Operation Checkmate — Advanced Overview

Looking for the friendly version? See README.md for a plain-language summary, real-world examples, and an FAQ aimed at the average citizen. This document is the section-by-section technical walk-through for readers who want the full structure, classifications, and cross-references.

A draft accountability statute for government actors — written to make those clothed with the power and authority of the state answerable to the same standard of truth and conscience that ordinary citizens live by.

Status: Working draft. Not legal advice. Has not been reviewed by counsel.

The bill text lives in bill_proposal.md — a single, continuously evolving draft. Earlier drafts are preserved in the git history of this repository.

Key terms and phrases used in the bill are now defined directly in Section 1 (Definitions) of bill_proposal.md, with full case authorities listed in Section L.

Citizens who prefer to engage with the bill through an AI assistant can download the latest PDF from https://github.com/killerdevildog/checkmate/releases/latest and upload it to a new ChatGPT / Claude / Grok / Gemini chat — the PDF is well under 1 MB and fits inside the upload limit of every major AI chat. It contains the full bill, including Section 1 definitions and Section L case authorities.

What's New About This Bill

The biggest shifts:

No more immunity for unlawful power. Judges, prosecutors, and other officials can no longer hide behind judicial, prosecutorial, qualified, sovereign, or analogous immunity when they violate rights. Immunity, if recognized at all, applies only to legitimate lawful authority, not unconstitutional, malicious, retaliatory, coercive, obstructive, or due-process-violating conduct.
A way to actually prosecute. The bill creates Citizen Councils: twelve or more citizens can investigate government actors, sign a Joint Declaration of Prosecution, and trigger mandatory prosecution by the County Prosecutor or, if necessary, the Governor's Office.
Juries explain themselves and can ask questions. Convicting jurors must write down their reasoning on every item of evidence, and jurors have a protected right to ask questions of the prosecution, defense, or both without being punished or removed for disagreement.
Six verdict options. Juries can convict, convict with refinement, convict-and-forgive, find innocent, find unequivocally innocent, or acquit without stated reason.
Inmates included. Every inmate receives a printed copy of the law within 24 hours of intake, and inmates may form Citizen Councils to investigate the people and institutions governing their custody.
Foreign money out of Utah politics. Lobbyists active in Utah must be Utah residents with Utah-sourced funding; out-of-state or foreign-funded influence routed into Utah lawmaking is treated as a form of cabalism.
Citizens can nullify bad laws. A unanimous 12-member Council can require immediate review of statutes, regulations, or ordinances that conflict with the U.S. Constitution, the Utah Constitution, or another law in force.
Citizens can correct unjust convictions. A unanimous 18-member Council can nullify a conviction, reduce it, spare a person from the death penalty, or extend public forgiveness restoring civil and political rights.
The presumption of innocence becomes operational. Prosecutors have affirmative criminally enforceable duties to disclose adverse evidence directly to the jury, stop prosecuting when innocence is known or recklessly disregarded, and seek reduction or dismissal when the charge no longer fits the evidence.
Judges become accountable for impartiality and engagement. Judges have enforceable duties to recuse from conflicts, engage with evidence and law on the merits, avoid ex parte communications, and apply mandatory rules correctly and correct errors when discovered.
Repugnant government instruments are null on day one. Warrants, judgments, orders, agency policies, practices, regulations, subpoenas, administrative actions, and other government instruments that conflict with this Act or constitutional authority are null and void within Utah.
Citizens can object to unconstitutional enforcement in the moment. If a citizen tells an official that the law, order, or policy being used is unconstitutional, void, repugnant, or unenforceable, the official must engage in good faith instead of brushing it off.
Government cannot hide behind unnamed policy. Officials who say "policy requires it" must identify the actual policy and lawful authority; refusing to do so is treated as a Policy Shield Statement offense.
Recording government is protected everywhere. Officials may not stop, threaten, detain, cite, arrest, remove, block, seize a device, delete data, or retaliate against a citizen for recording government actors in public-power settings.
Everyday intimidation tactics get names. The bill adds accountability hooks for refusing to identify, mocking rights invocations, staged intimidation, command presence without lawful basis, and failing to activate or preserve required recordings.
Retaliation through process is criminalized. The bill names retaliation-by-process as Process-Stacking Retaliation and reaches charge fabrication, welfare checks, inspections, subpoenas, probation holds, protective-order manipulation, citations, and other process piles used against rights assertion.
Complaint systems cannot be used as a shield. Complaint Intake Refusal reaches officials who refuse, delay, discourage, misroute, fail to log, or fail to give receipts for citizen complaints against government actors.
Poverty and homelessness cannot be treated as crimes. Status-Based Survival Enforcement reaches enforcement against unavoidable survival conduct by people who are homeless, poor, disabled, ill, or without lawful alternatives.
Revenue schemes are treated as official misconduct. Revenue Extraction Under Color of Law targets fines, fees, warrants, surcharges, impound costs, probation costs, court debt, collection practices, and license suspensions used primarily to generate money or impose poverty-based control.
Property cannot be punished without conviction. Property Punishment Without Conviction targets civil-forfeiture-style abuse where property is seized, retained, forfeited, or burdened without a conviction tied to the property.
The bill reaches child welfare, school, juvenile, and family-court abuse. New offenses target removals, safety plans, coerced services, school discipline, truancy, juvenile detention, and family restrictions based on poverty, disability, housing instability, inaccessible services, or ordinary childhood behavior rather than real danger.
Custody now carries affirmative care duties. Custodial Medical Abandonment reaches denial of medical care, medication, disability accommodation, mental-health care, suicide prevention, withdrawal care, hygiene, food, water, safe housing, or protection from known violence; Custodial Sexual Domination treats sexual exploitation under custody or supervision as a capital offense.
Bail, probation, parole, and monitoring get checked. Wealth-Based Liberty Denial, Technical-Violation Incarceration Abuse, and Electronic Custody Abuse target jail, supervision, monitoring, and restraints imposed without real justification or because a person cannot pay.
Evidence systems have to serve truth. The bill adds Public-Record Spoliation, Forensic Truth Corruption, and Wrongful-Conviction Chain Liability so failures to preserve records, forensic overstatement, hidden uncertainty, and chain-of-actor wrongful convictions become reachable.
Courts and defense systems are no longer paper rights. Court Access Burdening, Constructive Denial of Counsel, and Guardianship Rights Plunder target court barriers, public-defense systems that fail in practice, and court-controlled stripping of rights from elders and disabled citizens.
Modern government tools are covered too. Algorithmic Authority Abuse reaches risk scores, automated flags, AI systems, database matches, predictive tools, fraud detectors, and vendor systems used against citizens without disclosure, validation, human review, contestability, and proof of reliability.
Silence-by-system is treated as abuse. Constructive Denial Under Color of Office, Language-Access Obstruction, Victim-Service Abandonment, and Protected-Speech Suppression reach bureaucratic runaround, language barriers, biased non-investigation, and punishment of speech, recording, religion, protest, petitioning, association, press activity, or criticism of government.
Due process is government by law, not office habit. Due process is stated as supremacy of law over policy, custom, personal authority, and institutional convenience; when government unlawfully creates a condition where a citizen must defend rights, the government actor is treated as initiating unlawful force.

