State of Indiana County of Jasper State of Indiana v.

Mark Spangler

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Cause No. 37C01-1106-IF-873 Jasper Circuit Court

ORDER When in the Course of Human events, it becomes necessary for one person to appear and to answer to the State to the accusations of failure to wear a seatbelt and failure for the passenger to wear a seatbelt, and to assume the witness stand to give account of ones actions, defenses and Constitutional arguments, the Constitution of the State of Indiana and of these Untied States of America entitle them to a fair and impartial trial and in accordance to the Constitutions (and to the decent respect to the opinions of mankind) the State is required to declare the causes against the person and to prove them accordingly. After two-hundred and twenty-two years of a Constitution and Bill of Rights, we hold these truths of the legal system to be self-evident: the State must prove the elements of an infraction beyond a preponderance of the evidence; that the statute upon which the allegations are based must be Constitutional; and that the accused must have his day in a fair and impartial Court.

To secure these rights Courts and the rule of law have been established among men deriving their powers from the statutes, the Constitution and the original fount of limited government, the Common Law. That whenever a statute or prosecution based upon a statute is unjust and destructive to these ends, it is the right of the litigant to challenge it so that it may be altered or abolished. Prudence indeed dictates that long established rules of law and statutes shall not be changed for light and transient causes and that the law often suffers some evils rather than by hastening to abolish the forms to which the law is accustomed unless a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design to reduce the laws and the rights of citizens to mere subjects of total despotism. To decide this case let the following facts be submitted to a candid world: She, Officer Klaus, had observed Mr. Spangler operating his truck at 5:43 p.m. at the intersection of College and Grove in Rensselaer, Indiana while conducting an Operation Pullover patrol. That said location is commonly known as the highway in front of the Pizza King (a King whose history is not replete with repeated injuries, usurpations and tyrannies but replete with tasty treats). She, Officer Klaus, had observed that neither the passenger, an adult female, nor the driver were wearing a seatbelt when she stopped them.

She, Officer Klaus, had issued the driver two uniform complaint and summons citations, one for his seatbelt and one for the failure of his adult passenger to wear her seatbelt. He, Mark Spangler, has admitted that he refuses to assent to the seatbelt law, arguing that it is not most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He, Mark Spangler, has admitted he and his passenger were not wearing their seatbelts at the time of the stop. He, Mark Spangler, argues that he was not doing anything else illegal and was obeying all laws but for the seatbelt law. She, Officer Klaus, agrees that he was only violating the seatbelt law. He, Mark Spangler, has testified that yesterday, the 4th of July, he and his family celebrated the independence of these United States and that to appear in Court today over a seatbelt ticket is a violation of his Constitutional rightsit is his choice to protect his person. He, Justice Sullivan, in Baldwin v. Reagan, 715 N.E.2d 332 (Ind. 1999), decided on July 6, 1999 that the seatbelt statute is Constitutional so long as the officers enforcing it follow Article 1 Sec. 11 of the Indiana Constitution which Officer Klaus did. He, Justice Sullivan, wrote that if the officer observes a person not wearing a seatbelt operating a vehicle the officer may stop the vehicle upon reasonable suspicion.

She, Judge Patricia Riley, wrote and held in Kelver v. State, 808 N.E.2d 154 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004), that the seatbelt law as applied to trucks and to drivers and passengers does not violate equal protection (equal privileges and immunities) and substantive due process as guaranteed by the Constitution. He, the undersigned judge, finds that therefore, the unconstitutionality argument must fail. She, the unnamed passenger in Mr. Spanglers car, by all accounts and evidence was an adult person of sound mind and capable of caring for herself. He, the undersigned judge, determines that the lex domicilii of this jurisdiction is that adults are generally responsible for themselves and their own actions. She, the deputy prosecuting attorney, for the State of Indiana has provided no authority that would allow this Court to impose sanctions against a driver for the adult passenger failing to wear her seatbelt. He, Sir William Blackstone, had commented long ago that: A
MAN may be principal in an offence in two degrees. a principal, in the firft degree, is he that is that is the actor, or abfolute perpetrator of the crime ; and, in the fecond degree, he who is prefent, aiding, and abetting the fact to be done Blackstones Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the Fourth, Chapter the Third: Of Principals and Accessories.

He, the undersigned judge, finds no evidence of clear intent by the Legislature to abrogate the common law or abolish the free system of laws

or fundamentally altering our form of jurisprudence so that adults are responsible at law for the failure of other adults to wear seatbelts in the car they are driving. Therefore, be it held and ordered that the State of Indiana has proven by a preponderance of the evidence that Mark Spangler has violated Ind. Code 9-19-10-2 because he failed to wear his seatbelt as required, judgment so entered. Be it further held and ordered that Mark Spangler is not liable to the State for the violation of his passenger for failing to wear her seatbelt and judgment is entered for Mr. Spangler, and against the State. Therefore as to the fine, the violation is a Class D Infraction, which allows a fine of up to twenty-five dollars per Indiana Law. Therefore it is held and ordered that the fine for the violation shall be two dollars ($2.00) payable within 14 days to the Clerk of the Court. The Court sincerely hopes and encourages Mr. Spangler to pay the fine with United States currency in the denominational amount of $2.00 with the portrait of President Jefferson on the front and the painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the back. Adopted and Ordered this 5th Day of July, 2011 by the undersigned Judge, John D. Potter, of the Jasper Circuit Court.

cc: State of Indiana Mark Spangler