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Case No.
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
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CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
INTERNATIONAL, a California
nonprofit religious corporation,
Petitioner,
vs.
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA,
COUNTY OF MARIN,
Respondent.
GERALD ARMSTRONG,
Real Party in Interest.
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Appellate Court No. A107095
Consolidated with Case No.
A107100
Trial Judge: Hon Lynn M. Duryee
Marin County Superior Court
Case No. CV 021632
Consolidated with Case No.
157680/152229.
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I.
PETITION FOR REVIEW
TO THE HONORABLE CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE
HONORABLE
ASSOCIATE JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT
OF CALIFORNIA:
Gerry Armstrong, defendant and real party
in interest, respectfully petitions
for review following the unpublished
decision of the Court of Appeal, First
Appellate District, by Hon. Maria P.
Rivera, Associate Justice, filed on October
19, 2005.
II.
ISSUES PRESENTED FOR REVIEW
1. Whether any California courts have
jurisdiction to enforce a contract
that prohibits and punishes an
individual’s religious expressions about a religion
because such prohibition and punishment
have gone on too long to be stopped, or
for any other reason.
2. Whether California courts have
jurisdiction to prohibit and/or punish
religious expressions of a foreign
national expressed in foreign nations, and which
are not threats to public safety, order
or national security in California or
anywhere.
3. Whether the Court of Appeal has
jurisdiction to reinstate punishment
that the trial court had ruled an
unconscionable result of the application of certain
unconscionable contractual clauses,
without affording the victim or intended
victim of that unconscionable punishment
the reasonable opportunity mandated by
C.C.C. §1670.5 to present evidence as to
that contract’s commercial setting,
purpose and effect to aid the trial court
in making or remaking that ruling.
4. Whether the Court of Appeal has
jurisdiction to misstate the language
and meaning of a trial court’s rulings in
order to facilitate the vacating of one of
those rulings, particularly where the
result of such vacating is not justice, but what
has already been ruled unconscionable.
5. Whether any California court may
punish an individual for properly
reporting a crime, even if such reporting
violates the language and/or meaning of a
contract or court order.
6. Whether any California courts have
jurisdiction to enforce a contract and
an injunction that are patently unlawful,
and/or impossible to perform.
7. Whether California courts have
jurisdiction to end an international
idiocy that is the unconscionable result
of thirteen years of the California courts’
abetment in the application of
unconscionable contractual clauses concocted and
enforced by a religion.
2
III
SUMMARY OF REASONS FOR REVIEW
This is an extraordinary moment in a more
than 23-year campaign by the
Scientology religion, using the
California court system, to deprive Gerry
Armstrong, an individual, religionist,
and persecuted religious class member, of
his basic human rights, particularly his
religious freedom, and, here immediately,
his physical freedom and safety.
This Court is where this case belongs,
because it concerns the whole State
of California and what will be the whole
State’s highest wisdom about religious
freedom for all its citizens. This Court
has the opportunity to decide something
about the extent to which California’s
courts may be used by California’s religious
corporations to deprive individuals of
that freedom or in other ways persecute
them pursuant to religious doctrine and
religious hatreds.
This State is also where plaintiff and
petitioner Scientology organization is
headquartered. Scientology around the
world is controlled, operated and exported
from California by David Miscavige, a
California resident.
This Court can decide in this case if the
California Wog Justice System will
confront the Scientology organization and
curtail its use of the State’s courts to
suppress and destroy basic human rights
and persecute the organization’s victims,
or if Scientology will continue to have
its way with California’s courts. “Wog” is
the term Scientologists use for people
who are not Scientologists. Society is called
in Scientology the “wog world,” and
nations’ legal systems and procedures are
called “wog justice.”
There are no similar cases in California
or anywhere. There are other
Scientology contracts that
prohibit other people, many in California, on threat of
massive liquidated damages penalties and
jailing, from discussing their religious
experiences in the Scientology religion.
None of those contracts, however, have
been the subject of the enormous volume
of documentation and litigation
3
generated in Scientology v. Armstrong,
or achieved such global notoriety.
Scientology’s Armstrong contract is
Exhibit 1 to Scientology’s exhibits in support
of its writ petition (“Exs.”), pp 1-16.
This then is a representative and leading
case in a completely new area of
life and law in California and around the
world; namely, religious corporations’
suppression and deprivation of individual
religious freedom and other basic human
rights by contract, and by judicial
enforcement of such contracts. Such contracts
are themselves a very modern invention of
the religious corporation’s modern
corporate lawyers. The deeply evil intent
of such contracts makes them
particularly difficult to confront, and
thus particularly suited to the high confront
of the highest court in the State in
which these contracts are concocted and their
enforcement directed by resident
enforcers.
This Court has the opportunity to correct
the bizarre and impossible
situation, which the Court of Appeal
ignored, of California courts prohibiting and
punishing religious expressions made by
foreign nationals in foreign nations. The
only jurisdiction California courts could
possibly have in this situation is the
jurisdiction to deny jurisdiction to
prohibit and punish such religious expressions.
The contractual clauses Scientology seeks
to enforce against Armstrong,
and their judicial enforcement, including
what Scientology seeks by writ petition,
are obviously barred within the U.S. by
the civil rights guarantees, including
freedom of religion, in the U.S. and
California Constitutions, and in the nation’s
other laws. Reciprocally, whatever
Armstrong has said, written or done within the
U.S, for which Scientology has ever
sought or is seeking in this immediate matter
to have him punished, are his religious
expressions in exercise of his religious
freedom, and are inalienably protected by
the same constitutions and the nation’s
and the state’s other laws. Court after
court in California has refused to honestly
confront this reality, and acknowledge
the indefeasible truth that what Scientology
seeks and has gotten away with judicially
in its campaign against Armstrong is
4
unlawful. Some court some time will have
to confront this issue and this Court at
this moment in time has jurisdiction to
do so.
