A gentleman named Stanley Paul Smith has a beef with President Barack Obama. That's not all; no, far from it.

In a 473-page, handwritten complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 24, Mr. Smith named as defendants Obama, the Roman Catholic Church, the entire U.S. Senate, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and enough others to fill 10 pages. Ten pages, just to identify all the defendants.

The complaint is something else, a form of art, really, adorned with long asides, observations , vignettes and declarations like the following:

"If one reads my 2003/2004 articles, they would know I predicted the financial collapse in the USA...you'd think that Democrats who asked me to work on their campaigns, begged me to continue my freelance writing on their behalf would listen to one that's almost always right. Almost an Oracle, of sorts."

No doubt. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, though, said in a brief ruling that the complaint was legally incomprehensible. Because she could not discern an actual legal argument in the "vague, organized and confusing" mass of papers, she dismissed the whole thing.

A gentleman named James J. Kaufman really, really does not want to be a citizen of the United States. Problem for him is, he was born here; right in the Wisconsin heartland.

So for the past six years, Mr. Kaufman -- an inmate -- has been attempting to formally renounce his U.S. citizenship. Weirdly, though, he hasn't been able to get anyone to accept his paperwork. So he remains a U.S.citizen, against his will.

This bizarre turn of events is laid out in a decision issued this week by U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts. In brief, Mr. Kaufman has sought to escape his citizenship by invoking a 1944 law that allows renunciation through a formal written declaration "whenever the United States shall be in a state of war." The bureaucratic response is classic. As the judge notes:

"Kaufman’s various requests to renounce his citizenship under this provision...met with either no response
at all or a denial of responsibility for administering the provision."

Kaufman sued. So what happens next? The head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services decides that the United States is not really in a formal state of declared war, so the renunciation provision isn't valid.

And here's the latest, interesting twist: Judge Roberts determines that a realistic view of the facts leads to the conclusion that, yes, the United States is in a state of war and therefore USCIS must make a decision, yes or no, on Mr. Kaufman's citizenship renunciation application.

Suits & Sentences has totally arrived.

Don't take this blog's word for it. Suits & Sentences' author just received an e-mail invitation, appropriately addressed to "law professional," advising that the author was being "considered for inclusion" in the 2010/2011 edition of Who's Who Among Law Professionals.

Yes, it's true! The very volume, published by Montclair, that is said to include biographies of the nation's "most accomplished" legal beagles. Check it out; Montclair says:

"Recognition of this kind is an honor shared each year by our members from across the United States and Canada, and is often considered to be the single highest mark of achievement."

The single highest mark of achievement! Now, Suits & Sentences admits to feeling there is something a little off about this sentence, something missing, but doubts begone! This is obviously for real, because the solicitation invitation says the nominee must "spend thirty seconds filling out your basic application."

Unfortunately, Suits & Sentences has already been accepted early decision into the Famous Writers School, and so will have to pass up this special opportunity.

John Stagliano is not your typical porn entrepreneur, in some respects. The head of Evil Angel Productions may deliver such films as the "Slutty and Sluttier" series, but he also maintains a political presence through contributions to the likes of the libertarian-minded Cato Institute.

But in other ways, Stagliano is very much typical. This includes facing the threat of criminal prosecution for violating obscenity statutes.

Bad news, then, for Stagliano with a federal judge's decision Feb. 19 not to dismiss obscenity charges. The 24-page decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon rejected Stagliano's constitutional challenge to the obscenity statutes.

The indictment identified several films and film clips that FBI agents obtained from Evil Angel Productions, including "Milk Nymphos" and "Fetish Fanatic Chapter 5." Judge Leon states, delicately:

"Descriptions of the films are not relevant at this stage, of course, because it is the jury's province to determine whether those films are actually obscene."

Bummer.

Stagliano raised substantive, intriguing challenges to the obscenity laws, but Judge Leon was not impressed, dismissing the "gold-toned constitutional concoction" and likening the arguments to the work conjured by "alchemists of old." For instance, the judge did not buy the argument that the Supreme Court's recognition of a "liberty interest" in sexual privacy, as discussed in the Lawrence v. Texas case concerning homosexual sodomy, extended to the private consumption of pornography.

The criminal case continues.

The Justice Department, FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service today announced that the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, which killed five individuals and sickened 17 others, has formally concluded.

The conclusion is a formality, but it brings with it a great document dump. In response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by McClatchy's Marisa Taylor and other reporters, the FBI is making generally available documents on the investigation.

Go here and here for the raw documents. Looks like good stuff, if you're into this kind of stuff: search warrants, letters, sketches and more.

Suits & Sentences is a big fan of panel discussions led by The Constitution Project. Smart people, interesting topics, timely discussions.

