About Me

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 University of Nevada—Las Vegas, Department of Sociology, Ph.D. (Honor Roll all 3 years) awarded December 2004

Roger Williams University, School of Justice Studies, M.S., Criminal Justice  (Honor Roll both years) awarded May 2001

Roger Williams University School of Law, J.D. awarded May 1999 (Dean’s Scholarship,1996-1999)

Montana State University—Billings, B.S., Sociology, awarded December, 1995 (High Honors) (Dean’s List, 1993-1995)

Recent victories include assisting in gaining a dismissal and collapse of the federal government’s quarter-billion-dollar prosecution of dozens of defendants in the Bundy cases in both Oregon and Nevada. Worked on the Cliven Bundy and Ryan Bundy defense teams and helped research and author many of the most important pleadings in those cases. Roots sat at the Bundy defense table (as volunteer paralegal) in the “Trial of the Century” in Portland, Oregon in September-October 2016—helping obtain not-guilty verdicts for all defendants.

As an attorney Roger Roots has worked on a variety of civil and criminal cases. He is the only lawyer in the history of the U.S. 8th Circuit to ever overturn a conviction on venue grounds. United States v. Stanko, 528 F.3d 581, 584 (8th Cir. 2008). Roots also gained a landmark victory in the case of United States v. Temple (U.S. District of South Dakota) in which the Justice Department falsely accused a Native American rancher on the Oglala Sioux Reservation of deprecating property of the United States by overgrazing. Roots’ research showed that Indian reservation land is held in trust by the United States for the actual Indian owners—not the property of the United States. (All charges against Temple were dismissed in 2018).   

Roots’ legal scholarship has been cited in the Harvard Law Review and the Yale Law Journal and been relied on by courts across the United States. (See, e.g., Baur v. Veneman, 352 F.3d 625 (2d Cir. 2003); United States v. Marcucci, 299 F.3d 1156, 1162 (9th Cir. 2002); United States v. Holmstrom, 246 F.Supp.2d 1101, 1110 (E.D.Wash. 2003)).

Beginning around 2005, I began researching the origins of the Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule. At the time, most judges and law professors believed that the Founding Fathers did not intend for illegally-seized evidence to be excluded from criminal trials. (The prevailing narrative among “conservative,” “originalist,” and “strict constructionist” constitutional scholars was that the Founders intended only that victims of lawless searches could merely sue the government in separate civil lawsuits.) I spent years in rare book libraries and archives, documenting that the Framers of the Constitution almost certainly intended for the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule. My findings have been published in two law review articles, ” The Originalist Case For the Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule, 45 Gonzaga Law Review 1-66 (2009), and The Framers’ Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule: The Mounting Evidence, 15 Nevada Law Journal 42-76 (2014).

Prior to my research, the exclusionary rule hung by a thread, and various Supreme Court justices were openly counseling for the rule to be abolished. My research almost certainly saved the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule for America’s future generations. Of all my accomplishments, this one may be the most profound and lasting.

 I have also been a member of the Board of Advisers of the Fully Informed Jury Association (www.FIJA.org), America’s oldest and largest educational organization solely dedicated to informing jurors and potential jurors of their absolute power to acquit criminal defendants in the interests of justice. 

I was a featured speaker at the 2008, 2016, and 2020 Libertarian Party National Conventions and I am a founding member of the Wall of Tolerance, co-founded by Rosa Parks, whose courageous stand against authoritarian government in 1955 showed millions of others how to resist government by simply saying no. 

  From 2021 to Present, I have been working in a Criminal Defense capacity as a Partner of John Pierce Law, an internationally recognized firm dedicated to criminal and civil defense of Americans’ most fundamental rights. John Pierce and I have defended more than 30 January 6 cases, including some of the most significant cases arising from the protests at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

John and I have successfully squashed three subpoenas by the House Select Committee on January 6, and defeated at least 11 criminal counts in an extremely hostile district and jury pool. 

  The Framers’ Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule: The Mounting Evidence, 15 Nevada Law Journal 42-76 (Fall 2014).

Does Increasing Police Professionalism Make the Fourth Amendment Unnecessary?, Journal of the Institute of Justice & International Studies, Volume 13 (2013), pp. 219-225. 

On the Sociology of Innovation: Public Versus Private Investment in Alternative Energy Development for the Twenty-First Century, Journal of Educational Research and Technology, Volume 2, Number 3 (Summer 2013), pp. 103-129

“Chadwick v. United States,” in The Encyclopedia of the Fourth Amendment. John R. Vile & David L. Hudson Jr. (ed.) SAGE-CQ Press (2013)

“Fifth Amendment,” in The Encyclopedia of the Fourth Amendment. John R. Vile & David L. Hudson Jr. (ed.) SAGE-CQ Press (2013)

“Mere Evidence Rule,”in The Encyclopedia of the Fourth Amendment. John R. Vile & David L. Hudson Jr. (ed.) SAGE-CQ Press (2013)

“John Henry Wigmore,”in The Encyclopedia of the Fourth Amendment. John R. Vile & David L. Hudson Jr. (ed.) SAGE-CQ Press (2013)

“Wilkes v. Wood,” in The Encyclopedia of the Fourth Amendment. John R. Vile & David L. Hudson Jr. (ed.) SAGE-CQ Press (2013)

The Rise and Fall of the American Jury, 8 Seton Hall Circuit Review 1 (2012)

Who Benefits from Terrorism? The Common Interests of Terrorists and Governments of Terrorized Societies, War Crimes, Genocide & Crimes against Humanity, Vol. 5, pp. 125-145 (2011)

“Michael Carneal,”  in The Encyclopedia of School Crime and Violence. Laura L. Finley (ed.) ABC-CLIO (2011) 

