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Couple suffers legal setback
over Social
Security number
A Hampton woman who refuses to use
her
Social Security number lost a court battle. She and her husband say
they'll
continue to fight
Published April 24, 2004
HAMPTON - A Hampton couple's attempt to disassociate themselves from their Social Security numbers because of their religious beliefs was dealt a legal setback Friday when a judge convicted Leslie Carmichael of driving without a valid license.
Neither Carmichael nor her husband have carried a driver's license since 2002, when the Department of Motor Vehicles refused to renew their licenses without Social Security numbers. Although the numbers aren't required to be on the licenses, the DMV told the Carmichaels the numbers were needed for record-keeping purposes.
The Carmichaels believe the Social Security number issued by the government is the sign of the anti-Christ talked about in the Bible's Book of Revelation. After David Carmichael came to that belief in the mid-1990s, he wrote to the Social Security Administration and asked that any applications for numbers for his family be rescinded.
His quest has cost him his job as a Navy chief petty officer, threatened his financial security and gotten him - and now his wife - in trouble with the law. In October, Leslie Carmichael, a stay-at-home mom who home-schools the couple's four children, was stopped for speeding and got a ticket for not having a license. She was convicted in Hampton General District Court and appealed the decision.
The case landed in Circuit Court on Friday before Judge Wilford Taylor Jr., who listened to attorney Herb Titus argue the constitutionality surrounding Social Security numbers before saying there wasn't much he could do at his level.
"This is not the court to hold a statute like this constitutional," Taylor said, suggesting that Carmichael first follow DMV's administrative review process.
Titus had argued that the DMV commissioner erred in not considering a waiver of the Social Security requirement when David Carmichael asked that he and his family be exempted from having to provide the numbers on driver's licenses applications. Under Virginia code, the commissioner has the authority to waive regulations on a case-by-case basis, Titus said.
Using words from the Virginia's act for religious freedom drafted by Thomas Jefferson in the 1700s, Titus argued that Carmichael has a constitutional right not to be "molested or burthened" because of her religious opinions.
"We have a religious conviction not to associate with Social Security numbers," Leslie Carmichael testified Friday. "It's something we walk every day in every area of life."
After declining to dismiss the case, effectively pushing the constitutional issue aside, Taylor was left to rule on whether Carmichael was driving without a valid license when she was stopped in Hampton last year. She confessed, the judge said. He convicted her on the charge and fined her $50.
Afterward, the Carmichaels said they're going to continue their fight. "We have no choice," David Carmichael said. "This is our life."
David Carmichael, who said he's heard from other Virginians who share similar beliefs, said he may consider a class-action suit against the DMV.
For more information about the Carmichaels' legal battles, visit www.christianliberty.org.
kroot@dailypress.com, 928-6473