Two mundane, procedural observations arise from the non-partisan program's session Wednesday at the Holeman Lounge of the National Press Club. The panel discussion focused on the upcoming Supreme Court case, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project.

The succinct introduction, by senior counsel Sharon Bradford Franklin, was exactly what Suits & Sentences likes to see in a panel discussion. Franklin referred audience members to written material for full biographical information about the panelists, and essentially confined herself to the position each held and the focus of their discussion. All too often, introducers start fawning about the great schools people have attended and the great successes they have had; it becomes cloying, if that's the right word. Franklin did it right: to the point.

Shayana Kadidal, with the Center for Constitutional Rights, obviously knows his material and he speaks well. But here's the beef, and Suits & Sentences sees it all the time with panels. All. The. Time. Kadidal, like the other speakers, was given seven minutes to make his opening remarks. That is plenty of time. He went beyond it, though; not at Biden-esque lengths, to be sure, but long enough for Franklin to send him a note urging him, presumably, to wrap it up.

Suits & Sentences will simply say that it's a mark of respect for other panelists and the audience, as well as a useful act of self-discipline, for panelists to play within the boundaries and work with the time they've been given.

Social media opens up some new First Amendment frontiers. Suits & Sentences, for instance, is interested in the legal status of links. Does linking to a site create liability?

Or consider this case arising out of Florida, where the Miami Herald reports on a high school student who set up a Facebook page designed to trash-talk a particular teacher.

Student Katherine Evans used her page to denounce the target as "the worst teacher I've ever met." The principal then suspended Evans for three days. Evans sued. In a ruling last Friday, a magistrate judge permitted the case to proceed.

"Evans' speech falls under the wide umbrella of protected speech,'' the judge wrote. "It was an opinion of a student about a teacher, that was published off-campus, did not cause any disruption on-campus, and was not lewd, vulgar, threatening, or advocating illegal or dangerous behavior.''

Journalist Richard Miniter is suing his former employers at the Washington Times. The substance of the suit involves allegations of breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress and so on, but the beauty part of a lawsuit like this is how it threatens to peel back the layers on a secretive organization high-profile newspaper.

In other words, for observers, this one is all about the discovery. Just what will Miniter, the Times' former editorial page editor, uncover in the course of his legal crusade? What intriguing tidbits about the Times' patron, Sun Myung Moon, might be dislodged?

On Tuesday, though, Miniter lost his bid for a preliminary injunction that would have blocked the notoriously money-losing newspaper from “dissipating, disposing of or secreting assets, and from destroying or hiding evidence.”

In a seven-page decision, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina concluded Miniter had failed to provide sufficient documentation for his claims; including, tellingly, a copy of the contract itself that the Times had supposedly breached. The case goes on, but without the preliminary injunction Miniter had sought.

The Obama administration wants the case called Kiyemba v. Obama to just, you know, disappear. Now, administration attorneys will apparently get a chance to explain why it should.

Kiyemba presents the fascinating question of whether a federal judge can order the administration to release into the United States prisoners detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Specifically, the case arose from the horribly poignant matter of the Uighurs. These are detained men from a largely Muslim region of western China who have been deemed to be no threat to the United States, but for whom U.S. officials long struggled to find an alternative home.

The Obama administration has previously noted to the Court the fact that the Uighurs have been getting resettlement offers from places like Palau and Switzerland. The Court is currently scheduled to hold oral arguments March 23, something the Obama team really wants to avoid.

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued a brief order asking for additional briefs, essentially addressing whether the whole case should be dumped in light of current circumstances. The order states:

"The parties are directed to file letter briefs addressing the following question: What should be the effect, if any, of the developments discussed in the letters submitted by the parties on February 3 and 5 on the Court's grant of certiorari in this case. The briefs, limited to 8 pages, are to be filed...on or before 2 p.m. Friday, February 19, 2010."

Army Sgt. Khadim Alkanani nearly lost his foot, and he definitely lost his career, following a June 2005 shooting in Baghdad. A member of the U.S. Special Forces, Sgt. Alkanani says the men who shot him were civilian contractors working for Aegis Defense Services.

The sergeant had to be discharged after he developed Hepatitis C. He sued Aegis, claiming his shooting had been remarkably similar to other shootings in which civilian contractors had allegedly compiled "trophy videos" depicting their greatest, so to speak, hits.

Sgt. Alkanani's suit was picked up by critics of the Iraq War, who saw in the claims made by this veteran soldier further evidence of the depredations of military contracting firms. See here, and here, and here and here.

The lawsuit, in other words, fed a narrative. Now, that lawsuit has gotten smaller.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts dismissed one corporate defendant. Aegis Defense Services LLC was able to show it hadn't existed as a corporate entity at the time of the 2005 shooting. The other corporate defendant, Aegis Defence Services Ltd. (British spelling, London-based firm) remains active as a defendant.