Motion to Unseal
CASE NO. 4:00-cr-40034-JPG
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff,
vs.
MICHAEL RAY MYERS, Defendant.
CASE NO. 4:00-cr-40034-JPG
PLANNED FILING DATE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2026 — BENTON FEDERAL COURTHOUSE
DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO UNSEAL SEPTEMBER 1, 2000 RECORDS, TO EXPOSE FRAUD UPON THE COURT, AND FOR DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF LAW
COMES NOW the Defendant, Michael Ray Myers, pro se, and respectfully moves this Court to enter an Order unsealing any and all motions, applications, minutes, or orders entered on the master docket under seal on or about September 1, 2000. In support thereof, Defendant explicitly states the following chronological grounds:
The Structural Deprivation of Constitutional Rights Began Before Federal Charges Were Filed
The structural deprivation of Defendant's constitutional rights began prior to the initiation of formal federal charges. The Defendant was charged with possession of chemicals and equipment to manufacture methamphetamine. The property at issue consisted entirely of ordinary household and outdoor items: barbecue grill propane tanks, camping supplies, hunting supplies, coffee pots, and a white heavy-duty scale with visible limescale buildup that had been soaking in CLR cleaner — producing a green bubbling effect that investigators characterized as suspicious. Official logs verify that this entire property was incinerated on March 20, 2000 — one week before charges were filed. Detective Dan Stone with the Jackson County Sheriff's Department generated a suspected and unfounded list of household chemicals, explicitly noting its immediate destruction without prior chemical testing, without photographs, and without any samples preserved. No laboratory analysis was ever performed. Because the local Jackson County State's Attorney's Office lacked the mandatory verified laboratory evidence required to initiate or sustain a valid state-level criminal prosecution, Detective Stone willfully bypassed local prosecution channels. He abused his power as a sworn, cross-deputized DEA task force officer to transfer the legally deficient and unverified case files into the federal system to evade state-level evidentiary rules. Despite the total non-existence of this physical evidence, a formal criminal complaint was initiated on March 27, 2000. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) adopted the file with full knowledge of this destruction, and the task force subsequently presented this non-existent property to the federal grand jury to secure an indictment, intentionally drawing Assistant U.S. Attorney George Norwood into the active conspiracy to advance a prosecution built on a known, material Brady violation.
A Private, Un-Docketed, Off-the-Record Pretrial Conference Suppressed the Defendant's Constitutional Objections
On August 24, 2000, the initial evidence default reached a critical tipping point. Myers' scheduled pretrial hearing was convened — but deliberately kept off the public docket to protect every participant from the Brady violations already committed. This was a court proceeding conducted on the court's time and funded by the American taxpayer, yet it does not appear anywhere in the official case record. During this off-docket pretrial, District Judge J. Phil Gilbert, AUSA George Norwood, Detective Dan Stone, defense attorney Charles Stegmeyer, and Deputy Clerk Melinda S. Duncan — with Myers present — coordinated to suppress his vocal constitutional objections and make his two pending Brady motions and Speedy Trial rights motion disappear from the open record entirely. By hosting this proceeding off the docket, every participant crossed from misconduct into active criminal exposure — committing those acts under color of federal authority, in a federal courthouse, on the public's time and money.
The Mandatory 70-Day Speedy Trial Act Clock Expired at Zero on September 5, 2000
The off-the-record handling backfired when the mandatory 70-day Speedy Trial Act clock expired at zero in absolute silence on Tuesday, September 5, 2000. Because the chambers conference failed to generate a timely, valid judicial order active on the public docket to pause the running of the clock, the court lost all statutory authority to maintain physical custody of the Defendant past 5:00 PM on September 5th, while an unrelated civil trial (Bank of Edwardsville) occupied the physical courtroom.
Branch Court Personnel Executed a Coordinated Post-Facto Electronic Registry Manipulation on September 11, 2000
To obscure this fatal statutory default and protect the entire collective chain of actors from an automatic constitutional dismissal, branch court personnel executed a coordinated post-facto database modification on Monday, September 11, 2000. Because the automated court database system was restricted and could not be unlocked to insert a retroactive entry after a default hour, Deputy Clerk Melinda S. Duncan manually manipulated the electronic registry. Utilizing a fictional "Final Pretrial Hearing" event code to bypass system locks and backdate the minutes, she processed a fraudulent fabrication of the record, creating spurious court minutes (Document 25) simultaneously with a materially backdated judicial order of approval. Both distinct records were retroactively altered to project a false timeline of September 5, 2000, to manufacture a fictional "oral motion" and a concurrent extension. While the physical paper records falsely claim contemporaneous proceedings occurred on September 5th, the un-deletable electronic network metadata permanently logs the true transactional footprint as (Entered: 09/11/2000).
The September 1, 2000 Sealed Filings Are the Direct Key to Exposing the Complete Chain of Liability
Unsealing the specific emergency filings placed on the docket under seal on Friday, September 1, 2000, is legally necessary because those documents constitute the hidden trigger for this rolling cover-up. Producing these records is the direct key required to expose the underlying Fraud upon the Court, unlock the complete chain of individual liability, and establish the exact mechanism used to maintain an unauthorized physical detention.
WHEREFORE, Defendant respectfully requests that this Court order the immediate unsealing and production of the September 1, 2000 sealed filings to expose and establish the underlying Fraud upon the Court and any corresponding judicial orders.
Respectfully Submitted,
Michael Ray Myers, Defendant Pro Se
BEYOND THIS CASE
This Case Is Not Isolated
My work does not stop with my own files. Because I lived through the inside of this machine, I feel it is my absolute duty to proactively search other dockets for the people who were incarcerated alongside me under the exact same conditions.
Today, I am actively auditing historical cases for other defendants from the Heartland meth boom era. When my research identifies clear docket manipulations, electronic registry overrides, or systemic anomalies, I am stepping forward to officially notify those individuals so they can reclaim their rights.
This site is a live network for anyone targeted between 2000 and 2007 who suspects their trial clock or evidence files were masked behind closed terminal doors. We are mapping the anomalies, and we are getting the historical record straight.
Running parallel to the Heartland methamphetamine boom was an equally aggressive Heartland crack cocaine boom. Crack cocaine indictments were surging across the same federal districts during the same window. If you fought your case and attempted to go to trial during that era, I urge you to pull up your court docket and examine it carefully. If you see the designation "XT" — excludable time — appended to entries throughout your docket, do not dismiss it. You need to investigate the legal basis cited for each and every excludable time entry. Understand what it means, whether it was properly justified on the record at the time it was granted, and whether it was used to manufacture a compliant timeline after the fact. The law is clear: excludable time cannot be retroactively applied to cover a violation that has already occurred. If it was not documented correctly the first time, it cannot be fixed after the fact.
The only way to view your federal court docket is through a PACER account. PACER — Public Access to Court Electronic Records — is the official federal judiciary system that provides online access to case and docket information from U.S. district, appellate, and bankruptcy courts. To gain access, you must register for a PACER account at pacer.uscourts.gov. Once registered, the court will mail you an activation code to the address on file, which you will use to fully activate your account. Once active, PACER allows you to view any federal court docket in the country — including this one. If you were a federal defendant and have never reviewed your own docket, this is where you start.