What This Bill Introduces

A brief tour of the substantive provisions. See bill_proposal.md for the full text.

Statement of Intent

Three foundational principles that govern construction of the entire Act:

All Are Liable to Truth — every person is accountable to actual reality, not to the version of "truth" produced by those skilled in distorting it. There are no kings.
The Law Must Be Logically Consistent — with reality, and with itself. Internal contradictions in current law have been left to the judiciary alone to resolve, producing a lack of actual justice in this country, state, and county.
Stop Government Corruption; Protect the Average Citizen — the Act is intended to protect citizens without money, power, status, or institutional access; not to protect those who already enjoy such advantages.

Who Counts as a "Government Actor" (Section 1.1)

Federal officers (FBI, DEA, ICE, etc.), peace officers, sheriffs, judges, prosecutors, mayors, city council members, school officials, regulators, code enforcement, CPS/APS workers, and a catch-all for anyone exercising state power. Plus:

§1.1.1 — Collective bodies and conspiracy: city councils, school boards, and similar bodies are treated as collective government actors. Each member who voted for or ratified violating action is individually liable; dissenters who object on the record are not.
§1.1.2 — Entity-level actors: any department or agency at any level of government is itself a government actor — federal, state, county, municipal, or special district. Includes all executive departments, regulatory agencies, licensing/professional boards, independent agencies, quasi-governmental corporations and authorities, school districts, special districts, police and corrections agencies, court systems, and any body that exercises state power or disburses public funds (form/name/budget line is irrelevant — substance controls). Entity liability is separate from and cumulative to individual liability. Express prohibition on using entity funds to indemnify individuals found liable.
§1.1.3 — Jurors as actors: a juror exercising state power to determine guilt is a government actor. Wrongful convictions where 2+ jurors knew or recklessly disregarded clear evidence of innocence are presumptively chargeable as conspiracy.

