Robert Lee White, Jr v. Warden E. Emmerich

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN

ROBERT LEE WHITE, JR, Plaintiff, OPINION and ORDER v.

26-cv-168-jdp WARDEN E. EMMERICH, Defendant.

Petitioner Robert Lee White, Jr, proceeding without counsel, is in the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) at the Federal Correctional Center in Oxford, Wisconsin.

White seeks a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, challenging his 2020 conviction for conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Petitioner has paid the filing fee and the petition is before the court for preliminary review under Rule 4 of the Rules governing Section 2254 Cases, which is appliable to § 2241 cases through Rule 1(b). Under Rule 4, I must dismiss the petition “if it plainly appears from the petition and any attached exhibits that the petitioner is not entitled to relief.” In reviewing this petition brought by an unrepresented petitioner, I must read the allegations generously, holding them to a less stringent standard than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers. Arnett v. Webster, 658 F.3d 742, 751 (7th Cir. 2011).

I will deny the petition as frivolous. White says that he is challenging the lack of “full disclosure” by the courts regarding “who the subject was” in his criminal case, and he says that following the 1933 “Emergency Banking Bankruptcy,” “all courts became military courts; meaning, the collateral became the People.” Dkt. 1, at 2. White raises no substantive challenge to his conviction or sentence other than long-discredited “sovereign citizen” theories of the government’s jurisdiction over individuals. The court of appeals has instructed district courts to summarily reject these theories, and I will do so here. See United States v. Benabe, 654 F.3d 753, 767 (7th Cir. 2011) (“Regardless of an individual’s claimed status of descent, be it as a ‘sovereign citizen,’ a ‘secured-party creditor,’ or a ‘flesh-and-blood human being,’ that person is not beyond the jurisdiction of the courts.”); Bey v. State of Indiana, 847 F.3d 559, 559–60 (7th Cir. 2017).

ORDER IT IS ORDERED that: 1. Petitioner Robert Lee White, Jr.’s petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, Dkt. 1, is DENIED, and this case is DISMISSED.

2. The clerk of court is directed to enter judgment for respondent and close this case.

Entered March 31, 2026.

BY THE COURT: /s/ ________________________________________ JAMES D. PETERSON District Judge