Anyway...
******
FC writes,
An attorney on the list responds:Aren't our courts under Admiralty law since 1933? How do you expect to
get any fairness in the courts since the courts have been hijacked?
My response:No our Courts are not under Admiralty Law - our Courts function in
accordance with very intelligent rules that are very consistent with
our constitution. The law of the sea only applies to Maritime matters.
I learned the info about Custer at a The Right Way L.A.W. seminar in Ohio, back in the 1990s. I saw the documentation back then, but don't have a copy or citation, so I don't know where the speaker got it. The story was offered as an interesting lesson on the importance of jurisdiction.The laws which came to be known as "law of the sea" were historically a loose conglomeration of treaties between nations. These laws dealt primarily with territorial limits with regard to resources such as fish, and minerals, and relationships between nations.
In 1982 the United Nations drafted the "Law of the Seas Treaty" which replaced four 1958 treaties. This Treaty came into force in 1994, a year after Guyana became the 60th nation to ratify.
Admiralty law is a completely separate concept from the "Law of the Sea". Each nation has its own admiralty laws which apply within that nation's jurisdiction.
Admiralty is often extended beyond the sea, onto dry land, and is applied according to context rather than venue.
The concept of "traffic" for example, as it applies to motor vehicles traversing across the county, is treated in the same fashion as oceangoing vessels within the jurisdiction of the United States.
In general, U.S. admiralty law is applied to all or most instances in which the Constitution's "Commerce Clause" would apply.
Of course the various branches of government, including federal, state, county, and municipal have all greatly overreached the original concept of commerce, and now apply it nearly everywhere.
That's the reason why, for example, if you have NEVER had a driver license and are arrested, you will be charged with "Driving on Suspended License". Absent the court's presumption that you are bound by the terms of the license, the law has no authority to punish you.
This is a very interesting field of study-- one which even after years I have not been able to find any silver bullets.
One interesting tidbit that is not commonly known, and might help get you started:
George Custer (of Little Bighorn fame) was a student at West Point. As part of their induction into West Point, all students were required to sign an oath placing them under admiralty jurisdiction. Custer neglected to sign the oath, and it was somehow overlooked.
In or about 1867, after Custer was appointed lieutenant colonel in the army, he was brought up on serious charges in a court martial. Desertion, was the most serious, if I remember correctly, and also something about the death of some of his men. If found guilty, Custer was to be executed.
More or less as a smokescreen, Custer mounted a defense based on conflicting orders of superior officers, and other sundry excuses. But in the midst of the trial he demanded a private conversation with the judge. In chambers he demanded the court produce his signature on the oath which, to make a long story short, the court could not produce since it did not exist.
A secret deal was made wherein Custer was found guilty of some of the less serious charges, and acquitted of the charges upon which he could be executed, on the condition he would thereafter sign the oath.