SAN FERNANDO : Unlicensed Driver Gets 6 Months Jail

A Sylmar man was sentenced Friday to six months in jail for driving without a license after he told the court he was a “sovereign citizen” of the Republic of California and not subject to state or federal law.

David Sanders, 37, received the maximum penalty for the misdemeanor offense after representing himself in a one-hour trial in San Fernando Municipal Court earlier this week.

He argued unsuccessfully that he subscribed to the Constitution of the former California Republic--an antebellum document that gave “free white males” status as “common-law citizens” and enabled them to “drive conveyances” without regulation.

Unpersuaded, Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt found Sanders guilty of driving without a license and driving an unregistered vehicle.

“He’s definitely a high-level eccentric,” said Deputy City Atty. Norman Wegener, who prosecuted the case.

Wegener said Sanders’ case is not unique. He appears to belong to a loose-knit group of people--many of them tax resisters--who share a rejection of contemporary law and federal power.

Others have appeared in court for similar traffic offenses and, like Sanders, have received jail sentences in an effort to deter them from what Wegener called potentially dangerous beliefs.

“It doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to think about what would happen if there was widespread driving of vehicles without any regulation or effort to ensure the drivers can see or even know what they are doing,” Wegener said. “We’d have complete carnage on the highways.”

Sanders was stopped in the Sylmar Square District on Aug. 25 after a Los Angeles police officer noticed he was driving without license plates. When the officer asked Sanders for his driver’s license, Sanders replied that he did not have one and “didn’t have to have one,” Wegener said.

Sanders was being held at Los Angeles County Jail in lieu of $15,000 bail and could not be reached for comment.