Armstrong obviously is not voluntarily
giving up his basic human rights to
Scientology, including his rights to
freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
freedom of association, freedom of
movement, due process, self-defense, and
freedom from slavery. Armstrong is
protesting every step of the way, declaring
that he was forced against his will to
sign Scientology’s contract, and vowing to
never give up those rights. He believes
that Scientology’s contract and what has
been done to enforce the conditions
against Armstrong that deprive him of those
basic human rights are the fruits of a
criminal conspiracy in violation of U.S. Civil
Rights criminal statutes, specifically 18
U.S.C. §241, conspiracy against rights,
and §242, deprivation of rights under
color of law.
The Court of Appeal’s decision ignores
this issue and these laws
completely, although Armstrong put them
squarely and properly before the Court
in his briefs. This Court can now decide
if a participant corporation in an ongoing
criminal conspiracy may by contract
lawfully prohibit the ongoing victim of that
criminal conspiracy from discussing that
criminal conspiracy and the crimes being
perpetrated on him. May the California
courts lawfully be used to enforce such a
contract against such a victim of such a
criminal conspiracy, which is proven to be
a criminal conspiracy by its own contract
and actions to enforce that contract in
these courts? Does Armstrong actually
have a duty to violate any orders of
California’s courts that compel him to
participate in and forward Scientology’s
criminal conspiracy by playing its victim
in that criminal conspiracy?
The International Religious Freedom
Act of 1998 (“IRFA”) 22 U.S.C. §§
6401-6481 is the guiding law and
principle for the whole of the U.S., not
excluding California, in relation to
freedom of religious expressions such as
Armstrong’s expressed by foreign
nationals such as Armstrong in foreign
countries such as Canada where Armstrong
lives. The IRFA also provides an
understanding of why even in the U.S.
people may not be deprived of their
5
religious freedom by contract, and
punished for their religious expressions about
religions in the way Scientology wants
Armstrong to be punished. The IRFA was
enacted in fact specifically to protect
people in positions and classes just like
Armstrong’s who are targets of religious
persecution right now in present time just
like Armstrong. The Court of Appeal’s
decision is completely alone in its
opposition to and disregard for the
IRFA’s letter and spirit.
For Armstrong, as long as he is outside
the U.S., his religious expressions
and his basic human rights are protected
by the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, Constitution Act, (1982) and by the European Convention for
the
Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms (1998).
Similarly,
Scientology is prohibited by these same
human rights charters from depriving
Armstrong of his basic human rights in
non-U.S. nations, and prohibited from
punishing Armstrong for his religious
expressions. The European Convention and
other international human rights charters
are identified in the IRFA at 22 U.S.C.
§6401(a)(2). In this matter this Court
can rationally and decisively align
California law and decisions with the
8-year old IRFA, and with the international
human rights charters of the world the
IRFA endorses. Say what is true, fair and
wise to guide any California Court that
in the future finds its power and authority
being used to punish other foreigners for
their religious expressions expressed in
foreign countries.
Although this case is all about the
unlawful deprivation of human rights, it
is positioned at this time as a contract
case, and clearly the law that the trial court
applied to the case and facts before that
court was C.C.C. §1670.5. The trial court
ruled that the punishment Scientology
sought to inflict on Armstrong, including
jailing and fining him, as the result of
the application of the subject contract’s
clauses, was unconscionable.
Armstrong has found no other cases where
what was determined to be an
unconscionable result was the contractual
wholesale deprivation of an individual’s
freedom of religion, and his other basic
rights and protections. It is doubtful that
6
such cases exist because these contracts
are such new devices in the programs and
campaigns of new religious corporations
to judicially suppress and destroy basic
human rights for individuals. This Court
has the golden opportunity to stop these
contracts and their judicial enforcement
from becoming de rigueur in California’s
courts.
The Court of Appeal’s decision fails to
apply C.C.C. §1670.5, in fact
avoids addressing or even mentioning that
governing statute, the applicability of
which Armstrong had addressed at
considerable length in his opposition to
Scientology’s petition for writ (“Opp.”),
in his respondent’s brief (“RB”) in
Scientology’s appeal consolidated in the
Court of Appeal with its petition, and in
his petition for rehearing. (“Pet.Reh.”)
The Appellate Court’s failure to apply the
proper California statute, and that
Court’s failure to apply the procedural remedy
that statute mandates, has resulted in
the reinstatement of the punishment that the
trial court, by proper application of
C.C.C. §1670.5, had already ruled
unconscionable and consequently remitted.
The Court of Appeal’s reinstatement of
the unconscionable result, which
had already been ruled unconscionable, is
particularly unconscionable because to
reach its decision the Court of Appeal
has had to misstate the language and
meaning of the trial court’s
unconscionability judgment. The Court of Appeal also
ignored the effect of Scientology’s
voluntary dismissal of its appeal from the trial
court’s judgment on the unconscionable
punishment the Court was reinstating.
The dismissal of the appeal, which
Scientology had successfully moved the
Court of Appeal to consolidate with this
writ petition case, ended any possible
nonacceptance by Scientology of the
unconscionability judgment. That judgment
then required acceptance of the remission
of the unconscionable punishment that
Scientology sought by its writ petition
to have reinstated. Obviously every
California court including this Court has
a duty to prevent an unconscionable
result in any matter properly before it.
7
IV
HISTORY OF THE CASE
Armstrong was a member of the Scientology
religion from 1969 through
1981. When he left, Scientology declared
him a member of a class of citizens
called “Suppressive Persons” or “SPs,”
whom Scientologists are directed by
Scientology religious scripture to
persecute opportunistically, or “fair game.”
Scientology teaches in its “Suppressive
Person” doctrine that SPs are evil, insane,
destructive, and irreversibly mentally
handicapped, should be given no civil rights,
and are to be “hated,” “shattered” and
“obliterated.”
