Courts of the Posse Comitatus

The first known reference to a "citizens grand jury" is contained in the original Posse Comitatus Blue Book. According to Levitas the first reported instance of a common law grand jury actually being impaneled is in Lane County, Oregon. According to a June 1974 classified FBI report which quoted the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard newspaper, the Lane County Sheriff's Posse Comitatus was believed to have "established a secret grand jury to review incidents of alleged harassment of citizens by government officials."

Beach's Blue Book provides the foundation upon which the current common law courts have been built. In fact copies of this work are sold and used as a training manual by the Del City, Oklahoma-based United Sovereigns of America, the leading national proponent of common law courts, linked to court efforts in at least thirteen states. According to the United Sovereigns' Blue Book reprint, "The County Sheriff is the only legal law enforcement officer in these United States of America..." and if he fails in his all-encompassing duties, it is the role of the Posse -- self-appointed agents of law -- to step in and do the job.

The Posse Blue Book also outlines the process by which the jury is employed and provides the blueprint for the current trend in which "warrants of arrest" are issued to public officials by the self-appointed officers of the common law courts. The Blue Book advises that any official who attempts to enforce "unconstitutional" laws -- e.g. the tax code or gun control laws -- is subject to arrest by the Posse and trial "by a Citizen's jury." The jury, it continues "should be impaneled by the Sheriff from citizens of the local jurisdiction," as "the present method of impaneling juries by the Courts is unlawful and should be repudiated by the local Posse." According to the Blue Book as reprinted by United Sovereigns, an official found guilty by such a citizens' jury, is subject to public execution by the Posse: "He shall be removed by the Posse to the most populated intersection of streets in the township and at high noon hung by the neck, the body remaining until sundown as an example to those who would subvert the law."

This passage resulted in a considerable amount of negative publicity for the Posse. "As a result," according to Levitas, "Mike Beach deleted it from subsequent printings, although by that time the document had been reprinted by so many other groups that it was effectively out of his hands." For example, some versions of the Blue Book circulated by the Wisconsin Posse Comitatus in the late 1970s and early 1980s omitted this passage, but the United Sovereigns of America has retained the "hanging" quote in the version it distributes.