Objections to name printed in block letters (all-caps): US v. Lindbloom (WD Wash unpub 4/16/97) 79 AFTR2d 2578, 97 USTC para 50650; Braun v. Stotts (D Kan unpub 6/19/97) aff’d (10th Cir unpub 2/4/98); Jaeger v. Dubuque County (ND Iowa 1995) 880 F.Supp 640 at 643 ("The court finds Jaeger’s arguments concerning capitalization otherwise specious. The court routinely capitalizes the names of all parties before this court in all matters, civil and criminal, without any regard to their corporate or individual status...."; crank's reference to a law dictionary's definition of "capitalize" -- as a financial term -- was completely misdirected); Vos v. Boyle (WD Mich unpub 4/11/95); Liebig v. Kelley-Allee (EDNC 1996) 923 F.Supp 778; Boyce v. CIR (9/25/96) TC Memo 1996-439 aff’d (9th Cir 1997) 122 F3d 1069; Smith v. Kitchen (10th Cir 1997) 156 F3d 1025, 97 USTC para 50107; US v. J.F. Heard (ND WV 1996) 952 F.Supp 329; J. Napier v. Jonas (WD Mich unpub 2/10/95); Wacker v. Crow (10th Cir unpub 7/1/99); Rosenheck & Co. Inc. v. US ex rel IRS & Kostich (ND Okla unpub 4/9/97) 79 AFTR2d 2715 (court explicitly found that perp was the same person as his name typed in all-caps and without punctuation); ("claims because his name is in all capital letters on the summons, he is not subject to the summons. ... completely without merit, patently frivolous, and will be rejected without expending any more of this court's resources") Russell v. US (WD Mich 1997) 969 F.Supp 24; US v. Klimek (ED Penn 1997) 952 F.Supp 1100 (tried to refuse all pleadings and court papers that spelled his name in all caps and without intervening punctuation); Rippy v. IRS (ND Calif unpub 1/26/99) ("Plaintiff's response ... consists of nothing more than a protest against the capitalization of his name in the caption. Accordingly, summary judgment is granted in favor of defendants and against plaintiff."); ditto Hancock v. State of Utah (10th Cir unpub 5/10/99) 176 F3d 488(t); (tax evasion defendant's refusal to read court papers that capitalized his name and his other misbehavior justified the court refusing to reduce the his sentence) US v. M.L. Lindsay (10th Cir 7/1/99) _F3d_, 99 USTC para 50648, 84 AFTR2d 5102; (tax evader complained of "his name being in capital letters in a prior order issued by this Court and then ... makes an incorrect reference to this form of using all capital letters as being proper only in reference to corporate entities. This is an incorrect statement of the law and ... is illustrative of [his] continued harassing and frivolous behavior." and fined under Rule 11) Stoecklin v. US (MD Fla unpub 12/8/97); (claimed that name on indictment is not him but a "fictitious" person because all-caps, "this contention is baseless.") US v. Washington (SDNY 1996) 947 F.Supp 87; Boyce v. CIR (9/25/96) TC Memo 1996-439 aff'd (9th Cir unpub 9/4/97); Brown v. Mueller (ED Mich unpub 6/24/97); Harvard v. Pontesso (6th Cir unpub 8/8/97) 121 F3d 708(t); Gdowik v. US (Bankr. SD Fla unpub 7/23/96) 78 AFTR2d 6243 aff'd (SD Fla unpub 11/6/97) 228 Bankr.Rptr 481, 80 AFTR2d 8254; State v. Martz (Ohio App unpub 6/9/97); Cole v. Higgins (D. Ida unpub 1/23/95) 75 AFTR2d 1102 rept adopted (D. Ida unpub 2/27/95) 75 AFTR2d 1479 aff'd (9th Cir 4/1/96) 82 F3d 422(t), 77 AFTR2d 1586; (crank called it "killed on paper") Sadlier v. Payne (D Utah 1997) 974 F.Supp 1411; US v. Frech (10th Cir unpub 6/16/98) 149 F3d 1192(t); In re Shugrue (Bankr., ND Tex 1998) 221 Bankr.Rptr 394; Wyatt v. Kelly, Chief Bankruptcy Judge (WD Texas unpub 3/23/98) 44 USPQ2d 1578, 81 AFTR2d 1463, 98 USTC para 50326 (tried to sue judge for violating his civil rights by having his name printed in court documents in a way other than the "appellation" this crank prefers, crank reacted by refusing to respond to prosecution's complaint whereupon the judge entered a Not Guilty plea on his behalf; suit against judge dismissed) ; Capaldi v. Pontesso (6th Cir 1998) 135 F3d 1122; US v. Weatherley (ED Penn 1998) 12 F.Supp.2d 469; Russell v. US (WD Mich 1997) 969 F.Supp 24; ("I believe that not only is this case subject to dismissal .... but it is also subject to sanctions under Rule 11. Making a distinction between all-capital letters and capital and small letters is frivolous." litigant tried to deny validity of traffic ticket because it printed the court's name in all-caps) Davis v. Deddens (SD Ohio unpub 4/18/98); similary (in drug prosecution) US v. Wacker (10th Cir unpub 3/31/99); {In a Missouri arraignment in 1996, "one of the 'freemen' stood up to announce that ... he refused to recognize anything but his 'full Christian name' [evidently not printed in all caps and with some strange punctuation]. This resulted in an unusual scene: An arrest warrant was issued and executed for the defendant's failure to appear at his arraignment even though he was physically present in the courtroom." J. W. Nixon & E. R. Ardini, Combating Common Law Courts, Criminal Justice, spring 1998, page 14. In fact, "Christian name" means only the first name and does not include a middle name. Keene v. Meade (1830) 28 US 1, and Games v. Stiles ex dem Dunn (1840) 39 US 322; the middle name or initial is not necessarily part of someone's "full"name. 65 CJS "Names" sec. 4 p.5 (1966), 57 Am.Jur.2d "Name" sec. 5 p.654 (1988). The use of all-caps to set off the names of principals or parties in legal documents is very old, predating the use of typewriters, perhaps to make the names all the more conspicuous in a document otherwise entirely written in copperplate script at a time when a large part of the general public could barely read block lettering. The UCC 1-201(10) deals with whether some detail is "conspicuous" and says "Language in the body of a form is conspicuous if it is in larger or other contrasting type or color." In one instance, a federal judge, confronted with a tax scofflaw whose argument consisted of the fact that all the tax and legal documents spelled his name out in capitals in a normal way while he insisted his name was spelled out with capitals and lower case letters and with punctuation in the middle (i.e. Edgar Francis., Bradley), ordered him to undergo psychiatric examination (which subsequently found him to be competent to stand trial). B.L. Kaufman, Judge Orders Defendant Tested, Cincinnati Enquirer, 6/17/98; this ploy ultimately failed. Assoc.Press, Man and two sons found guilty of tax fraud (2/3/99); B.L. Kaufman, Three tax evaders are found guilty, Cinc. Enq., 2/4/99. The Supreme Ct held in Grannis v. Ordean (1914) 234 US 385 at 395, that "even in names, due process of law does not require ideal accuracy. In the the spelling and pronunciation of proper names there are no generally accepted standards, and the well-established doctrine of idem sonans ... is recognition of this." In that case a person with the unusual name of Albert Gilfuss ignored the delivery of a summons and court pleadings against "Albert Guilfuss" [presumably typed in all-caps] and the default judgment against him was binding; similarly a misspelling in an indictment, Faust v. US (1896) 163 US 452. On a related matter, courts have rather emphatically and consistently insisted that pleadings and other court papers be typed and presented in a manner congenial to the judges' preferences (and the court rules), and, for example, courts have forbidden litigants to use certain hard-to-read typefaces; Brown v. Carpenter (WD Tenn 1995) 889 F.Supp 1028; Casas Office Machines Inc. v. Mita Copystar Machines Inc. (D PR 1993) 847 F.Supp 981 vac. on other grounds 42 F3d 668; or typefaces which are smaller than prescribed, or briefs which exceed the prescribed number of pages, etc. etc,, and in many instances courts have rejected the offending paperwork and issued default judgments against the party who violated the stylistic formulae. }

