A little over a month after the federal government filed a lawsuit for the Free Land Holders’ “unlawful” claim of 1,400 acres of Forest Service land outside Mancos, they submitted a 50-page response.
The Free Land Holder Committee turned it in a little before closing time on Jan. 2, which was their deadline for filing a response to the suit, said a clerk at the U.S. District Court in Denver who scanned in the lengthy response, and asked not to be named.
The 50 pages were turned in on 8-by-16-inch paper and almost entirely handwritten.
“It’s hard to say what happens next,” the clerk said.
U.S. attorneys will communicate with Patrick Pipkin and Bryan Hammon, the two Free Land Holders named in the case, and the suing party – the U.S. government – will likely file a response, the clerk said.
“The spiritually discerned man using the graciously-gifted name :patrick:-Leroy:Pipkin is not consenting or waving any unalienable granted rights to the alleged inferior court jurisdiction in any form,” the first page of the response reads.
It then goes on to present the group’s “perfected claim upon land which includes preexisting, inherited and granted rights and claims including but not limited to land patents, surface water, ditches, tributaries, fences, cattle grazing, and roads, farming and cultivating the soil.”
It cited the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and said their claim is within the boundaries of land seceded to “The United States of America” in that treaty.
Notice the capital “t” in The.
In a Nov. 20 email to The Journal, one ambassador from a shared Free Land email address said, “We are also in possession of certain certified public records which clearly show the specific disputed lands being conveyed back to the Republic, not to the United States, not to United States of America.”
The group holds there are three Americas at play: The United States of America, the United States of America and United States.
“Citizens may want review their 28 USC 1746 (1) which proves there are two different “at-law” legislative titles, “United States” and “United States of America,” of which neither are “The United States of America” as is perpetually settled in Law,” they said in an email.
They went on to cite 28 USC 3002 (15)(a) “which proves that United States is a federal corporation,” and another doctrine (Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States | 318 U.S. 363 (1943)), that says “corporations acting as governments … only have the rights of any other corporations in commerce.”
The response they filed quoted many maxims, like “First in time equity prevails” and “What is first is truest; and what comes first in time, is best in law.”
It highlighted that on Dec. 15, the claim was “resolved forever.”
“Having received no valid equitable response in a timely manner provided to the FLHC free land holders, an equitable estoppel under well-settled land law now prevents further challenges or claims,” the response read.
They chose Dec. 15 because it was 63 days after their initial posted claim, on Oct. 12, which covers the threshold for “the customary 61 days public notice for a lawful land claim,” they wrote in an email.
The group had said, via email, that “when, or if, someone comes forward with a superior claim to this land by December 15th, 2024, and their claim is evidenced-in-law by a title with a superior quality to that of the FLHC, then the FLHC will simply withdraw its claim.”
“That is the honorable and equitable thing to do,” they said.
The response goes on to define terms, like “Free Land Holder,” “Exclusive Equity” and “Perfected Claim,” among other things.
They reference the Geneva Bible of 1560 and include several “key verses of interest,” and refer, several times, to a book from 1836 called Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence by Joseph Story.
“This statement reinforces the idea that public authorities and lower jurisdictions are strictly bound by the powers granted to them by the rule of law,” they wrote under a section called “conclusion” on the final page.
“They cannot act beyond those powers, especially when acting without a lawful obligation.”
