Mother defends breastfeeding baby while driving (followup on idiot)

WKYC-TV/DT Cleveland ^ | 6.17.03 | Vic Gideon

[mhking]

Mother defends breastfeeding baby while driving

Reported by Vic Gideon
POSTED: Monday, June 16, 2003 5:06:15 PM
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 12:20:52 PM

PORTAGE COUNTY -- A mother traveling from Detroit to Pittsburgh got into trouble in Portage County while trying to drive and breastfeed her baby at the same time.

Twenty-nine-year-old Catherine Donkers had fed the baby before she left Detroit but said her seven-month-old daughter was hungry again.

"I knew I was doing nothing wrong when I was breastfeeding her," Donkers said.

Donkers doesn't consider her actions excessively dangerous.

"I think there are lots of things we do when we put ourselves at risk, just by the very fact that I'm in a car and there's lots of car accidents every single day," she said. "I think it would be reasonable to say even that's a danger."

A truck driver apparently saw it as a danger and called the highway patrol. But Donkers wouldn't pull over for police until she got to a tollbooth.

"I've directed her to, that when she doesn't feel safe, she goes to a public place," said her husband, Brad Barnhill.

At the tollbooth, Donkers didn't give the trooper a driver's license. She instead pulled out an affidavit as identification and got cited for not having a license.

The couple also claims she did nothing wrong, saying Michigan law has an exemption to its child restraint law for nursing mothers.

They claim that since the turnpike is an interstate, drivers can follow the laws of their home state. But the highway patrol says that as long as the stop occurred in Ohio, they have to abide by Ohio laws.

The couple has done extensive research on the law and believes in a strict adherence to them. Donkers is facing child endangering and child seat violations among other charges. Her and her husband say they plan to fight all charges and will file a counter suit.

[Howlin]

620 is addressed to you, too.

[Howlin]

I once saw a dog tethered to the back window of one of these, going down I-40.

I nearly lost my mind. Picture the dog, hanging on for dear life.

[ChemistCat]

It's still sensible to pull over only in a safe place. I do not quarrel with that part of her actions--only all the rest.

It is so SPECIAL to only use those portions of government you agree with, and refuse to fund any of it, isn't it?

[bonfire]

"It only took 544 posts for somebody to get to the point."


Wonder how many more posts of people defending her stupidity?

[Poohbah]

OK, let's see.

Assaulted twice by cops, and suing a cop for assault.

Allegedly raped at gunpoint while attending Annapolis, which would have been sometime between 1991 and 1996, based on her age. OK, let's see if we can find a Lucky Bag (Annapolis yearbook) showing her in her plebe year.

[Catspaw]

Amazing that her husband would allow her to take a five hour trip alone on an interstate (and all the interstates we travel are usually crawling with local and state cops), especially with an infant, when she seems especially vulnerable to assault by cop--but who am I to decide what goes on inside a marriage.

[Poohbah]

Amazing that her husband would allow her to take a five hour trip alone on an interstate (and all the interstates we travel are usually crawling with local and state cops), especially with an infant, when she seems especially vulnerable to assault by cop--but who am I to decide what goes on inside a marriage.

It's enough to make me wonder if these alleged assaults actually happened, or if this is some sort of effort to troll for lawsuit targets.

[Catspaw]

It's enough to make me wonder if these alleged assaults actually happened, or if this is some sort of effort to troll for lawsuit targets.

Ya think? We didn't see the names of the cops, their departments, where the suit(s) have been filed, whether the cops were prosecuted criminally and/or disciplined by their departments or police boards....and nothing comes up on a google.com search about this.

Sounds like a serial litigator, hoping to score that big settlement, to me.

[Poohbah]

Finally, I know that this woman has been assaulted twice by the police. I know that she has been raped at gunpoint while she attended the US Naval Academy.

I take she didn't graduate. What class would she have been in? When did she become a plebe?

As for the case (the one she needs the expert witness for)...where and when was the case filed?

[ChemistCat]

People who have been "assaulted" multiple times by police fall into pretty distinct categories. It hasn't happened once to me. It isn't just luck--it's also that I don't do things that attract a lot of interaction with cops. Yes, I have been stopped for speeding once, had neighbor problems that involved cops (me calling them, not the other way around) and so forth, and I've had a few cops for friends...so it's not like I'm in some safe haven, except that I'm a pretty much normal, law-abiding citizen.

I'm thinking WTO riots...chronic drunk &disorderly...methmakers...suicide attempts...domestic disputes...who else has "frequent" run-ins with the law?

[Poohbah]

I dunno, she just might have the perpetual black cloud of bad karma hovering over her head.

[ChemistCat]

Well, I can relate to that, anyway.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Dan, because you're such a stickler for accuracy, I'm sure you don't mind this gentle correction.

Thank you. I appreciate the clarification. I will do my best to be more accurate in the future.

As an aside, I'm always grateful when someone corrects me for my ignorance or mistakes as you've done here. We are all poorly served by erroneous information.

FRegards,

Dan

[Chemist_Geek]

I bet he takes instate tuition rates. :-)

Government-backed student loans, too, I'd bet.

[Catspaw]

Loans? More likely grants. Free money is free money, after all.

[Poohbah]

Bump

[BlueLancer]

"People who have been "assaulted" multiple times by police fall into pretty distinct categories."

Shortly after I became a military court reporter, I was involved in a rape case where the defendant was a very small female, approximately 95 pounds (soaking wet), who had been allegedly raped while walking back after closing time from the Soldiers' Club to her barracks in 13th COSCOM, across a very large, very empty, and very dark parade field.