Over the next almost 24 years, and
continuing to this day, Scientology and
its agents fair gamed Armstrong in
accordance with the organization’s
“Suppressive Person” doctrine. These fair
game attacks include, inter alia,
physically battering Armstrong on six
occasions; running into him bodily with a
car; terrorizing him on a highway in
California and an autobahn in Germany;
attempting multiple times to have him
charged criminally on false evidence,
including with the Los Angeles District
Attorney, the FBI, and the prosecutor in
Ekaterinberg, Russia; suing him six
times; driving him into bankruptcy; running
covert intelligence operations on him;
attempting to entrap him in sting operations;
filing numerous false statements about
him in legal proceedings; breaking into his
car and stealing extremely valuable
documents and artwork; terrifying his
neighbors and his family; threatening to
assassinate him; forging hundreds of
Internet postings, including racist
postings, over his name; and creating and
disseminating countless black propaganda
attacks on him around the world,
including to government agencies, media
and the clergy. Pet.Reh., Opp, 4,5; RB,
9-30; Respondent’s Appendix (“R.App.”)
261:25-262:14. Black propaganda or
black PR is Scientology’s fair game
policy and practice of destroying SPs’
reputations, credibility, relationships,
livelihoods and lives with the relentless,
widespread covert and overt dissemination
of false and defamatory materials about
the SPs.
8
Scientology filed its first suit against
Armstrong in August 1982 in Los
Angeles Superior Court for conversion,
breach of fiduciary duty and invasion of
privacy, and Armstrong filed a
cross-complaint for, inter alia, fraud and
intentional infliction of emotional
distress. Scientology’s suit went to trial in 1984
resulting in a judgment in Armstrong’s
favor, which Scientology appealed.
Scientology v. Armstrong, (1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 1060, 283 Cal. Rptr. 917.
Armstrong’s cross-complaint was settled
in December 1986 as part of a
global settlement involving some 20
clients of attorney Michael J. Flynn, then of
Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Flynn was also
a “Suppressive Person” and also the
target of Scientology fair game attacks,
including, inter alia, infiltrating his office;
paying known criminals to testify falsely
against him; suing him and his office
some fifteen times; framing him with the
forgery of a $2,000,000 check; and black
PRing him internationally. Scientology
got Mr. Flynn, who was also Armstrong’s
employer and friend, and who settled his
own claims against Scientology in the
global settlement, to act as its agent to
trick and force Armstrong to sign
Scientology’s settlement “contract” in
order to have the fair gaming of Mr. Flynn,
his family and clients end.
Scientology did not leave Armstrong in
peace following the 1986 global
settlement but has continued to fair game
him ever since. The organization’s
attacks before he ever responded, or ever
spoke out publicly against these attacks,
included generating and disseminating
black PR on him publicly and
internationally; filing numerous sworn
statements about him in legal proceedings
falsely accusing him of crimes and
perversions; distributing an unlawful secret
video of him; blackmailing him with
threatened publication of his private writings;
filing a false declaration he had been
forced to sign as part of the “settlement;” and
threatening him with prosecution if he
honestly testified pursuant to a deposition
subpoena properly served on him in late
1989 in a third party’s California
litigation.
9
From 1990 until now, Armstrong has spoken
about his Scientology-related
experiences, knowledge and beliefs as
called by God, even though that would
cause Scientology’s leaders to escalate
their fair game campaign against him. He
never believed that the contractual
clauses that prohibited his discussing his
Scientology-related experiences,
knowledge and beliefs were lawfully judicially
enforceable. He has also, as was safe,
courteous and wise, assisted his fellow SPs,
whom he knows to be a threatened
religious class, even though any such
assistance is prohibited by Scientology’s
contract. He has found it impossible
after a certain point to deal insanely
with Scientology and its attacks on peace,
justice and sanity, and he believes that
no court can lawfully compel him to be or
act insane.
In 1991, Scientology filed a motion in LA
Superior Court to enforce its
contract against Armstrong, which was
denied. In 1992 Scientology filed a
lawsuit to enforce its contract in Marin
County, where Armstrong was then living
and working. Scientology obtained a
series of summary adjudication rulings from
Marin Superior Court Judge Gary W.
Thomas, eliminating all Armstrong’s
properly pled affirmative defenses, and
culminating in a judgment and injunction
against him in 1995. Exs. 85-93.
Judge Thomas ruled that the contract’s
liquidated damages clause that
required Armstrong to pay Scientology a
penalty of $50,000 per utterance about
his Scientology experiences or knowledge
was reasonable and enforceable. He
ordered Armstrong to pay $300,000 for 6
utterances and $334,671.75 in costs.
Armstrong discharged this sum in
bankruptcy in 1996.
Judge Thomas ruled that Scientology and
all the beneficiaries of its contract
could say whatever they wanted about
Armstrong, no matter how false or
abominable, and he could not respond.
See, the contract, Ex. 1, para. 1, for the list
of beneficiaries. If Armstrong responded
to Scientology’s attacks, to defend
himself, his family, friends or
co-religionists, or if he assisted any victim of
10
Scientology in any way, he would have to
pay Scientology $50,000 per utterance
or assistance.
Judge Thomas ruled that the $50,000
liquidated damages penalty was per
recipient, and that a single letter Armstrong copied to 18
people would cost him
$900,000.
Judge Thomas stated in his injunction
that all these penalties and
prohibitions applied not only Armstrong
but also “his agents, employees, and
persons acting in concert or conspiracy
with him.” Since then, Scientology has
threatened several Suppressive Persons
with enforcement of the Thomas
injunction against them for “acting in
concert” with Armstrong.
Judge Thomas completely avoided
addressing the religious freedom
defense, which was squarely and properly
before him, and seriously misstated the
law he found controlling to justify that
improper avoidance.
Armstrong appealed. See case No. A075027,
which Armstrong
incorporated into his opposition to
Scientology’s writ petition and in his
respondent’s brief in the consolidated
cases in the Court of Appeal.
