“Where’s The Corpus Delicti?” (The Injured Party)

Corpus Delicti, a Latin term meaning “The Body of the Crime”, has been a misguided argument within the Sovereign Citizen movement, especially in these last years. On one traffic stop ,where I caught the motorist committing a traffic infraction, the motorist kept asking “What’s the crime? Where’s the Corpus Delicti? Where’s the injured party?” To say he was not nice in his responses to me is an understatement. He would interrupt me constantly and, at first, refused to produce his license and registration to me. He also told me he had the right to travel and did not need a driver’s license, which ideology I will cover in another blog soon. In that blog, I will be revealing the outcome, of this particular stop, so be looking for it.

Sovereign Citizens (or freemen, Nationals, Moorish, or whatever they tend to call themselves today) get this idea from the literal meaning of “body”. At first, they made no allowances for figurative language of the word, such as is utilized in phrases such as “the body of the text or speech” or “a body of water”. Yet, when questioned on theri definition of a crime by wiser police officers, they realized that damage to personal property is also a crime. So how would they fit this into their rhetoric. Well, they decided to then use the figurative meaning and say that an “injury” to property is another part of the crime, even though property damage has nothing to do with the literal definition of the word, “body”.

It then begs the question, why do they now feel that it so vital to claim property damage a crime? The answer is found on many YouTube videos dealing with the outcome of SovCit traffic stops where these individuals, being ordered to exit the vehicle and refusing to do so, and having the window unrolled a miniscule amount, would eventually have their windows shattered by an Asp baton, or incredibly by the officer’s own hands. They would add this to the list of criminal actions that were produced by the officer on their “innocent” free man. They believe that the first crime the officer committed was stopping them in the first place. An officer who is educated and ready for their “speech” can actually use their words against them. When they call the officer a criminal, he or she can reply, “Where is the injured party? Where is the damaged property?” Of course, that can be said before given no choice but to shatter their window.

Another source they quote is from the Black’s Dictionary, Second Edition, that was published in the year 1910’s This definition of a crime they keep referring to is below:

“A crime is an act committed or omitted, in violation of a public law, either forbidding or commanding it; a breach or violation of some public right or duty due to a whole community, considered as a community. In its social aggregate capacity, as distinguished from a civil injury {bold type mine}.”

So, as is their custom to pick and choose different legal terms to fit their agenda, they disregard the entire definition except for the word “injury”. They don’t even want you to know it is speaking of a civil injury, which is not physical, but rather it is referring to the victim’s right to sue the defendant for damages, or “injuries” that resulted in the commission of the crime. It could be, say, vandalism, and the defendant would have to compensate the victim, usually as a condition of any probation imposed.

The original literal interpretation of the word “body” fuels their claim that you can have no crime without an injured party. They usually utilize this argument on traffic stops in their attempt to invalidate motor vehicle and traffic laws. They will state that violating those laws are not crimes. However, the Code of Virginia, for example, states that all motor vehicle and traffic violations are unlawful (46.2-113)

Let’s look at the definition of Corpus Delicti put out by Oxford Languages and distributed by Google:

cor·pus de·lic·ti

/ˌkôrpəs dəˈliktī,ˌkôrpəs dəˈliktē/

noun

LAW

1. the facts and circumstances constituting a breach of a law.
   • concrete evidence of a crime, such as a corpse.

So presenting the definition from the same source that these individuals quote from in the same second edition, consider that:

CORPUS DELICTI

The body of a crime. The body (material substance) upon which a crime has been committed, e. g., the corpse of a murdered man, the charred remains of a house burned down.

In the broad sense of the term, it means no one can be convicted of a crime unless all the elements and evidence sufficient exists to prove, first. that a crime has definitely been committed, and the one accused is, in fact, the one who committed it.

