Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Friday, April 19, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Judge Tosses Birther’s Latest Complaint

WASHINGTON (CN) - Noting that the Federal Court "is not willing to go tilting at windmills," a judge dismissed conspiratorial claims that attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley filed against President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and others.

Sibley, who represented the late D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey before embarking into the medical marijuana farming industry, claimed, among other things, that Obama was not born in the United States and that he, Sibley, had been roughed up by marshals in the D.C. federal courthouse.

But U.S. District Judge John Bates wrote: "As Chief Judge Lamberth recently stated with respect to a similar suit, '[t]his Court is not willing to go tilting at windmills.'" He dismissed all of Sibley's claims against Obama, Holder, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Sibley took a different approach in making his birther allegations, claiming that his write-in candidacy for this year's upcoming presidential election is injured by Obama's unconstitutional occupation of office and the listing of his name on ballots in November.

Bates disagreed. "Self-declaration as a write-in candidate in the upcoming presidential election does not enable plaintiff to challenge President Obama's present position," the judge wrote. "A public official's title to office is an injury particularized to an individual only if that individual has 'an interest in the office itself' - if he or she sought the office at the same time as the current office holder."

Bates also denied Sibley's request to contact members of a grand jury himself to reveal his identity and inform them of the president's alleged wire fraud.

"Plaintiff's argument that long-established federal rules and statutes are unconstitutional merely because they prevent him from accomplishing his aims is unavailing," the judge wrote.

Sibley also sought damages for what he called denial of access to the court and excessive force committed by marshals who escorted him around the courthouse during a 2009 visit. Bates dismissed these claims as well, citing Sibley's failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

Bates last year threw out claims from Sibley that the District of Columbia violated his Fifth Amendment rights by making him file an affidavit recognizing that growing marijuana in any capacity violates federal law. Sibley said the affidavit hurt Sibley's budding career in medicinal marijuana cultivation and dispensary operations, business he called The Medical Marijuana Company of the District of Columbia and The Medical Marijuana Company of America. Bates ruled that Sibley had to legally admit that growing pot violates federal law.

In 2008, Sibley was suspended from practicing law in Washington, D.C., and Florida for three years. In addition to representing the D.C. Madam, Sibley's list of former clients includes Larry Sinclair, who claimed to have had gay sex with President Obama when Obama was a state senator.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...