No Driver's License Required? St. Marie Man Makes His Case

City, county and state officials received a 25-page “memorandum of law” from a St. Marie man on Monday that painstakingly outlined legal reasons why the government has no right to require that he have a driver’s license.

Terry-Lee, as he styles himself, quoted scores of legal opinions that he said established his unfettered right to travel on public roads as long as he was not using the road for gain (engaged in business for profit). He concluded that applying for a license is forfeiting the basic right to travel.

Along the way his memorandum provided legal education on topics such as personal liberty, travel, distinctions between the terms “driver” and “operator,” license, traffic, surrender of rights and taxing power.

Twenty-two pages of the document, which county officials provided to The Courier, are copied nearly verbatim from material on the Internet that purportedly has been presented in several states as a defense against charges of driving without a license.

In the original sections of the document, Terry-Lee affirms that he is not a resident of the “municipal corporate State of MONTANA,” but that he is a “Citizen of the Republic of Montana one of the several states.” His signed affidavit at the end refers to himself as “Terry-Lee, a sovereign being.”

He wrote, “I simply want not to be harassed for not accepting subrageeship (sic) to a state created legally ‘Built Trust’ with THE STATE OF MONTANA.”

The document states that certified copies were mailed to the governor, the secretary of state, the state patrol chief and the Department of Justice, as well being mailed or hand-delivered to the Valley County Commissioners, the Glasgow chief of police and all the law enforcement officials at the county level.

“This is obstructionism at its highest,” County Commissioner David Pippin said Tuesday. “What do they hope to gain? I carry a driver’s license. Everybody in Valley County does. Is that such a bad thing?”

On Sept. 3, at 2:47 p.m., a man identified as Terrance Lee Brauner, at the same address in St. Marie as Terry-Lee, was stopped by two deputies on U.S. 2 near the fairgrounds. He was cited for driving without a license and having no liability insurance.

Terry-Lee is a partner in DTM, LLC, which has acquired ownership of 131 units at St. Marie. He and the other DTM partners, Merrill and Diana Frantz, called a meeting of owners at St. Marie in September, declared themselves a majority and voted to dissolve the existing St. Marie Village Association board and install a new one.

Merrill Frantz was cited for driving without a license in Glasgow last November.