On July 16, U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land, a Bush, Jr. appointee in the Middle District of Georgia, dismissed one of the “birth certificate” cases on presidential qualifications. The plaintiff, a soldier, had said he had standing because Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama had ordered him to Afghanistan. However, his deployment order was cancelled earlier this month, so the judge ruled that the plaintiff lacks standing. See this article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The case is Stefan Cook v Wanda Good, 4:2009cv-00082. It had been filed on July 9, 2009.
so when the next soldier chooses to not go to Afghanistan and uses the POTUS eligibility arguement I suppose DOD will cancel the next soldier’s orders rather than reach the merits of the NBC issue.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
COLUMBUS DIVISION
MAJOR STEFAN FREDERICK COOK,
Plaintiff
v. Case No. 4:09-cv-82 (CDL)
COLONEL WANDA L. GOOD, et al.
Defendants
ORDER
To make the record complete and easily accessible to the
parties and other persons interested in the Court’s oral ruling
today, the Court files this written order that puts in writing the
oral order that the Court issued from the bench at the conclusion
of the hearing today on the Defendants’ motion to dismiss.
The same Constitution upon which Major Cook relies in support
of his contention that President Barack Obama is not eligible to
serve as President of the United States very clearly provides that
federal courts shall only have the authority to hear actual “cases
and controversies.†By restricting the Judiciary’s power to actual
“cases and controversies,†our founders wisely established a
separation of powers that would ensure the freedom of their fellow
citizens. They concluded that the Judicial Branch, the unelected
branch, should not inject itself into purely “political disputes,â€
and that it should not entangle itself in hypothetical debates
2
which had not ripened to an actual legal dispute.
The Courts have therefore consistently held that in order to
have legal “standing†to pursue a claim in federal court, a party
seeking federal jurisdiction must establish the following three
elements: 1) that he has experienced an “injury in fact†that is
concrete and particularized and actual or imminent, as opposed to
merely conjectural or hypothetical; 2) that there is a causal
connection between the injury and the defendant’s conduct that is
traceable to the challenged action of the defendant; and 3) that a
favorable decision will likely redress the complained of injury.
In this case, Major Cook cannot satisfy these elements. His
orders have been revoked. He is not being deployed to Afghanistan
or Iraq. He is under no present order to report anywhere. There
is no evidence that he is subject to future deployment. Any such
contention is sheer speculation and entirely hypothetical. Thus,
he has suffered no particularized or concrete injury. There is no
causal connection between any conduct by the defendant and any
alleged injury. And the only remedy he sought from this court,
avoiding deployment, has already been provided, and thus there is
no remedy that this court may provide that will redress his alleged
injury.
Based on all of these reasons, Major Cook does not have
standing to pursue this action. Thus, no case or controversy
exists under the United States Constitution, and this Court
consequently has no subject matter jurisdiction over this action.
3
Accordingly, Defendants’ motion to dismiss must be granted.
Recognizing that his opportunity to air his grievance over the
President’s eligibility to serve as President of the United States
was slipping by, Plaintiff’s attorney seeks to rescue the claims
with two arguments: First, she argues that the Court should
exercise jurisdiction because the complained of conduct is “capable
of repetition, yet evading judicial review.†Second, she seeks to
amend the complaint to add two additional parties, Maj. Gen. Carol
Dean Childers (Retired) and Lt. Col. David Earl Graef. Plaintiff’s
efforts to maintain this political controversy in federal court
must fail.
First, there is no evidence that Major Cook is likely subject
to future deployment orders. In fact, the evidence is to the
contrary. He is not likely to be deployed in the future.
Therefore, it is speculation that he will be under the command of
President Obama as a member of the United States Military. Second,
there is no evidence that he would not have an opportunity to have
any future claim reviewed. There is simply no evidence that this
claim falls within the narrow “capable of repetition, yet evading
review†principle of federal jurisdiction.
Second, the Court finds that Major General Childers and Lt.