Under questioning from the defense, she stated that she had not eaten since lunchtime, had drank approximately (she couldn't quite remember the exact number) 15 to 20 mixed vodka drinks AND at least six long-necks, and had accepted the offer of two males that she didn't know to walk her back to her barracks. She also testified that she had been raped before, although she couldn't remember the exact number of times because of her intoxicated status at the times they allegedly occurred.

When asked why she hadn't reported the earlier rapes, why she walked across an empty black field with two males that she didn't know while intoxicated, and why she didn't contact the MPs either to get a ride back to her barracks or to report the rape immediately after it occurred. Her reply to all of these was ...

"Because I don't trust cops."

Amazing what you can find when you turn over rocks.

[RgnadKzin]

Hi, I'm back - so be gentle. Flew to Kalifornia and back, got the job offer (no SSAN, no withholding, no reporting) The company is going to fly us back here for court appearances in our various cases. btw, I was hired for my legal expertise.

Let me make a few observations and corrections about what has been posted in my absense.

1st, she was not raped by a cop. She was raped by an NCO while she was at the Naval Academy. You inventive sleuths have already confirmed that she attended. This rape was between the plebe and second year. Of course, once CID dropped the charges, the upperclassmen were relentless. She had two plebe years and decided not to go for a third. I thought she toughed that out way too long.

2nd, she pulled over to the side to burp and change sides. The child suckles for about 50 minutes total, so it is not just a loss of 10 minutes or so we are dealing with here. While she did not make the symposium, she still found an expert witness the following weekend by banging on doors at U of M.

3rd, we have the audio and video from the stop. Doles (who pulled her over) calls in to dispatch, saying "She's just looking for a safe spot." Harmon, the supervisor tells her, "We are not charging you with fleeing (sic-Failure to Comply), because we understand your desire to find a safe spot."

Now google up the cop in that area that was very recently convicted of forcing a woman to have sex with him in the back of his unit. We don't make this crap up.

4th, I pay ALL taxes for which I am liable. The roads are built using tolls (in this case) and gasoline taxes (which we pay). Turns out that the three main income taxes are excises. An excise means that you do not pay the tax if you do not engage in the activity. In the case of most people, they pay the FIT, which is actually descendent from the Income Duty of 1862 on foreign and possession earned income; reference taxableincome.net. They might also be presumed to be liable for the Normal Tax of 1922 as amended, an excise on the privilege of government employment. They might also be presumed to be liable for either the Chapter 2 (self employment) or the Chapter 21 (employment FICA) taxes. Turns out this is an excise on the privilege of having your pay covered for the purposes of National Socialism, and I am not required to participate; reference Railroad Retirement Bd v. Alton RR Co.

5th, the original charges are Child Restraint (which are very beatable given the statutes involved), Obstructing Official Business (ostensibly for refusing to provide identification that she provided), and No Valid License (because she gave them privately issued ID rather than the state issued thing).

The prosecutor is going to argue that the Michigan statute does not apply to a driver. Read it, what do you think?

After we filed a counterclaim, the prosecutor filed Failure to Comply (in the face of the potential troopers' testimony above) and Endangering Children (when the child restraint violation cannot be used as evidence).

I will file a motion to dismiss this last charge and we will hear that in a couple of weeks. Then I go after the assistant prosecutor for malice (he should know better than to file a charge where he knows there is no evidence), and against his boss, the county prosecutor, if they have not dropped all of this by that time.

btw We will be in New York on GMA on ABC Wednesday morning. We presume we will not be hitting softballs.

6th, Child restraint laws ALWAYS have exceptions. Your state is no different. If you drive a cab and pick me and my family up from the airport, we will have no child restraint seat and neither will you. Fortunately for you, there is an exception, so you cannot be charged, unless some stupid cop charges you and you stupidly put up with it.

7th, and I think no one has really considered this as much as I think they should. What is the chance that a child in a restraint will survive an accident at 65 MPH? It is so close to zero, that it will surprise you. So the restraint cannot be the issue in this case. The child would be dead in any event. I think you would be surprised that there is only a 6 in 100 thousand chance that an unrestrained child is involved in an accident. Catherine and I decided that these odds outweighed the risk to get to that symposium so that she could have an opportunity to punish the man who raped her. We are trying to prove he put something in her drink.

8th, I understand and sympathize with your concern that Catherine endangers you if you are on the same road when she is nursing our child. You will find no evidence on the record that she was not in control of that car at all times. Heck the child nursed halfway thru the traffic stop without so much as looking up.

Finally, the license issue. I already discussed the law of this in an earlier thread. Let me add to that. In Ohio (like most states), they have "decriminalized" traffic offenses so that you can be robbed of your right to a trial by jury (depending upon the state). Ohio law (and the laws of most states) say that if a person has committed a "minor," then they cannot be arrested unless they are incapacitated or unless they do not provide "sufficient evidence of identity." It does not say driver's license.

The question that I am formulating for appeal (I always set this up so that I create appealable error), is whether such an intrusion is warranted under the standard of "resonableness" and whether a public official would have the authority to make a warrantless arrest for such an offense at the time the 4th amendment was written.

They don't want to entertain that question.

I will be around for a bit, so "have at me."

[drjimmy]

So, because the woman fully informed herself of the laws she is forced to live under, that is a red flag?
It was a combination of things in the article that raised the red flag for me, and now that I have finally had the chance to revisit this thread and read the 600+ posts, I think my original assessment was spot on.

[Catspaw]

I agree.