At the beginning of 1997, because of
threats from Scientology, Armstrong
left California and returned to British
Columbia, Canada, where he is a citizen. A
few days before he left California, he
was served with a subpoena duces tecum by
the wog defendant in a
Scientology-related case in U.S. District Court in San Jose.
The subpoena specifically commanded
Armstrong to produce declarations he had
authored concerning unlawful acts by
Scientology. The next day a Scientology
attorney faxed Armstrong a letter
threatening him with prosecution if he produced
the subpoenaed documents. Armstrong wrote
a declaration concerning the threat
and sent it to the judge presiding in the
U.S. District Court case in which
Armstrong had been served and threatened.
While Armstrong was in B.C., and without
service on him or notice to him,
Scientology got Marin Superior Court
Judge Thomas to sign an OSC re contempt
and a contempt order against Armstrong
for sending the declaration to the U.S.
11
District Court Judge. The contempt order
makes no mention of Armstrong’s being
served to produce the documents he
produced including the subject declaration,
and makes no mention of Scientology’s
attorney threatening Armstrong and thus
causing him to create and transmit the
declaration reporting that threat. Judge
Thomas punished Armstrong with 2 days in
jail and a $1000 fine.
In August 1997, while in B.C., Armstrong
timely filed his appellant’s
opening brief in his appeal from the
injunction and judgment. Scientology moved
the Court of Appeal to dismiss his appeal
on the basis of the fugitive
disentitlement doctrine. Mysteriously,
the Court of Appeal, First Appellate
District, Division Four, mistook a
request from Armstrong for an extension of time
to file an opposition to Scientology’s
motion for an opposition, and in December
1997 dismissed the appeal.
Also in December 1997, Scientology got
Judge Thomas to sign another
OSC re contempt against Armstrong for 13
expressions of his religious
experiences with the Scientology
religion, which he expressed on the Internet or in
public conversations in Canada, the U.K.
and Germany. In February 1998, Judge
Thomas signed a contempt order punishing
Armstrong with 26 days in jail and a
fine of $2,600.
In November 2000, Scientology filed
another application for an OSC re
contempt against Armstrong for 131
Internet expressions of his religious
experiences with the Scientology religion
expressed in Canada, for permitting
himself to be subpoenaed to testify in a
Scientology-related case in Florida, and
for expressions of his religious
experiences with the Scientology religion
expressed in Florida and Denmark.
Armstrong filed an opposition to
Scientology’s OSC, acknowledging that he
had expressed thousands of such
expressions, and defending his legal
right and religious freedom to do so. In July
2001, Marin Superior Court Judge Vernon
F. Smith, who had inherited the
Scientology v. Armstrong case after Judge Thomas retired, signed an order
finding
Armstrong in contempt, but did not impose
any punishment.
12
On April 2, 2002 Scientology filed
another lawsuit in Marin Superior
Court, CV 021632, against Armstrong,
Robert Minton and the Lisa McPherson
Trust, seeking $10,050,000 from Armstrong
for 204 “breaches” of Scientology’s
“contract.” The 204 claimed “breaches”
included the 131 Internet postings
identified in Scientology’s November 2000
application for OSC, plus 73
additional “breaches,” including
religious expressions expressed in Canada,
France, Denmark, Germany and Russia.
Armstrong, who was then living in
Germany, timely filed his answer in
November 2002. Exs. 211-295
Scientology filed a motion for summary
judgment claiming there was no
triable issue of fact because Armstrong
had admitted committing the “breaches,”
and seeking $50,000 for each “breach.”
Armstrong opposed the summary
judgment motion, and in March 2004 Marin
Superior Court Judge Lynn Duryee
denied the motion. Scientology moved to
strike Armstrong’s evidence in support
of his opposition, and Judge Duryee
denied that motion.
On April 9, 2004 Judge Duryee conducted a
trial of Scientology’s
complaint, during which, with the
agreement of Scientology and Armstrong’s
attorney Ford Greene, she consolidated
the earlier cases, Marin Superior Court
Nos. 152229 and 157680, with the later CV
021632 case. Judge Duryee also
stated that she was considering the trial
a hearing as well on the contempt
punishments in the earlier cases.
After opening statements from Scientology
and Armstrong, Judge Duryee
ruled that the punishment Scientology
sought to inflict on Armstrong beyond the
benefit that was conferred to him in the
1986 settlement was unconscionable. She
believed, albeit erroneously, that the
benefit conferred to Armstrong was
$800,000. She therefore stated her
judgment awarding Scientology $500,000 in
liquidated damages, since Scientology had
already been awarded $300,000 in
liquidated damages by Judge Thomas, and
she remitted, or discharged, the
contempt punishments jailing and fining
Armstrong.
13
Upon Judge Duryee rendering her judgment
at trial, Scientology entreated
her to punish Armstrong for the
approximately 135 violations of Judge Thomas'
injunction for which Judge Smith had
found Armstrong guilty in 2001, but had not
specified a punishment. Judge Duryee then
sentenced Armstrong to five days in
jail and fined him $1000, but made the
fine concurrent with her judgment, and
discharged that jail sentence as well.
Because for a period of some weeks after
the trial Scientology’s attorney
and Mr. Greene could not agree on the
language of proposed written orders to be
submitted to Judge Duryee for signing and
filing, on May 20, 2004 she issued her
own orders. Exs. 17,18. Scientology
received the orders from the Marin Court,
but Mr. Greene did not receive them at
that time, and did not know of their
existence until July 12, 2005.
On July 15, 2005 Scientology filed its
petition for writ of certiorari or writ
of mandamus in the Court of Appeal
seeking to have the jail sentences and fines
reinstated, and filed its notice of
appeal seeking to have reversed the judgment of
unconscionability that limited the
liquidated damages penalties. Simultaneously,
Scientology filed a motion to consolidate
its appeal and writ petition on the ground
that the evidence and the legal questions
presented by both matters are so related
as to make it advisable to consolidate
them. The Court of Appeal granted the
motion.