Due Process and Jury Reform (Section 2)

Two of the most procedurally significant additions:

§2.A — Supremacy of Law as Due Process: due process means government by law, not by office habit, policy, fear, convenience, or personal judgment. It cites Article VI, Marbury v. Madison, and Murray's Lessee to frame due process as law over men. Policy is not a defense. Failure to perform an affirmative duty is failure to serve, criminally enforceable, with a Class 3 felony default unless a more specific section controls.
§2.B — Constitutional rights in government context: constitutional protected rights exist to protect citizens from government power. A public servant acting in official capacity cannot claim private speech, conscience, opinion, association, privacy, or search-and-seizure rights as a defense to official misconduct or as a shield for public records and official conduct.
§2.C — Right to defense context: when a government actor unlawfully creates a condition where a citizen must reasonably consider defending rights, liberty, property, family, livelihood, bodily safety, government process, or access to justice, the government actor is treated as initiating unlawful force.
§2.1.1 — Juror rights and verdict options: six available verdicts a jury must be informed of: Guilty, Guilty with Refinement, Guilty and Forgiven (jury nullification with affirmative forgiveness), Innocent, Unequivocally Innocent (affirmative actual-innocence finding that bars retrial), and Acquittal Without Stated Reason. Jurors have the right to refuse joint deliberation, the right to a separate private deliberation room, the right to ask questions of the prosecutor/defense/both without retaliation or removal, and the right against removal for disagreement.
§2.1.2 — Mandatory juror documentation: no conviction is legitimate unless each convicting juror has personally written a record addressing every item of evidence and explaining the reasoning for finding each element beyond a reasonable doubt. Jurors get as much time as required, no matter how long it takes. Without this record, the accused cannot meaningfully appeal on the facts. A judge who knowingly seats a juror unable or unwilling to perform this, or fails to reasonably inquire, commits obstruction of justice.
§2.1.3 — Crimes applicable to jurors: wrongful conviction by jurors is chargeable where jurors knowingly or recklessly disregard clear evidence of innocence or vote to convict without the required factual and legal basis.

