The § 242 Chain — Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law
18 U.S.C. § 242 makes it a federal crime to willfully deprive any person of a constitutional right under color of law. The documented record in this case — drawn entirely from primary sources, official government records, and video evidence — traces a sequence in which each actor in the chain either lacked lawful authority, was informed of that deficiency, and proceeded anyway, or affirmatively acted to shield that deficiency from legal consequence. This section presents that chain as the documented record shows it.
This section does not assert criminal guilt, which is determined by a jury. It documents the factual predicate — drawn from sworn motions, public records responses, court minutes, and video — that establishes the elements a § 242 analysis requires: an actor, a color of law claim, a known deficiency in authority, and a rights deprivation that followed. Each element below is sourced to a specific document in the record.
An Unbonded Deputy Makes an Arrest — Confirmed by the Sheriff's Own Office
Deputy Christopher Knight arrested Shad Pantle in May 2023 on a charge of Resisting an Officer Without Violence — a charge whose statutory elements require the officer be "legally authorized to execute process." Fla. Stat. § 843.02.
At the time of the arrest, Knight had no surety bond as required by Fla. Stat. § 30.09(1)(a). The Seminole County Sheriff's Office confirmed this in writing in response to Public Records Request R000921-081823 (August 18, 2023): "The Seminole County Sheriff's Office does not have surety bonds." The confirmation covers Knight, every deputy, and Sheriff Dennis M. Lemma himself — the same Lemma who signed Knight's appointment. Knight holds an internal departmental oath dated June 7, 2017; it is not a certified Secretary of State filing and does not satisfy Art. II §5(b) or 1 Stat. 23. Without a bond, Knight had no lawful authority to perform deputy duties. The arrest was ultra vires ab initio. SCSO PRR R000921-081823 · 08/18/23 · Exhibit A
📄 Knight Oath & SCSO No-Bond Response → Knight's Card · Florida Public Officials
A Judge Declares the Bond Statute "It's Not Relevant" — On Video
When the bond deficiency was brought before Judge James J. Dekleva by sworn motion (Filing #184996740, October 29, 2023) — supported by the Sheriff's own written confirmation — Dekleva did not distinguish the statute, find an applicable exception, or rule that Knight was in fact bonded. He ruled from the bench that Fla. Stat. § 30.09 "it's not relevant" — The official hearing minutes confirm he simultaneously denied the motion to suppress, the motion to dismiss for lack of bond, and the motion regarding Knight's oath of office. All three denials are entered in a single hearing. Docket #237 · 11/30/23
This ruling is recorded on video. A sitting judge, on record, declaring a state statutory requirement inapplicable to law enforcement — with no statutory authority to do so. That declaration is what allowed Knight's unbonded arrest to stand as the predicate for everything that followed.
🎥 Video: Dekleva Oral Ruling — Bond Motion Hearing 📄 Hearing Minutes — Docket #237
A Circuit Court Judge Fails to Appear — Two Sworn Witnesses — No Minutes Filed — Arrest Warrant Issued for Plaintiff's Absence
Crawford — a circuit court judge with no jurisdiction over a county court criminal matter — was assigned to the underlying case and conducted hearings from Brevard County while the case was venued in Seminole County. On May 7, 2024, a hearing was scheduled before Crawford in Courtroom 4C of the Criminal Justice Center, Sanford. Shad Douglas Pantle was present. The prosecutor was present. Case administrator Carsandra Buie was on the bench. Two sheriff's deputies were present. Crawford was not. The case was never called.
Two independent witnesses executed sworn Affidavits of Witness under penalty of perjury, notarized by two different notaries in two different Florida counties, documenting identical facts: Crawford did not appear, Buie confirmed he would not hear the case, and everyone departed at approximately 12 PM. This is not Plaintiff's account alone — it is attested to by Daniel Michael Padilla (Orange County, May 22, 2024, Notary Bonnie Weisinger) and Alexander Donald MacArthur (Seminole County, June 8, 2024, Notary Harshad R. Patel). The Seminole County Clerk of Court never filed the required minutes from this hearing. The official docket contains no entry for the May 7 proceeding.