Armstrong timely filed his respondent’s
brief and his opposition to
Scientology’s writ petition. On September
2, 2005 Scientology requested the
Court of Appeal to dismiss its appeal. On
September 8, the Court of Appeal
dismissed Scientology’s appeal, but kept
the writ petition alive and scheduled for
oral argument.
On September 21, 2005 the Court of
Appeal, First Appellate District,
Division Four, conducted oral argument.
On October 19, 2005 the Court of
Appeal filed its decision, appended
hereto, granting Scientology’s writ petition
14
and reinstating the jail sentences and
fines against Armstrong that Judge Duryee
had remitted.
On November 3, 2005 Armstrong timely
filed his petition for rehearing,
and on November 14 the Court of Appeal
denied his petition.
V
ARGUMENT
1. By their
failure to address the profound religious freedom
issue and defense in this case,
the California Courts since 1992 have
prostrated themselves to
unlawfully abet religious persecution.
The California courts that have dealt
with Scientology’s contract
cannot but know about the towering
religious issue and defense in this case,
which have through time towered ever
higher. The filed documents before
these courts are filled with the religion
issue and Armstrong’s religious
expressions about the religion issue and
freedom of religion defense and
about religion itself. See, e.g. Pet.Reh.
Opp., RB.
In denying Scientology’s motion to
enforce its contract against Armstrong
in 1991, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge
Bruce R. Geernaert stated about the
contract and Scientology’s enforcement
intention:
that is one … I'll say one of the most
ambiguous, one-sided
agreements I have ever read. And I would not have ordered the
enforcement of hardly any of the terms if I had been asked to, even
on the threat that, okay the case is not settled. I know we like to
settle cases. But we don't like to settle cases and, in effect, prostrate
the court system into making an order which is not fair or in the
public interest. RB, 48; Clerk’s Transcript, prior appeal No.
A075027, 7700.
An unavoidable and overwhelming real life
reason that rendered the order
Scientology sought not fair and not in
the public interest is the eternal fact that it is
a religion that seeks to
prostrate the secular wog court system for the unlawful
purpose of suppressing the religious
expressions of a religious apostate and
punishing and crushing that religious
apostate.
15
In 1992, Scientology filed the lawsuit to
enforce its contract that has
resulted in the jail sentences and fines
against Armstrong that the Court of
Appeal’s October 19, 2005 order has now
reinstated. Between 1992 and now
Scientology found a number of judges,
notably Judge Thomas in Marin County,
who were willing, for unknown reasons, to
prostrate the California court system to
permit and abet Scientology’s religious
persecution campaign.
Judge Thomas accomplished the abetment of
Scientology’s religious
persecution of Armstrong in 1995 in no
small part by avoiding the whole
religious freedom issue and defense, even
though it was colossally and
unmissably then before him. As Armstrong
protested in his earlier appeal
and elsewhere, Judge Thomas altered the
language and meaning of the case
he cited to, ITT Telecom Products
Corp. v. Dooley (1989) 214 Cal.App.3d
307, 319, to wipe out all Armstrong’s
First Amendment defenses. Pet.Reh.
9-13.
As can be imagined by the plaintiff’s
name, that case was not about
a person’s religious expressions about
his religious experiences in a
religion. Dooley was about the
disclosure of trade secrets to a commercial
telecommunications industry competitor.
Dooley states, “it is possible to
waive even First Amendment free speech rights
by contract.” Judge
Thomas stated: “First Amendment: First
Amendment rights may be waived
by contract.”
Armstrong’s position is that because of
the nature of religion and of First
Amendment religious rights such
rights may not be waived by contract. He
believes that the failure of all
California Courts to confront the religious freedom
issue in this case over the past many
years validates that position, rather than
invalidates it.
In 1997, the Court of Appeal abetted
Scientology’s religious persecution
campaign with its not fair and not in the
public interest dismissal of Armstrong’s
appeal of Judge Thomas’ orders that
abetted that persecution campaign. It should
16
be noted that this dismissal was
engineered by Scientology on the grounds that
Armstrong had not served the very jail
sentence that in 2004 Judge Duryee ruled
unconscionable and remitted. It is no
human wonder that the Court of Appeal
division that dismissed Armstrong appeal
would have some interest in reinstating
that unconscionable punishment, and
perhaps even could go to the lengths that
division has gone to accomplish that
reinstatement.
In 2004, Judge Duryee, while still not
articulating the reality of
Scientology’s religious war on Armstrong,
and the reality of his religious freedom
right and that right’s inalienability, at
least limited and slowed down the judicial
religious persecution campaign against
Armstrong by declaring the punishment
Scientology sought to inflict on
Armstrong an unconscionable result, and remitting
that unconscionable result.
Now for some unholy reason a California
Court of Appeal tribunal is
reprostrating the California court
system, which Judge Duryee had uplifted for the
previous19 months, and is again back to
abetting Scientology’s religious war on
Armstrong by issuing another order in
that war that is not fair and not in the public
interest. The Court of Appeal’s order is
not fair and not in the public interest for
the very reason that it abets Scientology
in its religious war on Armstrong, which
war the Court of Appeal ignores in order
to author its unfair order.
While mentioning that Armstrong claimed
that the subject expressions for
which Scientology sought to have him
jailed and fined were expressions protected
by the right to the free exercise of his
religion, the Court of Appeal gave that fact
no value or effect, ruling that
“Armstrong, however, is foreclosed from
challenging the merits of the contempt
orders in this writ proceeding.” The Court
of Appeal even acknowledges, however,
that “in unusual cases … either the trial
or appellate court may grant a remission
of punishment.” A case could not even
be deemed unusual, and certainly
remission could never be reached in any kind of
case, if the merits of the contempt order
could never be challenged. Here there is
also the overarching factor of the
adjudicated unconscionability of the contempt
17
punishments, and no judge can be
foreclosed by any length of time from acting to
limit, prevent or remit an unconscionable
result.