New Offenses

§1.2 Assault (Government Context) — Class 3 felony. Coercive utterances, commands, or actions that put a citizen in fear of having to defend their rights, including the need to defend rights in court.
§1.3 Battery (Government Context) — Class 2 felony or higher. Actual deprivation, restraint, harm, or violation of rights by direct action.
§1.4 Infraction (Government Context) — infraction, escalating to Class 1 misdemeanor on repeat or pattern. The lower-tier behaviors: smirks, scowls, "you're too close" when the citizen isn't, gestures or posture used to pressure a citizen into surrendering lawful conduct.
§1.6 Cabalism — Class 2 felony. Small groups of government actors coordinating, openly or secretly, to control public affairs in ways that produce unjust outcomes — fear, profit, unjust laws, suppression of dissent, family-impact enforcement (e.g., child support calibrated to leave a parent unable to thrive), or property/livelihood-impact action.
§1.7 Government Racketeering — Class 2 felony (Class 1 for patterns). Combinations of public officials using authority to intimidate or compel unlawful payment — civil-fine schemes, asset forfeiture without conviction, ticketing quotas, pay-to-play, coordinated regulatory harassment.
§1.8 Obstruction of Justice (Selective Non-Prosecution) — class mirrors the underlying unprosecuted offense (Class 2 floor; capital if the underlying was capital). A government official who fails to prosecute, arrest, or charge a private person because of that person's title, status, group affiliation (state agent, church, fraternal order, corporation, club, political ally) commits obstruction.
§1.9 Treason — capital offense. War against the state — meaning war against the actual citizens of Utah and the United States, the U.S. Constitution, or the Utah Constitution. Defines "the state" not as a corporate abstraction but as the citizens and the constitutions themselves. Recognizes that war is waged not only by arms but also through financial burden, taxation, regulation, and economic coercion — with categories for financial warfare (taxes/fees calibrated to break citizens), constitutional warfare (sustained subversion by sworn officials), regulatory warfare, procedural warfare, information warfare, and traditional armed insurrection. Requires sustained or coordinated conduct.
§1.10 Anarchy — Class 2 felony. A government actor who acts completely outside the law — exercising or invoking public office without any statutory, regulatory, ordinance, common-law, court-order, or constitutional basis. Internal policy purporting to authorize the conduct is not a defense, because policy that authorizes lawless conduct is itself lawless. Distinct from offenses that exceed authority within a recognized framework (those go to §§1.2, 1.3, 1.4); pattern conduct may be elevated to Treason, Cabalism, or Government Racketeering.
§1.11 Foreign-Funded Lobbying — A Form of Cabalism — Class 2 felony (elevates to Treason for sustained patterns). The average Utah citizen is not represented by a paid lobbyist. Lobbyists active in Utah must be Utah residents, and funding for their work must come from Utah-domiciled individuals or institutions — not from other states, foreign countries, or foreign capital routed through intermediaries or shell entities. Both the lobbyist and any government actor who knowingly receives or acts on foreign-funded lobbying are liable. Mandatory public disclosure of every funding source, traced through any chain of intermediaries. Constituent contact by Utah residents, Utah-funded business advocacy, news reporting, and sworn testimony are expressly carved out.
§1.12 Terrorism (Government Context) — capital offense. A government actor uses any form of terror — threat, intimidation, coercion, or pressure — to target a citizen's financial, family, business, physical, liberty, or reputational wellbeing. Express categories: threats to take a citizen's children (also charged as kidnapping when carried out); threats of financial ruin via audit / asset forfeiture / civil penalties / regulatory fines; threats of unlawful prosecution / arrest / detention; threats of license or permit revocation to coerce compliance; threats against family members and associates; sustained surveillance, harassment, or stalking. "Just doing my job" and "technically authorized by statute" are not defenses where the authority was used as an instrument of coercion.
§1.13 Official Intimidation — Class 3 felony by default, with Class 1 misdemeanor available for mild and isolated conduct based on severity and pattern. The lesser tier between Infraction and Assault: government-actor conduct that causes undue anxiety, fear, or distress to a citizen without rising to immediate fear-of-rights-defense (Assault) or systematic terror (Terrorism). Examples: repeated unsolicited contact, vague or veiled threats of consequences, drawn-out investigations to wear down resistance, bureaucratic runaround to discourage exercise of rights, threatened publication of citizen information, excessive display of authority designed to intimidate. Pattern conduct elevates to Terrorism.

Prosecutorial duties — protecting the presumption of innocence (§§2.2.1.1 through 2.2.1.2):

A grouped trio of prosecutorial-conduct offenses with a shared statement of intent: making the presumption of innocence operational, not aspirational.

§2.2.1.1 Prosecutorial Duty to Disclose Adverse Evidence — class mirrors the underlying offense being prosecuted with a Class 2 felony floor (per §1.8 obstruction framework). A prosecutor must disclose to the jury, in open court, all evidence in their possession that would render the prosecution's claim false, establish innocence, mitigate the offense, or impeach a prosecution witness. Disclosure to defense counsel alone is not sufficient — the jury must hear it. Continuing duty: applies pre-trial, mid-trial, and post-conviction. Codifies and expands Brady v. Maryland (373 U.S. 83 (1963)) by requiring affirmative jury disclosure rather than mere defense disclosure, and by attaching criminal liability to violations rather than only the remedy of vacatur.
§1.14 Malicious Prosecution — capital offense under this title. A government actor who continues prosecution after knowing or recklessly disregarding clear evidence the citizen is innocent. Includes continued prosecution after exculpatory evidence, witness recantation, third-party confession, or for political/personal/financial/institutional reasons unrelated to truth. Conviction-resulting cases also charge the actor as co-conspirator with any liable jurors under §2.1.3. Prosecutorial, qualified, judicial, sovereign, and analogous immunity do not apply.
§2.2.1.2 Duty to Seek Reduction or Dismissal — Class 3 felony where the prosecutor knows facts warranting reduction or dismissal and fails to act; capital where failure causes the citizen's death. Continuing duty — pre-trial, mid-trial, post-trial, and post-conviction (years later if necessary) — to seek reduction or dismissal when the charge does not fit the evidence, the accused is factually innocent, or material evidence has changed. Triggers include new exculpatory evidence, third-party confession, unsupported elements, recognition that the conduct was not criminal, or subsequent legal developments. Duty binds successor prosecutors who inherit cases. Failure is independently chargeable from any other failure; ordinary appellate relief is not a substitute.

