South Okanagan woman used earbud and pseudo-legal law in court

A South Okanagan woman, who during her trial was fed pseudo-legal nonsense through an earbud while representing herself in court, has been given a break from the justice system after she hired a lawyer and pleaded guilty.

Eileen Rebecca Alice Mackenzie had represented herself in court for two days of the trial before she realized her nonsensical litigation strategy was coming up short.

The 39-year-old’s legal woes started when she refused to allow the police access to her Bridesville home, although they had a court order to apprehend one of her children following a custody agreement.

On Oct. 9, the Penticton courthouse heard how Mackenzie blocked the police’s access and spouted pseudo-legal language.

The altercation was filmed and the court heard how someone was “coaching her” throughout the ordeal with pseudo-legal arguments.

“This created an enormous misunderstanding,” Crown prosecutor Ann Lerch told the court.

It also led to her being charged with assaulting and obstructing a police officer.

At her trial in April, she continued her pseudo-legal arguments, being told what to say by a person outside the courtroom through an earbud. It’s not known who this person is, or what their motive was but the Crown had strong words.

“Pseudo-law leads to self-inflicted injury by those who advance these toxic ideas,” the Crown prosecutor said. “These litigants are the victims of those who sell these supposed secrets to a real but concealed law.”

Pseudo-law arguments are often tied to the Freeman on the Land movement, where individuals believe in some way that laws are invalid and don’t apply to them. They have numerous frivolous arguments for why this is, but none are valid.

The Crown said that pseudo-law has led to psychiatric detention, foreclosed homes and broken families.

The Crown said Mackenzie had ended up in court due to the misinformation she’d believed.

“It was her position, not maliciously held, though erroneous, that police are not authorized to carry out what they were carrying out that day on private property,” the Crown said. “It wasn’t her belief, though, that she was obstructing anything.”

The Crown said MacKenzie was scared for her children when the police showed up that day.

“She would have made different decisions had she understood that the avenues to avoid trial and come to a peaceable resolution are available to her,” the crown said.

The Crown said MacKenzie had acted out of fear and misinformation.

Very little was heard about MacKenzie’s life, except that she was a single mom with two children and lived on an acreage. There was no reason given for why she’d fallen for the pseudo-legal spiel.

Ultimately, Judge Gregory Koturbash sentenced MacKenzie to a conditional discharge – meaning she won’t get a criminal record, provided she completes 12 months of probation.

She also has to do 10 hours of community service, but won’t have to write an apology letter to the police officer, as was originally put forward.