Arizona prison officials are making changes after admitting they wrongfully released prisoner David Cramer two decades early as a result of fraudulent court documents filed by his family. But Cramer’s daughters continue to deny they did anything wrong, arguing his release was legal.
State officials said the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry released Cramer in June after receiving what it believed were valid filings ordering his release from the Maricopa County Superior Court. In a social media post, one of Cramer’s daughters, Haven McQueen, talks about using those documents to secure Cramer’s release.
Law enforcement officers re-arrested Cramer in August after discovering those filings were not legitimate, and a Maricopa County judge later ruled the documents were fraudulent.
Court officials in Maricopa County, the state prison system and Arizona Attorney General’s Office are now conducting an investigation into the incident.
And Gov. Katie Hobbs said state officials are working on changes to ensure this type of situation doesn’t happen again, including improving communication between courts and the prison system and “having extra eyes” on release orders.
“We obviously are doing everything we can to ensure that this doesn’t happen again and figuring out where we need to plug gaps or whatever in the system so that it doesn’t happen again,” Hobbs said.
In a statement, the Department of Corrections confirmed it is making changes, though it declined to provide specific details, citing the ongoing investigation.
“In the immediate term, the Department has enhanced its review and verification processes in areas relevant to this matter,” according to the statement. “In addition, the Department is maintaining close communication with our partners in the Judicial Branch and other Criminal Justice entities, including the Attorney General’s Office.”
The State Bar of Arizona also filed a legal complaint against McQueen, her sister Paris Cramer and others associated with David Cramer’s business Black Canyon Enterprises for allegedly filing the fraudulent documents on his behalf and practicing law without legal authorization.
Family’s response
Since David Cramer’s arrest in August, his family has claimed they did nothing wrong.
“The documents in question are absolutely valid,” Paris Cramer claimed in an email to KJZZ News.
Paris Cramer denied she illegally operated as an attorney, saying she was an “attorney-in-fact” for her father. That refers to a person who is authorized to act on behalf of another person but not necessarily authorized to practice law, according to Cornell Law School.
Paris Cramer also said they followed proper procedures whenever they filed documents in her father’s case, including three documents ordering a dismissal of charges and David Cramer’s release that were later invalidated by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sunita Cairo.
That includes submitting the documents to the Maricopa County Clerk of Superior Court for authentication and processing. That’s when the clerk attached a final attestation page to the documents that included signatures from Maricopa County Superior Court judges, verifying the authenticity of the documents, Cramer said.
“That’s not fraud, that’s literally the process,” Cramer said in her email.
Both the Clerk’s Office and Cairo disagreed that filing the purported orders through the clerk legitimized the orders.
“Defendant David Cramer created and filed fake minute entries with the Clerk of the Court claiming that the Presiding Judge was ordering his release,” Cairo wrote in her August order invalidating the documents that claimed to exonerate and release Cramer.
And, back in 2019, the Clerk’s Office sent a letter to Black Canyon Enterprises threatening to refer the matter to law enforcement if they didn’t stop filing fake orders.
‘Common law’
The Cramers’ defense appears to be rooted in “common law,” a term that has roots dating back to 12th-century England. But, in modern America, it can refer to a legal theory connected to the sovereign citizen movement.
“In the sovereign worldview, ‘common law’ refers to a legal structure that is validated by the
Constitution and/or biblical or divine mandate,” according to a 2016 paper by J.M. Berger, a researcher who studies extremism. “To sovereigns, common law supersedes the illegitimate laws currently effective in the United States.”
That’s because they believe that, at some point, the U.S. government replaced the common law system with the current judicial system, according to an article in the Penn State Law review.
Christine Sarteschi, a professor of social work and criminology at Chatham University who specializes in the sovereign citizen movement, said that interpretation is flawed.
“They're citing real legal ideas, but then misinterpreting them to benefit them in some kind of way,” she said. “And no court that I'm aware of has ever said, ‘Yes, you're right about that idea. It's valid and, therefore, we're going to rule in your favor.’”
In an email to KJZZ , Paris Cramer argued “common law” is rooted in Article III of the U.S. Constitution.
“When we file in court, we are invoking that Article III authority,” Paris Cramer wrote.
In an interview with the Arizona Republic, Cramer’s family cited books by John Darash, who established the New York-based National Liberty Alliance, an organization that argues “America is a common law Republic” and publishes books and courses on the topic.
While common law is connected to the anti-government sovereign citizen movement, according to researchers, Darash has denied he is a sovereign citizen and the Cramers did not mention that movement in any correspondence with KJZZ.
Attorney Caesar Kalinowski wrote that the sovereign citizen movement evolved from a combination of several other movements, including common-law courts, according to an article published in the Montana Law Review in 2019.
The exact definition of common law among its advocates can vary from person to person, Berger noted.
The Cramers have argued it gives them the power to file their own orders with the court if they follow the procedures Paris Cramer outlined in her email to KJZZ.
“A Court of Record operating under common law, is bound to recognize lawful filings and petitions. We acted fully within our rights as the people to invoke this process,” Paris Cramer wrote. “Attempts to delegitimize these filings are in fact attempts to delegitimize our constitutional protections.”
Sarteschi, the professor, said courts generally take steps to flag meritless filings, and that there are usually distinct signs that documents filed under the common law theory are not legitimate.
But she said that people unfamiliar with sovereign citizens and related movements may not know what to look for and courts can be inundated with questionable filings in those cases.
“And a court system that's already overwhelmed, maybe there needs to be a better effort to prevent this material from getting in to begin with,” she said.