Judicial duties — maintaining the integrity of the court (§§2.3.1.1 through 2.3.1.4):

A grouped set of judicial-conduct offenses preceded by a statement of intent: making judicial impartiality, engagement, and procedural integrity criminally enforceable rather than merely aspirational. "The robe is not a license. It is a constraint." Judicial immunity does not apply (§5.1.1).

§2.3.1.1 Judicial Duty of Impartiality and Recusal — Class 2 felony (Class 1 with malice; pattern is Cabalism / Racketeering). Affirmative, continuing duty to disqualify from cases involving personal/financial/professional/political/familial interest, prior fixed opinion on the merits, or relationships creating reasonable appearance of bias. Judge must disclose grounds on the record without waiting to be asked. Concealing grounds = Class 2 felony. Convictions/judgments entered after a failure-to-recuse are presumptively subject to vacatur.
§2.3.1.2 Judicial Duty to Engage on the Merits — reckless prosecution or Anarchy under §1.10 depending on the conduct. Prohibits rubber-stamping prosecutorial/law-enforcement requests (warrants, charges, sentencing recommendations) without independent evaluation; requires reasoned written rulings sufficient for appellate or Citizen Council review; bars verbatim adoption of a party's proposed findings without independent review. Pattern conduct may be additionally charged as Cabalism (§1.6) or Government Racketeering (§1.7).
§2.3.1.3 Prohibition on Ex Parte Communications — graduated liability: Class 3 felony (negligent / single contact), Class 2 felony (intentional), capital offense (malicious or pattern). Bars substantive ex parte communications about pending matters with parties, prosecutors, witnesses, or third parties. Permitted: routine scheduling, statutorily-permitted communications, and the court's own clerks. Rulings materially influenced by prohibited ex parte communications are presumptively subject to vacatur.
§2.3.1.4 Judicial Duty to Apply Mandatory Rules and Correct Errors — graduated liability by mens rea. Affirmative, continuing duty to correctly apply the mandatory rules of this title and to correct errors when discovered, by either the judge who erred or any successor. Independently chargeable from any other failure.

Protected Rights (§1.5)

The "rights" covered by the Act are construed broadly — UN human-rights treaties (UDHR, ICCPR, ICESCR), the U.S. Constitution including the Ninth Amendment's unenumerated rights, every state constitution, and any right recognized at common law, by tradition, or by natural-law principle, whether written or unwritten. Express examples: speech, religion, keeping and bearing arms, parenting, movement, security against unreasonable searches, due process, assembly, bodily autonomy, privacy, livelihood, property. Ambiguity is resolved in favor of the citizen.

Mens Rea, Knowing, and Defenses (Sections 3, 4, and 6)

§3 — Mens rea: criminal and civil. The Act uses two tracks: criminal mens rea and civil mens rea. Both use the same culpability words — negligent, reckless, intentional, and malicious — but the consequence and burden of proof differ. The default minimum for criminal liability is reckless unless a specific offense classifies negligence, failure to serve, infractions, or negligent official conduct as criminally enforceable.
§3.1.1 — Reasonable defined for government actors. "Reasonable" in relation to a government actor means logical, right-minded, constitutionally aware, and capable of checking actual lawfulness. It does not mean office custom, policy, training habit, status quo, or what officials usually do. It is separate from the ordinary "reasonable person" standard.
§3.4.1 — Beyond a reasonable doubt defined. Criminal proof must leave the trier of fact firmly convinced of every element and the required criminal mens rea. Reasonable doubt may arise from evidence gaps, contradiction, credibility problems, constitutional irregularity, or unreliable procedure; it cannot be imaginary or based on protecting government actors from accountability.
§4 — Knowing and cognate terms. "Knowing" is not the same as "intentional." The Act creates a knowledge ladder: should have known by reason/logic/objective reality; should have known by nature of office; ignored a substantial risk; actually knew; full knowledge. Supreme Court "ignorance of the law is no excuse" authorities support the no-subjective-ignorance rule for government actors exercising state power.
§5.1 — No immunity for violations. Qualified, judicial, prosecutorial, sovereign, legislative, executive, and analogous immunities do not apply to violations under this title. Immunity doctrines, to the extent recognized at all, apply only to legitimate lawful authority — not unconstitutional, unlawful, ultra vires, malicious, retaliatory, coercive, obstructive, due-process-violating, or Act-violating conduct.
§5.3 — Public Servant Status. A government actor cannot invoke personal rights (free speech, expression, opinion, privacy) as a defense to official conduct; the badge constrains rather than expands rights.
§5.4 — Private-capacity not a shield. Conversely, an actor cannot escape Council jurisdiction by claiming they were off-duty when the conduct constituted a crime under generally applicable law.