Use of punctuation in the midst of name: US v. Warren (ND NY unpub 1/22/98); Schneider v. Schlaefer (ED Wisc 1997) 975 F.Supp 1160; Frech v. Incorporated Case (10th Cir unpub 7/24/97); Ex parte Evans (1997) 40 Tex.SupmCt.Jrnl 364, 939 SW2d 142; Smith v. Rubin (10th Cir unpub 3/9/98) 81 AFTR2d 1096, 98 USTC para 50247; Bey v. Smith (SDNY unpub 8/1/97); Swartzendruber v. US (WD Mo unpub 4/17/97) (threatened to refuse any court papers that printed her name in the normal way or which were addressed in the normal way, didn't help because her case was immediately dismissed); US v. Klimek (ED Penn 1997) 952 F.Supp 1100 (tried to refuse all pleadings and court papers that spelled his name normally); US v. Gamble (ND IL unpub 12/3/96); Bixler v. CIR (7/23/96) TC Memo 1996-329; W.E. Johnson v. Starkey (ED NC unpub 9/3/98) 82 AFTR2d 6950; Tabron v. Starkey (ED NC unpub 8/24/98) 82 AFTR2d 6448; Smith v. Kitchen (10th Cir 1997) 156 F3d 1025, 97 USTC para 50107; Farm Credit Bank of Wichita v. Devous (WD Okl 1996) 933 F.Supp 1028; Farm Credit Bank of Wichita v. Powers (Okla.App 1996) 919 P2d 31; US v. Lerch (ND Ind unpub 3/28/97) 79 AFTR2d 2195; Kish v. CIR (1/13/98) TC Memo 1998-16; Leverenz v. Torluemlu (ND IL unpub 6/13/96); Simon v. Thalken (D Neb unpub 7/17/97) 80 AFTR2d 6281 app.dismissed (D Neb unpub 7/27/97); Dulisse v. Twardowski (ED Penn unpub 7/16/98); DiLouie v. Padova (ED Penn unpub 3/18/98); Lang v. Dieleuterio (D NJ unpub 2/17/99); In re Busby (MD Fla unpub 10/2/98) 82 AFTR2d 6924 (used colon in midst of name in pleadings, but case caption had normal name); Rosenheck & Co. Inc. v. US ex rel IRS & Kostich (ND Okla unpub 4/9/97) 79 AFTR2d 2715 (court explicitly found that perp was the same person as his name printed in all-caps and without intervening punctuation); Rodrock v. Foulston (10th Cir unpub 6/12/98) 98 Colo. JCAR 3155; US v. Weatherley (ED Penn 1998) 12 F.Supp.2d 469; (threatened to sue the court clerk and others if they didn't address all their mail and paperwork to a very strange and long description of him with his name interrupted by a colon and his street address without a zip code) In re Gdowik (Bankr., SD Fla unpub 7/23/96) 78 AFTR2d 6243 aff'd (SD Fla unpub 11/6/97) 228 Bankr.Rptr 481, 80 AFTR2d 8254; (appellant argued that his convictions, for driving without a license or insurance or registration, was invalid solely because the court papers identified him as "Richard E. Wilson", whereas he claimed his actual name is "Richard Earl., of Wilson" [period after Earl and no capital for Wilson], consisting of his "nomen, pronomen and cognomentation" in that order. The court rejected this argument, "The caption more than adequately identifies [the] appellant as the party in interest.... and appellant's efforts to distinguish his name from that shown on the caption by means of punctuation and terminology are wholly unpersuasive.") State v. R.E. Wilson (Mont.Supm unpub 12/3/98); approximately the same time an Ohio court rejected the argument that the defendant who had taken to identifying himself as "Jack Edward; Taylor" was not the "Jack Edward Taylor" named in the court documents, especially since there were plenty of old letters and other papers he had signed in the usual way and sometimes without his middle name. Verdict rebutted on use of semicolon, Cincinnati Enquirer, 12/16/98