The use of this term in legal circles orginated years ago when some unfortunate individuals were found guilty of murder absent the corpse and were executed, only for the one who was judicated murder to show up alive. It was then determined that no one can be found guilty of murder without the dead body, or corpse. Today, with the development of forensic science, the presentation of such in some situations can be sufficient for the conviction, even if the actual body has never been found.

Corpus Delicti, in a figurative meaning, encompasses all of the evidentiary discoveries or as Black’s Law Dictionary states, the material substance, that would together make up the “body” of the crime, or the proof sufficient for conviction.

As a matter of fact, the Latin word “corpus” is the derivative of where we get our word “corpse” from. Perhaps the SovCits would commit, if instead of asking the officer where the injured party is, they should inquire where the dead body is for the sake of accuracy. That should get an interesting reaction from the officer. If they take the claim that the “body” is to be taken literal, they should at least be percise.

So, why do SovCits make the erroneous claim that there must be an injured party to be a crime? I believe it is for a few reasons:

1. In an attempt to confuse the police officer–This was having marginal success at the beginning of the movement’s existence in the latter part of the twentieth century, but not so much today as police officers are more informed.
2. To further their agenda–They will usually video record the interactions with the police officers on their phone camera and will feign amazement at the “stupidity” of the officers and will attempt to “educate” those of lower IQ. Their “act”, they surmise, will be taken seriously by their YouTube fans.
3. To evade personal responsibility for their driving behaviors–That is what this movement is all about. It is the warped understanding of the Constitution and common law that make them realize they owe society nothing. They could care less who they endanger in the process. If truth be told, this is a selfish endeavor while interacting with law enforcement during the traffic stop. They really do not wish for most of Americans to believe this way. If they did, those who are not shallow in their thinking will think ahead and realize this mass disobedience to traffic laws will endanger their own “rights” of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It is their rights that are paramount They demand all the rights for themselves, none of the responsibility. This is the very definition of anarchy.

Their ideologies, however, have some inconsistencies. One is that other crimes that they claim the police commit do not involve injuries to people. They will claim that because they made this “illegal” traffic stop, the officer has committed a crime. The question right back to them is “Where’s the injured party?” Most traffic stops are peaceful and only consists of issuing citations or warnings. No injured party. When they get arrested they will claim they are being kidnapped. Again, as long as the SovCit doesn’t physically fight the police officers, where is the injured party? The true answer is that the SovCit will have different interpretations as it applies to them as opposed to those who they feel are oppressing them, ie. the police.

One other issue with their beliefs is that, according to their claims, the police have NO AUTHORITY to act unless their literal version of the Corpus Delicti has been established. Unless they can determine someone has been injured, they must stand by until that happens. In other words, stopping them before the injury is improper, and the police have to wait, because no crime has been committed.

Okay. Let’s follow this logic in another situation. If one of their loved ones were standing on a sidewalk in close proximity to a police officer, and someone with a knife is racing toward them, the police must stand down until the perpetrator sinks the knife into their loved one’s chest. Then they can act. Really? The officer has no authority to intervene so that does not happen? They will deflect, by saying, “Well, the Supreme Court states that police have no obligation to protect citizens anyway, so that is what would happen anyway”, which I believe their takeaway of the Justices’ ruling is misconstrued. I, along the other officers that I served along side of, took our duty for the protection of the citizens we served very seriously, regardless of any ruling that would come down, or what some officer’s in another state did or did not do.This is just a feeble attempt to evade answering the question.

They may say that the above example is a case of apples and oranges. You can see the intent of someone about to hurt someone else, so police should act. “After all”, they say, “I’m just traveling in my conveyance with the right to travel, and not belonging to nor contracting with any governmental…” blah, blah, blah. But the truth of the matter is, as a Fatality Crash Investigator, I worked several fatalities on the highway that involved the violation of what some would consider minor infractions, such as speeding, runing a traffic light, etc. One involved the death of a four month old, which I occasionally have nightmares about. In SovCit’s version of the legal authority of the police officer, we should only wait until we are called to pick up dead bodies on the highway and investigate their fatalities. We should have nothing to do with the attempt to prevent a fatality. In line with their thinking, then, DUI motorists should be left alone until they actually crash into a family, killing them.