Armstrong challenged the merits of the
contempt orders in many
documents filed in the trial court, all
properly before Judge Duryee. These
challenges to the merits all included
Armstrong’s proclamation and evidence that
the expressions for which Scientology
wanted him jailed and fined were his
religious expressions in free exercise of
his right to freedom of religion. On the
basis of Armstrong’s challenging of the
merits of the contempt orders for all the
reasons he challenged them, Judge Duryee
found the punishment they ordered
unconscionable and she remitted that
punishment.
The challenges to the merits of the
contempt orders that Judge Duryee had
in the record before her, could not but
be part of the record before the Court of
Appeal. Consequently, Armstrong could not
be foreclosed from pointing the
Court of Appeal to those challenges and
reasserting those challenges already in the
record that Judge Duryee obviously found
to be good grounds for remission of the
unconscionable punishment the contempt
orders inflicted.
To justify its “foreclosure” of Armstrong
from “challenging the merits of
the contempt orders” in the Court of
Appeal, that Court had to find that “there
were no circumstances in the record
justifying a remission of the sentences.” This
is a gross error that demands correction.
The trial court record is filled with
circumstances justifying the trial
court’s remission of the sentences, including the
facts that a religion had obtained those
sentences as part of its campaign of
religious persecution against Armstrong,
and that the sentences punished him for
his religious expressions in free
exercise of his right to freedom of religion. The
Court of Appeal then did not have
authority to declare Armstrong “foreclosed”
from demonstrating what is in the record
before that Court, and what was in the
record before the trial court when that
court ruled the sentences unconscionable
and remitted them.
18
2. Because of the
nature of religious liberty, it cannot but be an
exception to res judicata and
collateral estoppel if raised as a defense at any
time, and res judicata and
collateral estoppel cannot be relied upon to
prevent the raising of religious
liberty as a defense at any time.
There is no suggestion from Scientology
that what Armstrong expresses,
for which Scientology wants him jailed
and fined, are not or cannot be his
religious expressions of his religious
beliefs about a religion. They have also
always been Armstrong’s religious
expressions of his religious beliefs about a
religion, from the day Scientology sought
to suppress those religious expressions
by contract. Scientology does not argue,
of course, that it is not a religion.
Scientology’s position is that Armstrong
is prohibited from expressing his
religious expressions about the
Scientology religion by contract, and by Judge
Thomas’ injunction, and that it doesn’t
matter if they are Armstrong’s religious
expressions. Scientology’s position,
since it got Armstrong’s appeal of Judge
Thomas’s injunction dismissed in 1997, is
that Armstrong is barred by res judicata
and collateral estoppel from asserting
his religious freedom defense to which
Judge Thomas did Dooley. Armstrong’s
position, supported by law and logic, is
that an individual being deprived of his
religious liberty cannot lawfully continue
to be deprived of that religious liberty
because the deprivation of his religious
liberty has gone on too long to be
stopped, or for any length of time.
In the Scientology v. Armstrong
legal war, this position grows in strength
and authority because Armstrong’s
religious expressions have increased, his world
wide wog and Scientologist audience has
increased, and his religious persecution
at the hands of the Scientology legions
has increased. If such things can be added,
his human right of religious freedom to
expose and oppose that religious
persecution has increased beyond his
wildest imagination.
Before Scientology brought him to
America, and consequently submitted
him to U.S. laws, Armstrong never
conceived that any U.S. courts, especially
California courts, would ever prostrate
themselves to abet the jailing, fining and
19
financial ruin of a citizen for
expressing his religious experiences and thoughts and
for protecting himself, his family and
citizen class from religious persecution. He
also never conceived of the religion he
joined and his co-religionists being so
diabolical that they would create
contracts to get wog courts to do exactly that and
then force their victims to sign these
contracts. Armstrong’s position, however, in
alignment with law, logic and his own
theology, is that the right of religious
freedom is always maximal, cannot
lawfully be decreased by contract, and
therefore cannot be increased.
Armstrong is not claiming that he has
some inalienable right to express his
religious expressions everywhere and at
all times, if a stupid straw man
interpretation is given to such a
concept. He is claiming that he has a right that
cannot lawfully be taken away by
contract, at least in any reasonably free and sane
society, to express his religious
expressions somewhere and sometime, and
certainly as called by God.
There is no question of anything
Armstrong is saying or doing depriving
anyone else of any of their lawful
rights, or being a threat to anyone’s safety, or to
the public order. In fact, he believes
that he is seeing to and increasing everyone’s
safety, and arguably even good order, by
expressing the expressions he has been
called to express. He contends that the
record in this case and available to this
Court shows that from the day he left
Scientology, almost 24 years ago,
Armstrong has not done anything that was
a threat to safety, order, morality or
national security. Although Armstrong’s,
and everyone’s, right to religious
freedom is always maximal, because no
California court so far has been willing to
address the religious liberty issue and
because Armstrong has continued to study
and address the issue, his certainty of
the correctness of his position has increased.
Armstrong is an average common wog. He is
not a lawyer, not trained in
law, and does not study law. He is a
Christian, studies religion and is a religionist,
as religious as the next wog, or
Scientologist, and he has his own thoughts, beliefs,
and religious activities.
20
Armstrong founded his own church in 1986
and renamed and restructured it
as the Church of Wogs (“CoW”) in Canada
and around the world. CoW is to wogs
as Scientology is to Scientologists. CoW
promotes what is good, true and holy in
wogs and in the wog world and defends
wogs against invalidation, suppression,
attack and extermination. The only
religion and organization that invalidates,
suppresses and attacks wogs as wogs and
seeks their extermination is Scientology.
Armstrong’s words about the wog world,
wogs, Scientology and Scientologists
constitute CoW’s religious scriptures,
just as L. Ron Hubbard’s words about the
wog world, wogs, Scientology and
Scientologists constitute Scientology’s
religious scriptures.