{This affectation - for which there appears to be no historical support, especially since the development of punctuation lagged behind the development of printing or of the English language - occurs in Republic of Texas and many Montana Freemen and other militia-type documents. In a Missouri arraignment in 1996, "one of the 'freemen' stood up to announce that ... he refused to recognize anything but his 'full Christian name' [evidently not printed in all caps and with some strange punctuation]. This resulted in an unusual scene: An arrest warrant was issued and executed for the defendant's failure to appear at his arraignment even though he was physically present in the courtroom." J. W. Nixon & E. R. Ardini, Combating Common Law Courts, Criminal Justice, spring 1998, page 14. In one instance, a federal judge, confronted with a tax scofflaw whose argument consisted of the fact that all the tax and legal documents spelled his name out in capitals in a normal way while he insisted his name was spelled out with capitals and lower case letters and with punctuation in the middle (i.e. Edgar Francis., Bradley), ordered him to undergo psychiatric examination (which subsequently found him to be competent to stand trial). B. L. Kaufman, Judge Orders Defendant Tested, Cincinnati Enquirer, 6/17/98. It has been suggested in medical literature that a patient's use of a meaningless or unpronounceable "glyph" in his name was indicative of psychosis with delusions. N. Rendleman, False Names, Western Journal of Medicine, Nov. 1998. It appears that, in pre-1776 common law, punctuation had no legal significance; acc. to Husband & Husband, Punctuation (London 1905), the Gutenberg Bible (1456) and all the books of Wm. Caxton (d. 1491) used only the comma, period, and colon; the Venice printer, Aldus Manutius, wrote a primer on punctuation in 1566 that discussed all these marks and the question mark and parenthesis; in 1617 Ben Johnson wrote about all those marks and also semicolon and exclamation point. At a time when legislative bodies had bills read aloud to them rather than printed copies furnished to every member, a British court decision held that there were, effectively, no punctuation marks, not even periods, in an Act of Parliament - or at least the punctuation marks had no legal effect, Duke of Devonshire v. O'Connor (QB 1890) 24 QBD 468 at 478; similarly Manger v. Bd of State Med. Examiners (1900) 90 Md 659, 45 Atl. 891 at 893. }