Penalty Enhancements (§7)

Penalties may be enhanced where the victim was detained or unable to leave, multiple actors participated, the act caused long-term deprivation of rights, the violation produced suicidal ideation, extreme anxiety/fear/distress for the victim's own welfare or the welfare of family, or diagnosable psychological harm.

Hearsay and Equal Use of Statement Evidence (Section 8)

The Act creates a new top-level hearsay section. The rule is symmetry: statement evidence cannot be treated as reliable when used against a citizen and unreliable when used for the citizen.

§8.1 Purpose — explains the historical concern behind hearsay (the original speaker is out of court, not under oath, and not subject to cross-examination) while identifying the modern problem: prosecution-friendly hearsay is often admitted while defense-favorable hearsay is excluded
§8.2 Representation of truth — states that a spoken or written statement is a representation of truth, not truth itself; when a witness says "I heard him say..." the fact testified to is that the witness heard the statement, while credibility and weight remain for the trier of fact
§8.3 Equal use rule — any statement category admitted against a citizen must be equally available to the citizen for defense, mitigation, impeachment, context, innocence, explanation, or proof of government misconduct
§8.4 Defense-favorable statement evidence — makes statements admissible for innocence, mitigation, coercion, bias, retaliation, psychological harm, suicidal ideation, government notice, rights violations, and related purposes
§8.5 Government admissions — statements by government actors about official conduct, public duty, enforcement, records, policy, custody, prosecution, or rights compliance are admissible against the actor, office, agency, or government body that adopted or relied on them
§8.6 No one-way exception — hearsay exceptions and evidentiary shortcuts may not operate only in favor of prosecution or government
§8.7 Confrontation and reliability — preserves confrontation rights while preventing the government from invoking a citizen's confrontation right to block defense-favorable evidence
§8.8 One-way hearsay suppression — criminalizes knowingly or recklessly using hearsay rules asymmetrically; Class 3 felony baseline, Class 2 where it affects charging, plea, conviction, custody, family separation, or similar harms, and capital where it contributes to wrongful conviction, prolonged incarceration, death, suicide, or serious bodily injury

Citizen Council — Activation of Prosecution (Section 9)

The mechanism that makes the rest of the Act enforceable against those who control existing prosecutorial gatekeeping.