I see no difference in the enforcement of these traffic laws as a preventive tool against harm and death on the highways by the careless driving of others, and the prevention of an attacker to harm someone on a sidewalk. The deterrent to these driving behaviors is proven when you see vehicles slow down on the highway when they spot an officer on the shoulder, or coming onto the highway via the ramp in front of them. There would be times, when it was just too dangerous to go after speeders due to the traffic volume, I would just sit on the shoulder with my lights on to slow them down. You could just hear the tone from the radar suddenly plummeting from high to low when they first spot the lights.

It is noteworthy at this point to say that traffic infractions are considered misdemeanors in Virginia, the same as theft, simple assault, etc. The difference is how they are categorized. There are four classes of misdemeanors. Class three and four misdemeanors are considered fine only, no jail infractions. Class 2 is punishable up to six months in jail and $1000 fine and Class 1 is up to a year in jail and $2500 fine, at least when I was working in my department. So in that since, yes, absolutely, in the strictest definition of the word, when you turned right on red without stopping, you did commit a crime. It is interesting the amount of times when motorist I have pulled over claimed to be law-abiding citizens. I would respectfully and gently remind them, “Not today.”

One of the other inconsistencies they wish that law enforcement doesn’t catch on to is something that has nothing to do with the literal meaning of corpus delicti, or body of crime. In recent years they have discovered that there is a problem with just pointing the physical body as the only element of a crime. So they also somehow forced the idea that the other “injury” is damage to property, which has nothing to do with the word, “Body” in the literal sense. One reason for this interpretation of Corpus Delicti is that if you watch the YouTube videos, you will discover the video of the hardcore members will tend to have their windows busted by law enforcement, which they say is a crime against property. Yet, where does damage to propety fit in the literal interpretation of the body? You see, they will be literal and then figurative to force this into their agenda.

Finally, you will see that when they claim “Body of the Crime” is their defense to their traffic infraction, they err in that the meaning of the phrase is inverted, or backwards. It is not corpus delicti, but according to their own ideology, it must be delicti corpus, from “Body of the Crime”, to “Crime of the Body”. In the former phrase, although technically a noun, the word “body” modifies the word “crime”. It is the same thing if you were to speak of the collar of the shirt, or the nap of the neck, which does not say what kind of shirt or neck it is, but what part. In the latter, crime modifies the word “body”, such as what is happening to that body. The body of the crime, as we have learned, encompasses all of the elements and evidence that secures prosecution of the crime, and also indicates the strength or weakness of the proof.

Suffice it to say, the Soverign Citizen movement is an evolution. Once there is sufficient information given to those who it matters to (police, lawyers, judges), they will scour the case laws and Constitutional laws to locate something that can, as a child forcing a round peg in a square hole, even remotely support their rhetoric. Their paperwork they would try to hand over to law enforcementwill have statements that would have case law attached followed by a bunch of abbreviations and numbers to appear authoritative, but where even a high school student can research and discover that the meaning of the ruling has been misconstrued, or at times has nothing to do with what they claim it does.

In an attempt to educate the newer police officers joining the force across America, I will begin to start a series concerning these individuals so that they would be prepared and not the least bit intimidated by them. As citizens, it would be helpful to them as well in that as the movement grows, the possibility of running into them in the course of a regular day will be more of a possibility. The best defense is knowlege. I will attempt to accomplish this as we go along.

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ARE YOU PREPARED TO DEFEND YOURSELF AGAINST THOSE WHO HAVE NO RESPECT FOR YOUR LIFE? DO NOT BE CAUGHT UNPREPARED!! GEAR UP AND PROTECT YOURSELF!! CLICK BELOW!!