State Supreme Court sides with judge in lawsuit by former Montana Freemen

A Montana Freemen alumnus cannot sue a Yellowstone County justice of the peace for blocking him from defending a friend in a criminal proceeding, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

Justices ruled without dissent against Rodney Owen Skurdal on Wednesday in a case involving Yellowstone County Justice of the Peace Jeanne Walker. The high court said Walker’s actions were within the scope of her job and protected by judicial immunity. Many of the arguments Skurdal made were views espoused by the Freemen.

The 1990s anti-government Montana Freemen movement in which Skurdal was involved ended in an 81-day armed standoff with the FBI near Jordan. Several members of the movement were criminally charged, including Skurdal, who was found guilty in November 1998 of writing millions of dollars in bad checks on a fraudulent account and participating in the robbery of an NBC News crew. In July of 1998, a jury found him guilty on two counts of threatening to kill Jack Shanstrom, a former federal judge. 

At issue in the case the state Supreme Court decided this week was a June 4, 2024, initial appearance proceeding against Ronald Trow at which Skurdal attempted to serve as Trow’s legal counsel. The case involves Trow’s alleged third offense of driving under the influence of alcohol. 

Skurdal, who uses a Pompey’s Pillar address, is not a licensed attorney in any state. He was a leader in the Montana Freemen movement in which participants claimed individual sovereignty based on their own interpretation of the law, rejecting the authority of federal, state and local governments. 

At the Billings court proceeding when Walker realized Skurdal intended to represent Trow, the justice of the peace ordered Skurdal to vacate the defense table.

“When Judge Walker came in, she just started yelling at me, something to the effect, ‘if you’re not a licensed attorney, you get away from the table and sit in the back,’” Walker recounted in his appeal. He continued, writing in court filings: “(If I recall correctly, she even threatens me with jail; I can’t recall for sure.) But I’m told that in her ‘court hearing records’ that she said I was ‘combative’, and I never said anything nor did I try to object, for I’ve been in your ‘corrupt courts’ many times, and I’ve yet to see or meet an ‘Honest’ judge and/or county/state attorney, if any do exist.” 

Skurdal sued Walker in Yellowstone County District Court, alleging that Trow’s rights to representation had been violated when he was turned away. 

In the high court’s ruling, written by Chief Justice Cory Swanson, the unanimous justices noted that Skurdal in his case against Walker also made several “Sovereign Citizen” arguments about Trow’s criminal case, namely that Walker’s judgeship was illegitimate for lack of a bond, or insurance, and that she had no jurisdiction over Trow, and that the justice of the peace practiced “admiralty law.” 

Skurdal noted in his appeal that when Trow asked Walker if she was applying admiralty law, the judge laughed and said admiralty law was only practiced at sea.

A district court dismissed the case in favor of Walker, holding that the justice of the peace was protected by judicial immunity.

Swanson in the Supreme Court’s opinion corrected what he said were misapplications of the law by Skurdal, including the bonding issue, and a belief that court document references in all capital letters to legal parties referred to the same people as lower-cased references and not a “separate corporate ‘strawman’ created at birth.” 

State Supreme Court justices held that Skurdal’s representation of Trow wasn’t covered by Trow’s Sixth Amendment right to “assistance of counsel for his defense,” which applies to legal counsel and not help from a non-attorney. Similarly, the Montana Constitution doesn’t allow representation by a layperson in criminal proceedings. 

The high court ruled that the immunity granted to Walker for judicial acts was settled law dating back centuries to English courts and cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1870s.