Along with his wife Caroline Letkeman
Armstrong has also founded the
Suppressive
Person Defense League (“SPDL”), dedicated to defending SPs against
religious persecution from Scientology
and Scientologists and to educating the
wog world about the “Suppressive Person”
religious doctrine that underlies the
persecution. Ms. Letkeman is also a
declared SP, and also a target of Scientology
covert and overt intelligence operations,
threats and black PR.
Armstrong and Ms. Letkeman have built and
maintain three Internet sites
that express their Scientology
experiences and beliefs. Much of their defense
against religious persecution by the
Scientology religion and its agents is waged
on the Internet by documenting that
persecution. Armstrong and Ms. Letkeman
have webbed a great number of documents
relating to Scientology’s litigation
campaign against Armstrong’s, including
all the documents filed in this case in the
trial court, the Court of Appeal and now
this Court.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/index.html
Scientology is waging a religious war or
jihad on SPs. At its core and in
operation the Scientology religion is an
intelligence organization, thus many of its
operations and channels of attack on SPs
in that war are secret or cloaked and deal
in disinformation and black PR. Armstrong
was a Scientology intelligence
operative close to Mr. Hubbard in the
Scientology religion.
21
Scientology’s Armstrong contract is not
at all a settlement agreement
between the parties to achieve the
cessation of hostilities, but a declaration of
religious war by the religion on an
apostate. The contract’s utterly one-sided
clauses, which Judge Duryee focused on
very pointedly, and which the Court of
Appeal ignored, are prima facie evidence
that the contract is Scientology’s fatwa
to all the contract’s beneficiaries to
ruin and obliterate Armstrong.
Scientology and all the contract
beneficiaries can attack Armstrong in any
way they want. He must take their abuse
and remain silent. He must pay
Scientology $50,000 per utterance if he
does defend himself. There is no such
penalty for Scientology. The contract, in
fact, is an invitation and powerful
incentive to Scientology and
Scientologists to attack Armstrong, his family,
friends and fellow SPs just because he
cannot defend himself or other people in
the same way that other citizens can
defend themselves and their loved ones. The
contract is an ungodly license for a
religion and its adherents to hunt a human
being, a common average wog whom the Scientology
religionists are commanded
by religious scripture and by other
religious edicts or fatwas to hate and attack.
After confirming the contract’s one-sided
conditions that evidenced its
unlawful religious jihad purpose, Judge
Duryee then limited or remitted the legally
unconscionable results that Scientology
sought in its effort to enforce those one-
sided unconscionable contractual
conditions. By ignoring the one-sidedness and
the other clear indicia of the contract’s
unconscionability and reinstating the
remitted unconscionable result, the Court
of Appeal cannot but be abetting
Scientology’s jihad on SPs.
Armstrong has found no case of religious
persecution in the United States
in the modern or post modern ages as
ridiculous, cruel or grossly willfully
violative of U.S. civil rights laws as
this case. This is a new phenomenon in the
U.S., using commercial contract law to
bring back the medieval right and custom
of religions or religious groups to
persecute and destroy people whose religious
expressions are not what the religion’s
leaders insist they be. In Scientology,
22
using the wog law system to harass and
ruin the organization’s SP victims and
targets is compelled by religious
scripture.
Outside the U.S., where Armstrong lives
of course, religious persecution
where people were jailed, or fined or
ruined for expressing their religious
experiences or religious beliefs was more
common. Consequently in January 1998
the Congress passed the International
Religious Freedom Act to compel the
Government’s branches to take a
principled stand on behalf of religious freedom
and against religious persecution in all
foreign countries.
The IRFA is particularly applicable in
this case because virtually all of
Armstrong’s religious expressions after January
1998 have been expressed in
foreign countries. The IRFA is also
helpful in understanding why contracts like
Scientology’s are an impermissible
deprivation of religious freedom within the
U.S., and why religious freedom must be
an exception to res judicata and
collateral estoppel. The IRFA states:
Article 18 of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights recognizes
that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and
religion. This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief,
and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public
or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice,
worship, and observance.” Article 18(1) of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recognizes that "Everyone
shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or
belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in
community with others and in public or private, to manifest his
religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, and teaching".
Governments have the responsibility to protect the fundamental
rights of their citizens and to pursue justice for all. Religious
freedom is a fundamental right of every individual, regardless of
race, sex, country, creed, or nationality, and should never be
arbitrarily abridged by any government. 22 U.S.C. §§ 6401(a)(3)
Clearly, for a person to possess freedom
of thought, conscience, and
religion, he would have to possess the
freedom to change his religion or beliefs.
His religion or beliefs can only manifest
in expressions, which he must also
23
possess the right to change. Armstrong
and every person has the right to change
his religion, beliefs and mind about all
these things every second of every day
forever. Res judicata and collateral
estoppel logically cannot be used to bind
someone to a particular form of religious
conduct or prohibit a particular form of
religious conduct, because the person
must be able and free to engage or not
engage in that conduct, or change his
mind about that conduct or about the
religious contract that compels or
prohibits that religious conduct.
The IRFA condemns both
government-sponsored and government-tolerated
violations of people’s rights to
religious freedom. Scientology is a government-
tolerated violator of people’s rights to
religious freedom in the U.S, as this case
and the California courts’ toleration and
abetment of Scientology’s violations of
people’s rights to religious freedom
demonstrates.
There are no national or international
Trade Secret Freedom Charters or
laws protecting the freedom of persons to
express or divulge trade secrets.
Religious freedom is a very different
matter, which, because of its nature, simply
lawfully may not be abridged by contract
or by court orders. If ITT had chosen to
call itself a religion, declare that it
is organized for solely religious purposes,
declare all its activities religious and
its manuals scripture, ITT could not have
silenced Mr. Dooley about his necessarily
religious experiences and religious
knowledge in the ITT religion.