§9.1 Formed outside the judicial process — a self-organized assembly of citizens; no court filing, judicial authorization, or government approval needed to convene. "Jurisdiction" includes the county where conduct occurred, municipalities within that county, adjacent municipalities, and adjacent counties whose citizens are reasonably affected by or exposed to the office or actor under review.
§9.2 Composition — twelve or more citizens of the jurisdiction; excludes government actors, recent (5-year) employees of the implicated office, and immediate family/dependents of the named actor
§9.3 Joint Declaration of Prosecution — the single instrument that activates the prosecutorial obligation, signed under oath by 12+ Council members and filed with the County Prosecutor and Office of the Governor
§9.4 No judicial officer required, no judicial gatekeeping — courts and the Judicial Conduct Commission cannot quash a Declaration or impose pre-filing screening
§9.5 Mandatory prosecution — County Prosecutor (or Municipal Prosecutor where applicable) must prosecute; Governor's Office is the fallback if they decline, conflict, or sit on it 30+ days. Prosecutorial discretion to decline is limited to demonstrable conflict of interest or facial factual insufficiency
§9.6 Petitioner protections — anti-retaliation; identities kept confidential among Council members
§9.7 Public record and annual reporting — every Declaration and prosecutorial response is public; Governor's Office publishes annual transparency report
§9.8 Council Declarations — written declarations signed by 12+ Council members, including Declarations of Production of Records, Warrant, and Arrest. Production declarations compel government records, evidence, and effects without judicial subpoena; warrant and arrest declarations involving private-capacity rights go through judicial review under the same standard used for police submissions.
§9.9 No state interference; obstruction = Class 2 felony — express ban on civil suit, criminal prosecution, administrative penalties, judicial orders, surveillance, or retaliation against Councils, members, or witnesses. Judicial officers issuing interfering orders are personally liable (no immunity)
§9.10 Investigation of any crime by a government actor — Council jurisdiction reaches federal/state/county/municipal offenses, both conduct under color of law and conduct in private capacity (off-duty crimes by government actors that any private citizen would be liable for). Federal-crime routing to the U.S. Attorney plus federal grand-jury presentation
§9.11 Investigative authority; indictment effect; filing in state court — full investigative powers including witness summonses, on-site review with sheriff assistance, expert/forensic analysis. A filed Joint Declaration has the legal force of a grand-jury indictment — commences criminal action without further presentment or judicial probable-cause finding
§9.12 Distribution to inmates; inmate investigative authority — every inmate at any federal/state/county/municipal facility receives a printed copy of the statute within 24 hours of intake. Inmates have the same Council powers as any citizen and may form Inmate Citizen Councils; transfer cannot be used to disrupt Council activity; communication and disciplinary protections enhanced
§9.13 Minimum age 14 for active Council participation (signing/voting); under-14s remain protected by all substantive provisions and may serve as witnesses
§9.14 Logical Consistency Review (12-member unanimous Council) — Council can require immediate judicial review of any statute, regulation, or ordinance that is logically inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution (Article VI Supremacy Clause), the Utah Constitution, or another in-force statute. Reviewing judge must engage on the merits in writing; cannot decline on grounds of tradition ("it's the way it's always been done"), stare decisis where applying it would perpetuate the inconsistency, inconvenience, or deference to the enacting legislature. Established inconsistencies are nullified and removed from the books within 30 days. Refusal to engage is Anarchy (§1.10), reckless prosecution, or Obstruction (§1.8) — judicial immunity does not apply
§9.15 Conviction Review (18-member unanimous Council) — Council can nullify a conviction (legal effect of acquittal, bars retrial), reduce it, spare the convicted from the death penalty, or extend public forgiveness restoring civil and political rights and barring collateral consequences. Filing takes immediate effect, subject only to the court's verification of procedural compliance (composition, unanimity, signatures under oath, conflict-of-interest exclusions). Council may not increase a sentence or class. A parallel safeguard for cases the appellate system has failed to correct; not a substitute for ordinary appeal. Refusal by the court of conviction is Anarchy / reckless prosecution / Obstruction

Retroactive Civil Applicability and No Statute of Limitations (§10)

§10.1 Civil cause of action for prior conduct — conduct before the Act's effective date can be brought as a civil action
§10.3 No statute of limitations on either civil or criminal actions; retirement, resignation, change of office, or death of the actor does not bar prosecution; civil claims survive against the actor's estate; laches and repose explicitly disallowed

Forfeiture of State Benefits, Office, and Contracts (§11)

A government actor found guilty under this title forfeits all state-derived benefits — pensions, health/welfare benefits, service credits, honors — and is permanently ineligible for any law enforcement, judicial, prosecutorial, regulatory, or elected position. Existing and future government contracts held directly or through a controlling/beneficial interest in any business entity are also forfeited, including indirect arrangements (subcontracts, consulting).

Death of a Citizen Resulting from Violation (§12)

Where a private citizen takes their own life as a direct or proximate result of conduct violating this title, the violation is a capital offense. Other resulting deaths are subject to the maximum penalty otherwise available, with Section 7 enhancements.

Severability and Effective Date (§§13, 14)

Standard severability clause. Effective date to be determined; civil retroactivity available beginning on the effective date for all prior conduct.

Constitutional Amendment, Supremacy, and Entrenchment (§15)

Where this Act conflicts with or supplements the Constitution of the State of Utah, it operates as an amendment to that Constitution upon adoption (subject to ratification under Article XXIII or other applicable procedure).

The Act is entrenched against adverse amendment: once adopted, it cannot be edited, altered, narrowed, or interpreted in any way that would (a) diminish the common citizen's access to justice; (b) create financial, procedural, or institutional barriers that make redress difficult — particularly for citizens without money, status, or institutional access; (c) restore qualified/judicial/sovereign immunity; (d) weaken the Citizen Council mechanism; (e) restore any statute of limitations; (f) limit forfeiture or restore indemnification; (g) diminish protected rights; (h) narrow the age-14 participation floor; or (i) otherwise tilt access, cost, or complexity against the common citizen and in favor of money, power, status, or institutional position. Adverse amendments are void ab initio.