“Thomas Hamilton,” in The Encyclopedia of School Crime and Violence. Laura L. Finley (ed.) ABC-CLIO (2011)

“Moral Panics,”  in The Encyclopedia of School Crime and Violence. Laura L. Finley (ed.) ABC-CLIO (2011)

Grand Juries Gone Wrong, 14 Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest 331-356 (2010)

Unfair Rules of Procedure: Why Does the Government Get More Time?, 33 American Journal of Trial Advocacy 493-520 (2010)

The Originalist Case For the Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule, 45 Gonzaga Law Review 1-66 (2009)

The Dangers of Automobile Travel: A Reconsideration, 66 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 959-975 (November 2007)

“The Orphaned Right: The Right to Travel by Automobile, 1890-1950,” Oklahoma City University Law Review, 245-269 (2005)

Review of Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style, 34 Contemporary Sociology 67 (2005)

When the Past is a Prison: the Hardening Plight of the American Ex-Convict, Justice Policy Journal 1: 3, Fall (2004)

When Laws Backfire: Unintended Consequences of Public Policy, American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 47, 1376-1394 (2004)

“Metropolitan Correctional Centers” in The Encyclopedia of Prisons and Corrections, Mary Bosworth (ed.) Sage Publishing (2004)

“New Generation Prisons” in The Encyclopedia of Prisons and Corrections. Mary Bosworth (ed.) Sage Publishing (2004) 

“Strip Searches” in The Encyclopedia of Prisons and Corrections. Mary Bosworth (ed.) Sage Publishing (2004)

“Trustees” in The Encyclopedia of Prisons and Corrections. Mary Bosworth (ed.) Sage Publishing (2004)

Terrorized into Absurdity: The Creation of the Transportation Security Administration, Independent Review, v. VIII, N.4, 503-517 (2003)

Of Prisoners and Plaintiffs’ Lawyers: A Tale of Two Litigation Reform Efforts, 38 Willamette Law Review 210-32 (2002) 

A Muckraker’s Aftermath: The Jungle of Meat-Packing Regulation After a Century, 27 William Mitchell Law Review 2413-33 (2001)

Are Cops Constitutional?11 Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal 685-757 (2001)

When Lawyers Were Serial Killers: Nineteenth Century Visions of Good Moral Character, 22 Northern Illinois University Law Review 19-35 (2001)

Government by Permanent Emergency: The Forgotten History of the New Deal Constitution, 33 Suffolk University Law Review 259-92 (2000)

If It’s Not a Runaway, It’s Not a Real Grand Jury, 33 Creighton Law Review 821-42 (2000)

The Approaching Death of the Collective Right Theory of the Second Amendment, 39 Duquesne Law Review 71-110 (2000)

The Student Loan Debt Crisis: A Lesson in Unintended Consequences, 29 Southwestern University Law Review 501-27 (2000)

Note, Criminal Law: State v. Brown, 4 Roger Williams University Law Review 638-45 (1999)

Note, Municipal Law: Brandon v. City of Providence, 4 Roger Williams University Law Review 759-62 (1999)

Note, Remedies: DiPardo & Sons, Inc. v. Lauzon, 4 Roger Williams University Law Review 789-95 (1999)

Note, Workers’ Compensation/Indemnification, Ferguson v. Marshall Contractors, Inc., 4 Roger Williams University Law Review 816-20 (1999).

Torres v. O'Quinn, 612 F.3d 237 (4th Cir. 2010) (referencing "Of Prisoners and Plaintiff's Lawyers: A Tale of Two Litigation Reform Efforts," 38 Willamette L. Rev. 210, 221-22 (2002)).

· United States v. Gurley, 860 F. Supp. 2d 95, 116 (D.Ma 2011) (referencing "The Rise and Fall of the American Jury," 8 Seton Hall Cir. R. 1, 2-4 (2011)).

· United States v. Laurent, 861 F. Supp. 2d 71, 90 (E.D.N.Y. 2011) (referencing "Grand Juries Gone Wrong," 14 Rich. J.L. & Pub. Int. 331, 331-32 (2010).

· Baur v. Veneman, 352 F.3d 625 (2d Cir. 2003) (referencing “If It’s Not a Runaway, It’s Not a Real Grand Jury”) 

· United States v. Marcucci, 299 F.3d 1156, 1162 (9th Cir. 2002) referencing “If It’s Not a Runaway, It’s Not a Real Grand Jury”) 

· United States v. Holmstrom, 246 F.Supp.2d 1101, 1110 (E.D.Wash. 2003)).

       “Unfair Procedural Rules: Why Does the Government Get More Time?” Presentation at the 2009 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences annual meeting, Boston, Massachusetts, March 11, 2009  

 “On the Unfairness of the Federal Rules of Procedure,” Presentation at the 67thAnnual National Conference of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 2, 2009. 

 “The Vicinage Clause: Another Dead Letter in the Constitution,”Presentation at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology (ASC), St. Louis, Missouri, November 14, 2008.

 “New Insights in Founding-Era Search and Seizure Law,” Law and Society Association, Las Vegas, Nevada, June 2005 

“The Science of Conviction,” American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, Nashville, Tennessee, November 2004

“Military Tribunals and the Threat of Wrongful Conviction,” New England Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Annual Meeting, Bristol, Rhode Island, June 2004

“The Dangers of Automobility in Historical Perspective,” National Social Science Association, April 16, 2003, Las Vegas, NV

“Reconstructing Nineteenth Century Homicide Rates,” Western Social Science Association (WSSA) Annual Meeting, April 10, 2003, Las Vegas, NV

“Teaching Statistics to Mathphobes,” 2002 Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Colombia.