The 'nom de guerre'

Man knows he has no right of dominion over other men, but he has invented ways to seek such gain by creating the persona which, when applied to the Law of War, become a nom de guerre. This is literally a "war name" to separate the Christian from the fictional persona -- see The California Style Manual, published by The California Supreme Court (1986), Section 196, page 13, "Style of Main Title" (to an action).

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The Jural Society misquoted and misused a bit of typographic style instruction as if it were a statement of law.

The California Style Manual is sometimes called the Yellow Book, because it's biggest competitor is the Harvard Law Review's Uniform System of Citation commonly, and now officially, is called the Blue Book, and the University of Chicago's style sheet is called the Maroon Book.

Section 196 appears on page 135 not page 13.

This is the style manual for California state courts and it does have some merits over the Blue Book. The 1986 edition is the Third edition.

The very same paragraph is sec. 196 in the previous edition of the Calif. Style Manual, the 2nd revised edition of 1977, on page 123 of that edition. As 1977 pretty much predates most word processors, this emphasizes that the instruction is intended for professional typesetters working up the court's printed opinions.

Section 196 appears in the chapter devoted to "Title of Case", [such as Smith v. Jones, or State v. Smith, etc.]

Section 196 says:

sec. 196. Style of Main Title. -- The main title is always in roman, not italics. The names of the parties are in full capitals, and their trial and appellate court titles are in capitals and lowercase, e.g., GRACE JONES, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. HARRY STONE, Defendant and Respondent. When a surname contains an intermediate capital, with a prefix that is the equivalent of "the", "of", "son of", etc. (MacDonald, LaMarr, De Forrest, etc.), the initial letter is a full capital, and the rest of the prefix is in small capitals; e.g. MacDONALD, LaMARR, De FORREST [in each instance the letters typed here in lowercase were smaller capitals]. This form should be used regardless of whether the surname is written as one or two words. Personal degrees or titles (C.P.A., M.A., M.D., etc.) are not used in opinion titles.

* * * * * * *

The entire chapter of the Yellow Book is instructions to the typesetters and proofreaders of the published court decisions because small capitals and italics can't be done on a typewriter but only with something a lot flashier.

There's nothing in the Yellow Book about capitalizing a party's name working any sort of metamorphosis, legal or otherwise,on him.

The 'nom de guerre'

This is literally a "war name" to separate the Christian from the fictional persona.

This "name of war" contention relies on the bogus contention that the United States is operating under the 'law of war'. This law of war contention is based upon the false belief that the United States Congress losts it's quorum to conduct bussiness under the United States constitution in 1861. This false belief that the US Congress lost it's quorum under the US constitution is based upon the false contention that parliamentary law (Roberts Rules of Order) is Supreme over the US constitution in these matters.