Permitted amendments are those that strengthen citizen protection, expand reachable conduct, remove immunities, lower citizen burden, or increase transparency. Amendment for the benefit of the citizen is encouraged; amendment for the convenience of government actors or institutional defendants is prohibited.

Any citizen has standing to challenge an adverse amendment without showing personal injury beyond Utah citizenship. Officials who advance, sponsor, vote for, or implement an adverse amendment may be liable under §1.7 (Racketeering), §1.9 (Treason), or §1.10 (Anarchy). A Citizen Council may investigate and issue a Joint Declaration of Prosecution for such conduct.

§15.7 was substantially expanded to clarify (a) that where this Act provides citizens greater protection than federal law it controls within Utah without need for preemption analysis (citing PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins (1980), California v. Greenwood (1988)); (b) that improper federal nullification of this Act — without identification of an actual specific preemptive federal provision — is reachable as Anarchy / Reckless Prosecution / Cabalism / Racketeering / Treason; (c) that the same federal-judge conduct creates dual concurrent liability under both the federal grand-jury route (§9.10(a)) and Utah criminal code (this Act), grounded in the dual-sovereignty doctrine (United States v. Lanza (1922), Abbate v. United States (1959), Bartkus v. Illinois (1959), Heath v. Alabama (1985), Gamble v. United States (2019)); and (d) that In re Neagle (1890) is abrogated for offenses defined in this title — federal officer status is not a shield from Utah criminal prosecution.

Nullity of Repugnant Government Instruments (§16)

Any government instrument — federal, state, county, or municipal — that is repugnant to this Act, the Utah Constitution, or the U.S. Constitution is null and void within Utah and may not be enforced.

"Government instrument" includes warrants (search/arrest/bench/administrative), judgments and court orders, agency policies, formal or informal practices, memos and standing orders, regulations and rules, subpoenas and discovery orders, administrative actions (license revocation, permit denial, asset seizure), and any other formal or informal exercise of state or federal power affecting a citizen.

A citizen who refuses to comply with a null instrument is not civilly or criminally liable for that refusal. A government actor who issues, signs, enforces, threatens to enforce, or directs enforcement of a repugnant instrument commits an offense under this title — chargeable as Anarchy (§1.10), judicial-duty offenses under §2.3 where issued by a judge, Cabalism (§1.6) for small-group coordination, Government Racketeering (§1.7) for patterns, Treason (§1.9) for constitutional warfare, Obstruction (§1.8) for protected-status motivation, Terrorism (§1.12) or Official Intimidation (§1.13) where used to threaten or coerce, and Battery (§1.3) where enforcement actually deprives rights. Judicial / prosecutorial / qualified / sovereign immunity does not apply.

Repugnance may be determined by any court, by a unanimous 12-member Citizen Council under §9.14 Logical Consistency Review, or by any other Citizen Council under Section 9 in the course of investigating or charging conduct. The standard for repugnance covers (a) direct contradiction; (b) requiring a citizen to surrender or violate a protected right; (c) reliance on authority that does not exist or has been removed; (d) workaround or evasion of this Act; and (e) compliance that would itself violate this Act. Codifies and extends Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803): "a law repugnant to the Constitution is void" — applied to every form of government instrument, not statutes alone.

How to Sign On

If you support Operation Checkmate, send an email to:

Email: citizens.checkmate@gmail.com
Subject: CHECKMATE
Body: include your First and Last Name and Zip Code

Your first name + zip code submission constitutes an electronic signature in support of this petition. Aggregated counts (by zip, county, or state) may be published; full identity is not published without separate explicit consent.

Questions, edits, and feedback on the draft are welcome at the same address with the same subject line.

Version History

The bill is a continuously evolving draft maintained in bill_proposal.md. The full evolution — from the original sketch through every revision — is preserved in the git history of this repository (git log bill_proposal.md and the commit history of this repo as a whole).

Tagged PDF snapshots of milestone versions are published as GitHub Releases for distribution and review.

Latest published PDF snapshot: Draft Ver 5.8.5.

Disclaimer

This is a working draft of a proposed statute. It is not legal advice and has not been reviewed by counsel. Provisions described here are aspirational and would require formal legislative drafting, constitutional review, and adoption by the appropriate legislative body before having any legal effect.

FilesExpand file tree

advanced_readme.md

Latest commit

History