and others in the judicial system.