Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 18, 1995 TAG: 9511200035
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Stump got the floor at a hearing to ask U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser to set aside the jury's guilty verdict in his September trial on firearms violations. Kiser refused.
"Several articles of the Constitution have been violated by this trial and by the establishment of this court in the Commonwealth of Virginia," Stump told Kiser.
Stump's hearing was held on a day when a government shutdown had emptied the Poff Federal Building in Roanoke of most workers - except for the court personnel and law-enforcement agents Stump maintains have no authority to exist under the Constitution. He is a strict "constitutionalist," arguing that the federal powers that have been broadened over the years violate the U.S. Constitution.
Stump was convicted of two counts of possessing unregistered silencers after he admitted handling and firing rifles that a friend had equipped with homemade silencers. He was part of the Blue Ridge Hunt Club, a Pulaski County citizen militia that an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms helped found under the guise of being the vice president.
"The government spent money to create this crime or so-called crimes - I maintain there weren't any crimes - but to create this situation whereby people could be indicted," Stump said, referring to the illegal purchase of weapons by an ATF informant. Those purchases were the basis for some of the charges brought against five members of the club.
Kiser followed along in a pocket-size copy of the Constitution while Stump listed the 22 articles and amendments he said were violated by his prosecution. They ranged from his contention that the federal government has no authority to buy land within Virginia for a courthouse without the state's consent to the contention that the right to bear arms is infringed by the law against silencers without registration.
"I'm being placed in bondage, in slavery ... and I haven't harmed anybody - I haven't been told I owe any tax; I haven't robbed anybody; I haven't assaulted anybody," said Stump, who faces up to 20 years in prison.
Kiser noted that Congress' authority to enact new laws has been upheld "time and time again" by the courts, and that federal courts have jurisdiction by virtue of the Constitution.
"If there's going to be any change in constitutional law, this court does not have the authority to do it," Kiser said.
David Damico, an attorney Kiser appointed to serve as Stump's "standby counsel," argued separately that the judge should acquit Stump because of the unusual way the jury was selected.
Concerned because Stump was representing himself and that he could say things in front of prospective jurors that might taint the whole jury pool, Kiser nixed the normal jury selection. Instead of both sides being allowed to ask questions in front of everyone, prospective jurors were taken out of the room and brought in for questioning a few at a time.
Each side has a number of challenges it can use to eliminate people it doesn't want to serve on the jury. Because Stump didn't know who would be drawn to come into the courtroom for questioning and who would be left in the pool, he couldn't use his challenges intelligently, Damico argued.
Such a method, however, has been used in other courts and withstood challenge, Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis said.
"The fight's just beginning; it's really only just started," Stump said after the hearing. "I've got a lot more I've got to learn to fight this. If they put me in prison, I'll have more time to pursue appeals and lawsuits."
His sentencing date has not been set.
by CNB