r/legaladviceofftopic

tl;dr - my cousin says she's renounced her US citizenship and no longer has to pay taxes, said it's totally legal and she paid no money to do it, just had to study case law and the constitution and fill out some forms, and now she's a "state citizen" (but swears it's different than sovereign citizenship...)

Not sure if this is the appropriate forum, but I'm not asking for legal advice so much as general information about some wild shit my uncle told me recently.

He claims his daughter (my cousin) has renounced US citizenship and become a "state citizen." The things he was saying just sounded a lot like the whole sovereign citizen thing, so I told him that's just a conspiracy. He swore up and down that whatever he was referring to was different, and that the sovereign citizen people just "didn't know what they were talking about." He said that my cousin has been "studying case law" for years (she's not a lawyer and has zero law background, she didn't even go to college lol) and knows all about it and has shown him the documents she's filled out to legally avoid paying taxes, but that he doesn't understand all of it so he can't explain it to me right and that's why it sounds like she's no different than a sovereign citizen conspiracist.

I said there's no way I'm about to believe that people who study case law for a LIVING aren't spreading the word about this magical route through which you can renounce your US citizenship for $0, continue to live and work in the US without paying taxes, and see no legal repercussions for it while having access to all the same benefits as citizens. He said that's because most lawyers are "bar card lawyers" and not "constitutional lawyers," and I don't know what the fuck that means to be honest but it sounds like something that a conspiracy theorist would say lol.

He swears up and down that my cousin has it all figured out, and I said okay so why don't you renounce your citizenship and quit payin taxes too? He said because he has to do like his daughter and study case law for years so he can "defend it" in court if he has to, says he has to be able to cite the codes and shit in order to get himself out of trouble with the law which to me makes no sense if this is totally legal.

Anyway, we low key got into an argument about it and he said that I didn't have any background in law either so how could I know enough to dispute it? Which I guess is true, I am not a lawyer and have not read the fine print of the US Constitution lol but I'd argue that common sense prevails here.

This is a conspiracy, right? Is there a special subsect of sovereign citizens who think they've finally found the Real Way to do things? How do I debunk this shit for him, and what could my cousin possibly be saying that's so convincing he's just eating it up? I am baffled lol.

Feeling helpless. Niece is abused in front of her 1 year old siblings and 10 year old brother. I feel gross not getting law involved. Please help

Assume Commissioner Gordon is helping him. How can they work together so that the people Batman beats up go to prison?

I asked this question in another sub and was told this would be a better spot for this.

I was recently watching a podcast and found something said to be interesting yet hard to believe. After spending 22 years in Prison, the individual being interviewed was released from prison. While being interviewed he dropped a bomb shell. He began to talk about the general population being filled with child predators. Explaining now a days with technology these people are caught more frequently than they used too.

He explained that general population, and low level security prisons are now filled with nothing but child predators as a result. (This is paraphrasing as he elaborated quite bit)

The confusing part that I found hard to believe was about the child predators. He explained that laws have been passed to protect these child predators. Explaining that if you punch a child predator or assault them in any way it is now a hate crime.

As I began to look into this I wasn’t able to find much. I will post what I was able to find. Is anybody able to shine more light on this? Is this really going on behind bars in America?

Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/victim-attributes-hate-crime-law-difference-and-politics-justice

This is the interview. For anybody wondering he considers himself as the “cheesesteak guy” after 22 years behind bars he got out and franchised a few locations. Ontop of all his other big investments.

On the other side of things, if you ask the FBI he is still the head of the Philadelphia Italian Mafia (seems likely to me, idk anybody who went to prison for 22 years and came out worth millions)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=lqv444pT0z0&si=XWE1nCqsP2K9SxhD

Edit in to add——Joey begins to talk about this at 1 hour 34 minutes.

Additional edit- thank you to those of you who provided helpful information and confirmed it to be a hate crime.

New to the sub but crazy to see so many wrong answers from your “top 1% commenter badges”

This is something I’ve seen in several TikToks and other platforms.

The man makes an OnlyFans page. They find a woman, could be strangers, friends, models, whatever. They pay the women to have sex on camera and then post it to the OF page. Then start over, find another woman.

I’m confused how this isn’t considered prostitution, or maybe it is and they just aren’t being prosecuted for it. I’ve even seen some men act like it’s some kind of cheat code to skirt prostitution laws.

Note: ignore the first "if" in the title, that was an error.

This just means that they must pay for a lawyer to avoid questioning, unless they are indigent, correct? I don't know of any principle that would make it fair to question a person who demands not to be questioned, but unfair to question them if they instead demand a lawyer. Only that it makes it easier for police, but giving less protection to a person who is very thrifty with money, less educated, or less intelligent is not a question of justice.

In a lot of those bodycam videos on youtube during an interrogation if the suspect is trying to say they didn't do it a lot of the times the detective will ask something along the lines of, "if we find out who really did this how long do you think they should be sentenced for." And usually they say something like life in prison.

