The fortunate thing about the American legal system (wow, what a weird way to start a sentence) is that it's built on the adversarial common law model, which requires corpus delicti, or evidence that a victim incurred damages, in order to charge someone with a crime. I know that sociopathic statists don't always comply with their own rules, which is kind of the point (as you will see), but stay with me for a minute.
You'll be glad that you did - especially if you someday find yourself in a position where you're being attacked for a drug, traffic or tax "violation" like I have been.
Territorial / Subject Matter Jurisdiction.
The role of government, according to the declaration of independence and constitution which supposedly limit and justify the existence of government (har har!), is to protect and maintain the property rights of individuals. As an extension of government, the subject matter jurisdiction of the courts is likewise limited to the same purpose.
A valid cause of action is supposed to be filed before a prosecutor is allowed by a judge to prosecute a case. One of the elements of a cause of action is subject matter jurisdiction. Without evidence of subject matter jurisdiction, there's no cause of action. Since we know that subject matter jurisdiction of the courts is limited to the protection of property rights, evidence of corpus delicti would need to be presented in order for a controversy to be presented to the court.
In plain English: it has to be proven that someone sustained bodily or property damage in order for there to be a controversy the courts can hear, or it has to be proven that a rule applies in the first place before it can be demonstrated that the rule was broken.
Who's the victim in a tax or drug violation? I mean OTHER than the accused. Oh yeah, there is none.
Let's suspend disbelief and pretend that expropriation under auspices of property protection isn't a performative contradiction and that these sociopaths haven't already gone far beyond the scope of their mission statement, at least for the purposes of this exercise.
Bureaucrats take advantage of your ignorance.
When legislators create arbitrary rules called statutes and codes that criminalize victimless acts, they rely on the fact that most people don't know enough about corpus delicti or causes of action to challenge the subject matter jurisdiction of the court. They also rely on the fact that most people don't know enough about the legal theory of adversarial courts to question judges who shoulder the prosecution's burden to prove jurisdiction, despite the fact that they've explicitly agreed to presume the innocence of the accused with regard to all elements of the charges, including subject matter jurisdiction.
In other words, they PRESUME that the constitution (and statutes, regulations and codes to which it gives rise) automatically apply to you because of your physical location - even when there's no evidence of a victim or damaged property; even when there's no evidence that their presumption is factually accurate.
Rigged Game.
How are they able to maintain fairness and presume your innocence if they're simultaneously presuming your guilt with regard to an element of the charge against you? They can't. Can you say rigged game? I'm sure you can, and boy, don't they hate it when you do - especially in a whole room full of people.
They HAVE to make this presumption because, without evidence of a property rights violation, they have no evidence of their own subject matter jurisdiction.
As a result, if you're accused of a victimless crime and you challenge the subject matter jurisdiction of the courts by using the Socratic method to uncover the prosecution's lack of evidence proving that the constitution, statutes, codes and regulations apply to you because of your physical location, it forces them to do one or both of the following:
- Engage in prosecutorial and/or judicial misconduct.
- Dismiss the charges.
Both outcomes diminish the perception of legitimacy with regard to statism, thereby resulting in the net reduction of statism, which is exactly what every anarchist and voluntaryist hopes to accomplish. If the judge allows the prosecution to proceed past arraignment absent evidence that the constitution, statutes and codes apply, the judge will be guilty of judicial misconduct for bearing the burden of evidence on behalf of the prosecution (which demonstrates extreme prejudice) and for allowing the prosecution to call witnesses to testify to the validity of evidence that hasn't even been submitted, which is a violation of rule 602. Likewise, the prosecutor will be guilty of prosecutorial misconduct for breaking the same rule.
Conclusion
Did the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer upset you at all? Did the prosecution of Steven Avery and Brandon Dassey seem fishy and unfair?
Isn't throwing people in jail over taxes, drugs and traffic without even providing evidence that the codes and statutes apply in the first place equally unfair? How can it be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the constitution and statutes to which it gives rise have been violated if it can't even be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they applied in the first place?
I'll leave it to you to ponder on that.
As I've pointed out elsewhere, citizens don't exist absent a reciprocal obligation of protection and allegiance. If citizens don't exist, neither does the body politic, and neither does "the state". The people calling themselves "the state" are therefore nothing more than a group of men and women who force people to pay them.
For whatever reason, these men and women still use adversarial courts to attack their victims, which means there's still a chance for damage control if you find yourself in their crosshairs for not submitting to the theft of taxation, or for traffic and drug "violations". This means that there's still a way to peacefully make plunder more burdensome than consensual exchange which also allows you to live as free as possible. If you're like most people who defend themselves, things won't even proceed past the administrative process.
No State Project and Marc Stevens
This article was inspired by the work of Marc Stevens and the No State Project. For more information about effectively defending yourself from a bureaucratic attack by challenging subject matter jurisdiction, please visit The No State Project, or contact its proprietor 
Please note that this content is not to be conflated or equated with "Freeman on the Land", "Sovereign Citizen" or any other such scheme whereby people make legal claims for which they are assuming the burden of proof. This content pertains to use of the Socratic method to pursue QUESTIONS OF FACT to obtain any evidence (if any) of a prosecutor's claim that the constitution and statutes, rules and codes to which it gives rise apply to any individual due to that individual's physical location.
About the Author
I'm Jared Howe! I'm a Voluntaryist hip hop artist and professional technical editor/writer with a passion for Austrian economics and universal ethics. You can catch my podcast every Friday on the Seeds of Liberty Podcast Network.