Col Graef do not have standing to pursue their claims. They have
alleged no concrete particularized injury. They simply maintain
that they do not believe President Obama is eligible to serve as
President of the United States, and that hypothetically they “mayâ€
4
one day be subject to orders while he is Commander in Chief. They
have no standing orders to report to duty. They are under no order
for future deployment. They have made no showing that they will
not have a process available to them to protest any orders should
they be issued. Their political claim does not give rise to a case
or controversy to be heard in federal court.
This Court has a duty to follow the United States
Constitution. That Constitution limits jurisdiction to actual
cases and controversies. To extend jurisdiction beyond its limits
would be a violation of that very Constitution upon which Plaintiff
relies in support of his claims. This the Court refuses to do.
This entire action is dismissed for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction. The parties shall bear their own costs.
This 16th day of July, 2009
S/Clay D. Land
Clay D. Land
United States District Judge
Middle District of Georgia
You mean that requesting a deployment and then trying to get a CO status isn’t going to work?
Orly Taitz makes Lionel Hutz look like Johnnie Cochran
Cook’s orders to report to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida for mobilization Wednesday were revoked, public affairs officer Lt. Col. Maria Quon told the Ledger-Enquirer. She said she could not say why the deportment orders were revoked.
A quote from the article to which was provided by link given.
The next best thing to do is to make sure that the information that you supplied is TRUTH not assumed…..
Why hasn’t someone just gone down the Kenya, find a relative, give him a bunch of money, bring him to Hawaii and get Obama’s birth certificate? A relative is allowed to get Obama’s birth certificate. Or how about that Obama relative that was living here in poverty. I’d give some money to give her a $1m to fly to hawaii.
Nothing but a publicity stunt. This guy volunteers to go to Afghanistan with the option to change his mind at any time. He then claims that because Obama is not legaly his CIC he doens’t have to go–even though he volunteered. The army simply says OK, you don’t have to go since you are no longer volunteering to do so.
The person who comes out on top in all this–Orly Taitz–I’m sure the media attention has caused many more to sent their donations to help finance her scam!!
Perhaps since the job market isn’t so good, I’ll have to come up with my own conspiracy scams to wring cash out of people who dislike the president LOL :->
train111
Just show us the birth certificate, is this to much to ask?
— apparently one novel theory passing recently around the blogs is that you could have a COLB from HI in 1961 having been adopted — and the so called long-form would indicate this adoptive status — this would help support a few “birther” NBC raised issues. Access to Stanley Dunham travel / visa documents — if US-DOJ – DHS/DOS ever are compelled to produce the FOIAed documents as part of discovery of USDC-DCDC docket-08-2234
— as well as related UK (United Kingdom) held travel records of Obama Sr.
So the guy gets a deployment, asks to see the BC, and gets his deployment cancelled?
I like this idea. It means every serving in the military overseas simply needs to do the same and, presto, instant end of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq!
Peace by lack of paperwork. Whoda thunk it?
“Title washing” of POTUS. In a few (onl?) state such as Kentucky you can bring a total-ed car or truck from another state and relatively simply was the title and create a tttle without the histery. The current POTUS-gate coverup combined with the original coverup of Hawaii provides an anology of “title washing” origin of birth.
This whole thing is a scam set up months ago.
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/032369.html
“David Weigel revealed yesterday that Cook was a member of the Free Republic message board. While that is story enough for some, there’s an overlooked detail to be gleaned from Cook’s March 25th post there. In it he shares an “e-mail from Dr. Orly Taitz”, detailing developments in a class action suit “on behalf 120 military officers, many of high rank” challenging the legality of President Obama as Commander in Chief.”
Major Nutcase over played his hand. The MG of the major command in which he was to serve had his orders cancelled. Now major Nutcase has no grounds for his silly lawsuit. This sometimes happens when yourlawyer gets his/her law degree from the Jethroe Bodeen School of Law correspondence course.