It comes up so often that it feels like this is something they are trained to do but I dont see what affect it would have. Does it have any?

Let's say you're the plaintiff, and you were injured by a dangerous forklift driver. Conventional wisdom says to kick out anyone who works in a warehouse since they might be biased in favor of other warehouse workers. But I'd bet they've been in the position before of having a jackass coworker almost run them over.

Are there any cases where conventional wisdom "reverses" and a juror may be more likely to be harsh towards an "in-group" member?

First à real-life true incident and then the posed question for the lawyers out there.

In the 1800s Chang and Eng Bunker, conjoined twins (the first “Siamese Twins”) were living in the US. Their personalities were very different- Eng was peaceful and taciturn, Chang was a bit of a hothead and liked to hit the bottle. Once Chang, while in his cups, punched a man, knocking him down and hurting him badly. The man went to the sheriff to swear out a complaint against Chang for assault and battery. The sheriff said he could see no way to jail Chang without obviously putting Eng in jail with him. Eng could then bring a charge of false arrest against the sheriff. Astonished, the man dropped his complaint.

Question: what would have happened if the man did not drop the complaint? What would happen today if one conjoined twin committed a serious felony that the other had nothing to do with?

Spoilers for A Series of Unfortunate Events.

In the book, Count Olaf schemes to marry his underage second cousin, who he is the legal guardian of, with the excuse that it's legal to marry her under the age of 18 with her guardian's permission, which is him so it's alright.

I know it's a story for children, but is there any jurisdiction where that argument would hold water?

I'm fairly confident the loophole where she signed with her left hand to avoid the "signed in their own hand" stipulation wouldn't work anywhere, but I'm not sure about the permission thing.

I'm NAL but I'm reading this post

https://www.reddit.com/r/Lawyertalk/comments/1tey4iq/what_does_2300_hours_look_like/

and when they're talking about billable hours, it got me thinking: wouldn't it be easy for a lawyer to inflate what their billable hours are? For example, if it took 1 hour to draft a document, wouldn't it be possible to hedge that hour to 2 hours? Realistically how would a client know whether it took you 1 vs 3 hours to draft a document?

A few years ago we had an extended family member arrested for a serious crime with a high bail, more than any of us could pay or were willing to pay. I'm still not really sure how but they were able to get out and its kind of a touchy subject so I don't want to pry. The only thing I can think is that during covid they were much more willing to let people out for free even for serious crimes if there was overcrowding, was this the case?

I'm pursuing an EEOC complaint. I was put through **** at my former workplace so my opinion might be colored by my emotions. Long story short my position was discontinued because my immediate supervisor had hated me from day one and did everything she could to undermine me. My suit is about (1) I had two years left on my contract and all performance reviews were superlative - I was offered no compensation (2) They forged a letter of resignation from me (I received a thank you note for the resignation letter that I never sent, I did document everything) which is a felony in my state.
EEOC is involved because in our group I was the eldest and the only one with a doctor certified disability. My lawyer wants to go into negotiations with a floor negotiation set at $10K, which is about 1/19th of the money I lost by having my contract violated.

Is this normal?

Hey guys quick question because I am pretty much frustrated right now

So my flight got delayed and it looks like it qualifies for compensation under eu261 around €250 to €600 depending on distance and route. I began looking into enforcing it myself and got a reality check about how messy the process can be from what I found, there is not a simple pay €300 to file a case situation everywhere. the costs depend a lot on the country: in places like the UK or Germany, small claims or court fees for a case can be relatively low and sometimes proportional to the claim but if you need lawyers or decide to escalate properly, costs and time may add up quickly depending on complexity and whether the airline fights it, a lot of people end up using no win no fee services or claim companies instead of going fully legal solo.

The gap between theory and reality make it worse. In theory, eu261 is clear and straightforward but when it comes to practice, airlines often reject or delay claims until give up. It feels, the system is technically on the passenger side, but only if you have the time or patience to push through the process.

So now I am wondering whether suing or escalating these €250 to €600 claims worth it as an individual or do what many people just do, use claim services because the time cost more than the payout?

When i was in year 9 or so a boy in year 11 would repeatedly punch me in the balls randomly whenever i saw him and no one was looking. We were kinda friends but not really close. I dont think I got any trauma or anything like that but I just wanna know if that was like no ok legally

so a friend of mine was at home depot the mamagers started following him . they called cops saying he was stealing or had in past not sure. but anyways he walks out empty handed and returns to vehical next thing they hear a huge boom like the car was hit, turns out cop shot a gps or whatever to disable car cops from every corner surround car , hes arrested the driver he is with gets released they take his car into evidence . there was a bike in car and a bag that cops say was suspicous so then they put in report that he didnt steal from that store it was a diffrent location is this legal sounds like a set up to me