BLACKWELL

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

MARTIN LUTHER BLACKWELL, :

Plaintiff, :

v. : CIVIL ACTION NO. 26-CV-1769

STATE OF GEORGIA, ef al.,

Defendants. :

MEMORANDUM

WEILHEIMER, J. MAYa\, 2026

Martin Luther Blackwell, a prisoner in custody at the Coffee Correctional Facility in

Georgia, has filed a Complaint naming the State of Georgia, the “State of Pennsylvania” [sic],

and “Chester of Delaware County.” Blackwell seeks leave to proceed in forma pauperis. For

the following reasons, the Court will grant Blackwell leave to proceed in forma pauperis, dismiss

the Complaint as frivolous, and deny his Motion for Notice as moot.!

1. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS?

Blackwell’s submission, which he titles an “Affidavit of Truth,” is difficult to understand

since it consists entirely of legal jargon typically employed by adherents of the “sovereign

citizen” movement. He states he is a constitutionally protected de jure private national citizen of

the United States (Compl. at 1), with rights to due process “unaffected by the wicked

‘Emergency Banking Relief Act’” (id. at 2). He mentions that he cannot be deemed to be

' The Clerk of Court will also be directed to correct the spelling of Blackwell’s middle

name on the docket.

* The factual allegations are taken from Blackwell’s Complaint (ECF No. 1), to which the

Court adopts the sequential pagination assigned by the CM/ECF docketing system. Where the

Court quotes from pro se pleadings, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization errors will be

cleaned up as needed for clarity.

“federal booty of war,” as he is foreign by nature and characteristic. (Jd.) He cites a presidential

proclamation from 1933 as “high treason against to Sovereign American People of the United

States of America” and the “Protestant Constitution . . . with its Baptist, Calvinist inspired “Bill

of Rights”... of which I am a beneficial interested member.” (Jd. at 3.) He declares he is a

“freeman private citizen” and that any man or woman acting in a government capacity “who is

attempting to compel a martial due-process upon the Declarant” to subject him to codes and

statutes that do not name him “must rebut this Declaration with first hand knowledge of all facts.

....” Cd. at 4.) The balance of the fourteen-page pleading goes on in similar fashion. The

Motion for Notice asserts the State of Georgia never established jurisdiction over him for a trial

and conviction and he has been kidnapped. (ECF No. 9 at 2.)

Il. STANDARD OF REVIEW

The Court grants Blackwell leave to proceed in forma pauperis.’ Accordingly, 28 U.S.C.

§ 1915(e)(2)(B)@) requires the Court to dismiss the Complaint if it is frivolous. A complaint is

frivolous if it “lacks an arguable basis either in law or in fact.” Brown v. City of Philadelphia,

750 F. App’x 171, 173 (3d Cir. 2018) (quoting Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325 (1989)).

The use of the term “frivolous” in § 1915 “embraces not only the inarguable legal conclusion,

but also the fanciful factual allegation.” Neitzke, 490 U.S. at 325. Section 1915 accords judges

“the unusual power to pierce the veil of the complaint’s factual allegations and dismiss those

claims whose factual contentions are clearly baseless[,]” including claims that describe “fantastic

or delusional scenarios[.]” Jd. at 327-28; see also Mitchell y. Horn, 318 F.3d 523, 530 (3d Cir.

2003). “[A] finding of factual frivolousness is appropriate when the facts alleged rise to the level

3 Because Blackwell is a prisoner, he must still pay the $350 filing fee in installments as

required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act.

of the irrational or the wholly incredible, whether or not there are judicially noticeable facts

available to contradict them.” Smith v. N. Cambria Police, No. 25-1273, 2025 WL 1324070, at

*] (3d Cir. May 7, 2025) (per curiam) (quoting Denton vy. Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 33 (1992)),

A claim is legally baseless if it is “based on an indisputably meritless legal theory.” Deutsch vy.

United States, 67 F.3d 1080, 1085 (3d Cir. 1995) (holding frivolous a suit alleging that prison

officials took an inmate’s pen and refused to give it back). In assessing the Complaint, the Court

is mindful of the obligation to liberally construe a pro se litigant’s pleadings, see Higgs v. Att’y

Gen., 655 F.3d 333, 339 (3d Cir. 2011), particularly where the pro se litigant is imprisoned.

Mala v. Crown Bay Marina, Inc., 704 F.3d 239, 244-45 (3d Cir. 2013).

Ill. DISCUSSION

Blackwell’s Complaint is legally frivolous. Other than irrelevant statements of legal

fictions and sovereign citizen verbiage, he asserts no facts to demonstrate any viable cause of

action. “[L]egal-sounding but meaningless verbiage commonly used by adherents to the so-

called sovereign citizen movement” is nothing more than a nullity. Thompson v. Yolanda Denise

Thompson Soc. Sec. Tr., No. 20-3791, 2020 WL 4570707, at *1 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 7, 2020) (quoting

United States v. Wunder, No. 16-9452, 2019 WL 2928842, at *5 (D.N.J. July 8, 2019)

(discussing the futility of the sovereign citizen verbiage in collection claim for student loan));

Banks vy. Florida, No. 19-756, 2019 WL 7546620, at *1 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 17, 2019), report and

recommendation adopted, 2020 WL 108983 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 9, 2020) (collecting cases and

stating that legal theories espoused by sovereign citizens have been consistently rejected as

“utterly frivolous, patently ludicrous, and a waste of . . . the court’s time, which is being paid by

hard-earned tax dollars”); see also United States v. Benabe, 654 F.3d 753, 767 (7th Cir. 2011)

(“[Courts] have repeatedly rejected [sovereign citizens’] theories of individual sovereignty,

immunity from prosecution, and their ilk. ... Regardless of an individual’s claimed status of

descent, be it as a ‘sovereign citizen,’ a ‘secured-party creditor,’ or a ‘flesh-and-blood human

being,’ that person is not beyond the jurisdiction of the courts.” (citations omitted)).

Accordingly, the Complaint will be dismissed with no leave to amend.* An appropriate Order

granting in forma pauperis status, directing the collection in installments of the filing fee for this

case, and dismissing the case with prejudice, will be entered separately. Fed. R. Civ. P. 58(a)

BY THE COURT:

□ |t-——

GAIL A. WEILHEIMER, J.

“ The Motion for Notice will accordingly be dismissed as moot. To the extent Blackwell

seeks to file a federal challenge of a conviction in Georgia, he must do so by means of a petition

for habeas corpus in the federal district encompassing the Georgia county where he was

convicted,