On July 12, 2024, Crawford conspired with Chase to have Chase — herself without a 1 Stat. 23-compliant oath — issue an arrest warrant for Plaintiff's failure to appear before Crawford. The warrant was premised on Plaintiff's absence from a hearing that Crawford himself failed to attend, witnessed by multiple people, with no minutes in the Clerk's docket. The warrant for failure to appear rests on a predicate the official record does not show exists. State Criminal Case · 2023-MM-001669A · Two Sworn Affidavits · No Minutes Filed · May 7, 2024
On May 7, 2024, Carsandra Buie was an active named defendant in Pantle v. Dekleva et al. (Case No. 59-2024-CA-000138) — the civil lawsuit filed January 25, 2024 challenging the oath authority of the judges in Plaintiff's criminal case, including Buie, for impersonating a judge. While that lawsuit was pending and Buie was a defendant, the Seminole County Clerk of Court scheduled Crawford's hearing in State v. Pantle in Buie's own Courtroom 4C. Buie administered the docket that morning. No recusal was entered for the May 7 proceeding. No minutes were filed. The Clerk arranged the scheduling.
An arrest warrant for failure to appear requires a valid prior hearing at which the defendant was required to appear. The Clerk filed no minutes for May 7. The official docket has no record of the proceeding. The only documentation that the hearing was scheduled and Crawford failed to attend is two sworn notarized affidavits and the absence of any entry in the Clerk's own records.
The warrant was issued on a predicate that exists only in witness affidavits — because the court's own mandatory records were never filed.
Three Armed Officers Dispatched to Execute a Warrant — One Makes a Phone Call That Is Deliberately Obscured
Three armed Orlando Police Department officers were dispatched to Plaintiff's home on July 12, 2024 to execute the warrant issued by Chase. According to Plaintiff, the officers did not announce a lawful purpose at the door. Instead, they fabricated a pretext — a false story — in an attempt to lure Plaintiff outside his home. When Plaintiff declined to exit, the officers departed. No arrest was made.
Plaintiff retains body camera footage from all three officers documenting the encounter. That footage contains a material anomaly: one of the officers is captured on body camera making a phone call during the encounter. In the footage, the phone screen has been deliberately blurred and the audio of that call has been cut. The identity of who the officer called, and what was said, is not visible or audible in the footage as produced.
Body camera footage is public record under Florida's Public Records Act. Deliberate blurring of a phone screen and audio excision from law enforcement body camera footage is not a standard privacy redaction — it is the suppression of evidence of communications made during a law enforcement encounter that resulted in no arrest. The question the redaction raises — who was that officer calling, and on whose authority was the call made — goes directly to whether the dispatch of three armed officers to Plaintiff's home was a spontaneous enforcement action or a coordinated one. That question has not been answered in any proceeding.
Officials Without Oaths Defend Officials Without Oaths — Using the De Facto Doctrine They Themselves Violate
When Plaintiff challenged this entire sequence in federal court, the Florida Attorney General's office dispatched three Assistant Attorneys General — Schultz, Tirado, and Schwieterman — to defend the named judges. All three AAGs have no oath of office on file with the Florida Secretary of State, confirmed by official DOS correspondence on state letterhead for each. They appeared in a constitutional oath challenge on behalf of judicial officers accused of oath deficiencies — while themselves operating without the constitutional oath that is the subject of the challenge. DOS Correspondence · Florida Public Officials page
AAG Schultz is the same officer who filed the state court motion to dismiss invoking the de facto doctrine to defend Dekleva's oath deficiency — while himself having no filed oath. That filing — entered into the federal record as Annex A to Doc. 49-1 — did not contest that Dekleva's oath was defective. It argued the defect was legally inconsequential. A man without an oath, arguing that oaths don't matter, on behalf of a judge without a compliant oath, in front of a federal court. The record documents this in the government's own words.