Scientology insists that it is a religion, and
therefore cannot silence Armstrong about
his religious experiences and beliefs as
if they were commercial trade secrets.
3. The Court of
Appeal did not deal with what Judge Duryee did,
but dealt with something she
didn’t.
A. Judge Duryee
correctly applied C.C.C. §1670.5 in the
consolidated cases and combined
matters before her, specifically acting to
limit the application of the
unconscionable clauses in Scientology’s contract as
to avoid any unconscionable
result.
24
Armstrong has demonstrated at length in
his appellate briefs in this case
that Judge Duryee could not but have been
applying C.C.C. §1670.5 in both
limiting the liquidated damages to
$500,000, where Scientology sought
$10,050,000, and in remitting or
discharging the contempt punishment.
Armstrong’s position is that the $500,000
is also unconscionable, but that issue is
not before this Court.
Judge Duryee specifically identified the
indicia of unconscionability, one-
sidedness, endlessness, trickiness. She
used the unconscionable word in
pronouncing her judgment at trial, and
she used the word in her judgment, which
she linked to the order re sentences.
The Court of Appeal decision does not
mention C.C.C. §1670.5, although it
could not be avoided in Armstrong’s
briefs, and acknowledges no effect of the
unconscionability ruling on the
punishments the Court reinstates. The Court of
Appeal moreover misstates the
unconscionability judgment. If the misstatement is
not made, the Court would have had to
deal squarely with the unconscionability of
the punishment the Court was reinstating
for other nonexistent reasons.
The Court of Appeal decision states:
The court, however, found that it would
be unconscionable to
“punish” Armstrong with liquidated damages in excess of the
$800,000 he received as a benefit under the settlement agreement.
Judge Duryee’s judgment states:
Mr. Armstrong received a benefit under
the settlement agreement of
$800,000. It would be unconscionable to punish him beyond what
the benefit was that was conferred to him.
It is clear that Judge Duryee was not, as
the Court of Appeal has
characterized it, limiting the unconscionable
punishment Scientology sought to
25
inflict on Armstrong to liquidated
damages. Her intention is made unavoidable by
her linking of the contempts punishments
to the judgment.
The sentences imposed in the two prior
contempt actions, in Marin
Superior Court Case No. 152229/157680, which is consolidated
herewith, are discharged upon entry of judgment against Armstrong
herein.
On the order of contempt issued July 13, 2001, Armstrong is
sentenced to five days in jail and a fine of $1,000. The fine is
concurrent with the judgment
The decision states that Judge Duryee
didn’t have jurisdiction to alter the
sentences imposed against Armstrong
because the court’s orders in the contempt
proceedings are final and conclusive and
not appealable orders. There is,
however, no such exception to C.C.C.
§1670.5. There is no law stating that a
court may not act to prevent an
unconscionable result if that unconscionable result
is jailing and fining someone for
contempt of court. The position that punishment
cannot be remitted if found to be
unconscionable defies all logic.
To say, which the Court of Appeal is
saying in what it is and isn’t saying,
that a set of jail sentences ruled
unconscionable and remitted, must be reinstated
because it is too late for a California
Superior Court Judge to have her conscience
shocked, and consequently make such a
ruling, also defies all logic.
Unconscionability in a contract is a very
serious matter with very
serious legal significance and
consequences. Scientology here is seeking to avoid the
consequences and they should not be
permitted to get away with it. They are
getting away with it by enforcing the
unconscionable. The Court of Appeal is,
with that Court’s avoidance of the
profound issues including C.C.C. §1670.5 that
Armstrong raises in his briefs, abetting
the unconscionable.
The Court of Appeal also has avoided the
effect of Scientology’s dismissal
of its appeal from the judgment, which
states that the very punishment Scientology
sought, and which the Court of Appeal has
granted, was unconscionable. The
26
dismissal, in fact, should have
immediately barred Scientology from proceeding
with its writ petition to have the
unconscionable punishment reinstated.
B. The correct
remedy and procedure in this case is mandated
by C.C.C. 1670.5, specifically
the reasonable opportunity to present evidence
as to the contract’s commercial
setting, purpose, and effect to aid the court in
making the unconscionability determination.
Scientology should have availed itself of
that opportunity afforded it by
C.C.C. §1670.5(a). Scientology
erroneously jumped the gun and filed its appeal
and writ petition. The Court of Appeal
should have sent the matter back to the
trial court to conduct an evidentiary
hearing on the contract’s commercial setting,
purpose, and effect.
Why Scientology is avoiding the
statutorily mandated evidentiary hearing
on the contract’s commercial setting,
purpose, and effect is clear. Such an
evidentiary hearing would show that
Scientology unlawfully coerced and deceived
Armstrong into signing its contract, that
Scientology fair gamed and compromised
his attorney, that there were no
negotiations whatsoever about the reasonableness
of the obscene liquidated damages
penalty, and that there is no relationship
whatsoever between that penalty and the
actual damage Armstrong causes with
each expression of his religious beliefs
he expresses.
But Armstrong too is to be afforded an
evidentiary hearing pursuant to
C.C.C. §1670.5(a), and he has made this
claim and demand throughout this
consolidated appellate case.
VI.
CONCLUSION
What is completely and glaringly missing
in this case is a fair hearing or
trial on the merits, including the merits
of Armstrong’s profound human rights
defenses. What should be reinstated, and
what this Court has jurisdiction to
reinstate, is not the unconscionable jail
sentences and fines Scientology wants
inflicted on Armstrong, but his defenses
against such unconscionable punishment.
27
For the reasons stated herein, Armstrong
respectfully requests this court
grant review to determine the issues
presented above.
Dated: November 25, 2005
CERTIFICATE OF LENGTH
Pursuant to Rule 28.1(d)(1) of the California
Rules of Court, respondent
Gerry Armstrong certifies that the number
of words in this brief, according to the
word count of the computer program used
to prepare the brief, is 8,398 words.
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Gerry Armstrong
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