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Leo Ping ~
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Leo Donofrio, Esq.
Thank you
EL
I don’t know if I’ll understand it, but I saved the Amicus Brief to my computer and I’ll TRY to read and understand. Leo is a genius - and moody, sarcastic genius, but a genius nevertheless. Godspeed to him in this endeavor. He’s doing what our legislators should be doing.
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Seems to be fairly complete though with numerous typos.
It contains a discussion of precedent versus dicta for Minor v Happersett.
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"AMICUS BRIEF – Georgia POTUS Eligibility Cases."
Leo Donofrio
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Bravo
Been biting my tongue since I found out about it. I am reading it very closely right now. That man is brilliant.
Unfortunately, Leo didn’t address Chief Justice Cockburn’s 1869 treatise, “Nationality”.
“By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled, or merely temporarily sojourning in the country, was an English subject; save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality.”
And
“The law of the United States of America agrees with our own. The law of England as to the effect of the place of birth in the matter of nationality became the law of America as part of the law of the mother country, with the original settlers carried with them.”
He also didn’t address the statements made by William Rawle and St. George Tucker in their respective legal treatise on the U.S. Constitution.
And he should have explained why the Founders continued to use the term “natural born subject” up into the 1790’s.
But he is right that the early English versions of Vattel did screw up the translation and that the US Constitution influenced the later version of the book.
Unfortunately, Leo didn’t address Chief Justice Cockburn’s 1869 treatise, “nationality”.
Chief Justice Cockburn’s word will have a lot of sway in a courtroom.
“By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled, or merely temporarily sojourning in the country, was an English subject; save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality.”
And
“The law of the United States of America agrees with our own. The law of England as to the effect of the place of birth in the matter of nationality became the law of America as part of the law of the mother country, with the original settlers carried with them.”
He also didn’t address the statements made by William Rawle and St. George Tucker in their respective legal treatise on the U.S. Constitution.
And he should have explained why the Founders continued to use the term “natural born subject” up into the 1790’s.
But he is right that the early English versions of Vattel did screw up the translation and that the US Constitution influenced the later version of the book.
Well, there's the trouble right there: The Resident is a Muslim, therefore Christian concepts do not apply to him.
I am still reading Leo’s Brief, but I can state right now that this is brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
I have seen comments here regarding the inclusion of additional material regarding the difference between Natural Born Subject (NBS) and Natural Born Citizen (NBC), First, the arguments he lays out so carefully is absolutely brilliant. He makes the argument so successfully that there is little need to belittle the court with citation after citation on the matter.
Leo makes this point so well, so simply. Folks, the big difference between NBS and NBC can be summed up like this: An NBS cannot EVER become the ruler of Britain, an NBC cab become POTUS. Why? Because a Monarch derives their position from a spiritual religious claim. The King or Queen derives their royalty from God, and is the head of the Church of England. In the United States, NBC is derived from loyalty to the Nation. While patterned after NBS, NBC is quite different and this stems from the separation of Church and State in our nation.
By further illustrating that there were classes of NBS which gave rights to those born to PARENTS (meaning 2) who were subjects and those who were born to aliens - non-subjects. There were real distinctions made, and rights were handed out accordingly. This is not and never has been the case in the United States where a Naturalized citizen is no different to a citizen.
Leo makes his points with a simple elegance that is easy to read, follow, and understand. What more could anyone ask?
Furthermore, though there is no limit to the page length of an Amicus Brief, there is one for the lawyers in the cases, 25 pages I think. Orly said somewhere on her site she was limited in time and length. So Leo, while he didn’t have such a limit, he may well have decided to be as succinct as possible.
What ever his reasons for not beating the court over the head with all the examples (and I don’t claim to know what those are), I think this brief is excellent. It should be required reading in Law Schools. It is brilliant in its tone, language, and outstanding in it’s research.
Leo, well done! Thank you for giving us our history back!!!
Just askin’ but why don’t federal election laws preempt state laws?
Well, that was a long and productive read!
I sincerely hope that the judge finds the time to read even just a little of this brief. It is exactly how I see Natural born as opposed to Citizen. Although both have the same rights as the other, none other than the Natural born can be Commander in Chief or Vice President for that matter.
Allegiance lies with the country. Owing allegiance to another country is counter productive. Obama never sides with the United States... I wonder why? Maybe because he was brought up to hate this country as his mother and grandparents did.
Well that was a most excellent brief. I don’t think I have ever read something so comprehensive spanning centuries of time on a single subject that had to be brought together in one place.
Leo’s brief should find its way in the reference libraries of the best legal scholars for all time. And those legal professors today who state the case has no merit or basis in fact look like grade school students compared to Leo’s amazing amicus.
I realize there is a mantra to the legal profession but I have wondered over the years how could any lawyer look someone straight in the eye and claim there is no rational reasoning in this issue.
I would have been tempted to add several things more. Like Chester burning all his papers and how he denied the rumors more than once. I would have been tempted to correlate the age of the president, 35, with the age countries can press one into military service. I would have railed on the media and the corruption of the government. I would have scolded the politicians and the society for allowing our history to be swept away.
But with grace and restraint, Leo wrote a masterpiece of history.
My own UN educated guess is that the secret Obama is hiding is not a Kenyan birth but that Obama Sr. is not the biological father. Just a hunch.
And if and when a Republican like Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal runs for president, the media will “discover” this fact and bring up the natural born citizen rule as argued by the brief. (This assumes that Obama’s biological father was not Obama Sr. but an American citizen.) They will spin it as a discovery Obama made about himself, and was hounded into disclosing by the evil right-wingers. And unless Rubio or Jindal runs in 2012 it won't make a difference to Obama anyway. If they could spin Clinton's crimes as no big deal, this should be easy. They will do whatever they have to do.
But that's just speculation, at best. I hope this case turns up some answers.