The asymmetry: At every link in this chain, the public official exercising state power against Shad Pantle lacked one or more of the legal prerequisites the law requires to hold that power. At every link where that deficiency was raised — in court, on the record, with primary source documentation — the response was a procedural denial, a judicial declaration that the law doesn't apply, or a defense mounted by attorneys who themselves lacked the oath they were defending. The citizens subject to this power were held to its full force. The officials wielding it were exempted from its prerequisites. That is the two-tier system this record documents.
Constitutional Significance
The constitutional question at the center of this case is the same question the People's Writ of Quo Warranto was built upon. Both proceed from the same legal authority and cite the same controlling precedent.
"An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is, in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed."Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425 (1886) · United States Supreme Court
The First Act of Congress was never repealed. Article VI commands that all state judges shall be bound by the Constitution. Whether an oath not in the form prescribed by 1 Stat. 23 satisfies Article VI has never been definitively adjudicated at the federal appellate level.
Judicial immunity protects lawful judicial officers acting in their judicial capacity. Whether individuals operating as de facto officers — without lawful commissions — can claim the same immunity for acts taken without jurisdiction is an open question this case directly raises.
If a judicial officer acts without a lawful oath and judicial immunity shields them from suit, the constitutional violation — if real — goes without remedy. Whether the Constitution permits that outcome is the deepest question this litigation raises.
The 184 signatories of the People's Writ of Quo Warranto and the plaintiff in Pantle v. Crawford are proceeding from the same constitutional foundation: that public officials who have not executed the oath required by Article VI and 1 Stat. 23 hold no lawful authority, and that every act taken under that colorable authority is void from inception.
The Writ named 45 officials: 44 in Florida's 18th Judicial Circuit, plus the Florida House Judiciary Committee and the Office of State Courts Administrator. The federal complaint named four of those same officials as defendants. The officials defended themselves through AAGs who themselves lack filed oaths. The 11th Circuit preserved the appeal. The constitutional questions remain unanswered.
Whether the federal courts will ultimately address the merits of the oath argument — and what a merits ruling would mean for the judiciary nationwide — remains to be seen. What is established is that the question has been raised, documented, and is now formally before the federal appellate system.
The Warning on Record
Before the Constitution was ratified, a writer publishing under the name Brutus — widely attributed to New York delegate Robert Yates — wrote a series of essays warning that the proposed federal judiciary would become unaccountable to the people, self-expanding in its jurisdiction, and immune to correction. He was right. His arguments were answered by Hamilton in the Federalist Papers and then ignored. The Constitution was ratified. What Brutus described has since become routine.
Alexander Hamilton addressed Brutus directly in Federalist No. 78 and No. 81. His argument: the judiciary would be the "least dangerous" branch because it controls neither "the sword nor the purse" — only judgment. Brutus replied that judicial judgment, over time, was exactly the mechanism by which all other power would be absorbed. Hamilton's response was that the people, through their representatives, retained ultimate control.
What neither side anticipated — or addressed — was the commercial registration of the judiciary itself: courts filing as Dun & Bradstreet entities, receiving CAGE codes, appearing in SAM.gov, holding LEI numbers in global financial markets. That dimension of the federal judiciary was not on the table in 1787. It is on this site now.
"It is a truth confirmed by the unerring experience of ages, that every man, and every body of men, invested with power, are ever disposed to increase it, and to acquire a superiority over every thing that stands in their way."Brutus No. 1 — October 18, 1787 — New York Journal
This page presents a factual summary of public federal court records for educational and research purposes. All statements are sourced to specific docket entries in Case No. 6:24-cv-01591-CEM-LHP and USCA11 Case 25-13368. Nothing on this page constitutes legal advice or a representation of how any court will rule on any question. This case is active. Outcomes have not been determined.