The Government's Response

The de facto officer doctrine, invoked here as the universal defense for oath non-compliance, does not apply to one judge in isolation. The certified oaths documented on this site — for every judge in Florida's 18th Judicial Circuit — follow the same form as DeKleva's oath. If the AG's office defends one judge's oath deficiency by invoking the de facto doctrine rather than asserting compliance, the same defense would logically apply to every judge whose oath follows that same form.

That is not an inference hostile to the AG's position — it is the direct logical consequence of their own argument. The AG's office, by choosing the de facto doctrine as the defense rather than arguing 1 Stat. 23 compliance, has implicitly acknowledged that the oath form used by Florida judges does not satisfy the federal constitutional standard. The site's documentation of oath deficiencies across the 18th Judicial Circuit is consistent with — and now corroborated by — the AG's own litigation posture in this case.

This implication is drawn from the AG's litigation posture as reflected in their own filed document. It has not been directly adjudicated by any court. It is presented here as the logical consequence of the AG's argument for legal review.

Magistrate Price's R&R (Doc. 62, March 3, 2025) addresses the 1 Stat. 23 oath argument in one paragraph on page 12. The analysis makes two moves.

Move 1 — No private right of action. The R&R states Plaintiff "has not demonstrated that a private right of action exists" under the Oath or Affirmation Clause, calling the claims "frivolous." For this proposition, the R&R cites Ramsell v. Wallace, No. CV-24-08161-PCT-DJH (D. Ariz. Aug. 30, 2024) — a district court case in Arizona, decided the same year as the R&R. Ramsell in turn cites Carter v. Inslee, No. C16-1725-RSL-MAT (W.D. Wash. 2017) — another district court case, in the Ninth Circuit. No binding 11th Circuit authority is cited. No Supreme Court authority is cited. A constitutional question about the First Act of Congress is declared "frivolous" on the basis of two persuasive-only district court opinions from outside this circuit.

Move 2 — Declaratory relief unavailable. The R&R then states that even if declaratory relief were available under § 1983, Plaintiff "does not demonstrate how the oaths executed by Judges Crawford, Chase, Muñiz, and Isenhower... are somehow invalid" — despite the certified oaths being physically attached to the amended complaint (Doc. 25-2). It also states Plaintiff has not shown he "cannot make these arguments in his state court cases." Neither statement engages the substance of 1 Stat. 23.

What the R&R never does. It never quotes 1 Stat. 23. It never analyzes whether the Art. II §5(b) form satisfies the statute's mandate. It never addresses the Supremacy Clause argument. It never engages Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425 (1886). The constitutional merits of the oath compliance argument — the central question — are untouched at every level of these proceedings.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), when a party objects to specific portions of a magistrate's R&R, the district judge conducts de novo review of those portions. Plaintiff's response to the R&R (Doc. 63) expressly declined to object to the substance, stating: "Shad Douglas Pantle will not address any points that Leslie Hoffman Price makes in her report to not give it any meaning, weight, life or credibility." Instead, the response challenged Price's authority to participate at all under the Federal Magistrates Act.

Mendoza's dismissal order exploits this precisely. It states: "Plaintiff does not object to the substance of the R&R. Indeed, Plaintiff expressly states that he 'will not address any points that [Judge] Hoffman Price makes in her report.' Therefore, the Court need not specifically address the analysis in the R&R." Mendoza then overrules the jurisdictional objection in one sentence — citing 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B), which allows referral for R&R without consent — and adopts the R&R in full. The oath argument, dismissed in the R&R on non-binding authority and never addressed on the merits, is adopted by default because there were no specific substantive objections for Mendoza to review.

The result: the constitutional question central to this case has never been examined on its merits by any judge at any level. It has been bypassed by immunity, bypassed by a procedural technicality in the objection, and bypassed by Mendoza's adoption of a recommendation the district court explicitly declined to independently analyze.

Judicial immunity under Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349 (1978) protects judges from civil liability for acts taken in their judicial capacity, unless done in "clear absence of all jurisdiction." The defendants argued — and the court agreed — that the acts complained of were judicial acts. But the argument that oath deficiency creates precisely that clear absence of jurisdiction is the unresolved question the court refused to reach.

Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425 (1886) — cited in Plaintiff's response (Doc. 49) and in Doc. 66 — held that unconstitutional acts confer no rights, impose no duties, and afford no protection. The filing in Doc. 66 goes further, quoting the defendants' own state court filings admitting to de facto status, and then citing Norton's holding that under the present constitution there never was and never can be a de facto office. If there is no de facto office, there is no judicial officer. If there is no judicial officer, there is no judicial act. And if there is no judicial act, judicial immunity has nothing to attach to. That argument has never been addressed by any court in this case.