Posted on 08/07/2003 7:09:49 AM PDT by Dane
Strict faith is no defense(Breast-feeding driver loses bid to have husband..)
By Ed Meyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
RAVENNA - At best, the misdemeanor trial of 29-year-old Catherine Nicole Donkers is likely to go down in history as a little out of the ordinary.
It began in a packed courtroom Wednesday morning when Portage County Municipal Judge Donald H. Martell ruled that the woman's husband, Brad L. Barnhill, 46, cannot act as her lawyer or substitute for her as the defendant in the case.
Donkers, who was arrested May 8 after she admitted breast-feeding her infant daughter while driving on the Ohio Turnpike, had cited the couple's religious beliefs in trying to convince the judge that only her husband could answer for her public acts.
But Martell put a quick end to that, telling Donkers: ``You're representing your interests, and if you're found guilty of any charges... it will be you that will be subject to the punishment of the court, not your husband.''
And with that, the daylong proceedings began in a case that has drawn attention from radio and television talk shows and newspapers throughout the United States and Canada.
Donkers, with Barnhill whispering instructions to her from the first row of the gallery as Martell entered the courtroom, was charged with misdemeanor counts of child endangering, driving without a license, failure to comply with the order of a police officer and other driving infractions.
She will stand trial before the judge alone, defending herself, and it could drag on for the rest of the week, Martell said.
After Donkers refused to accept a court-appointed public defender as her defense counsel, trying to introduce an edition of the Jerusalem Bible as her first piece of evidence, Assistant Portage County Prosecutor Sean P. Scahill opened the state's case by announcing his list of witnesses.
Donkers countered by announcing her own witnesses, one of which, she argued, should be the state of Ohio.
``I'm not sure we have room in the hallway,'' the judge replied, citing the need to keep witnesses outside the courtroom until they are called to testify.
The judge asked Barnhill to leave the courtroom, reminding him that he was also on his wife's potential witness list.
It was that kind of day, a day in which the prosecutor made it through only two witnesses.
The judge allowed public defender John P. Laczko to stay at the defense table, although Donkers refused his help. Laczko said little, though, and mostly shook his head at what he heard.
Trucker testifies
Truck driver George W. Barrett of Syracuse, N.Y., who called 911 to report the incident, testified that he just happened to look out the window of his truck when he saw Donkers driving with a child in her lap.
``I could not believe what I saw,'' Barrett said.
As Barrett began to follow Donkers, he said he made contact with another truck driver on his citizens band radio -- and ``he couldn't believe it either.''
According to testimony, State Highway Patrol trooper Adam M. Doles then followed Donkers' maroon Chrysler Sebring convertible for three miles before she finally pulled into a toll area.
Before that, Doles said, he had clocked Donkers at 68 mph on his radar unit, 3 mph over the interstate limit.
Audio and videotapes from the trooper's patrol car, played in their entirety and lasting nearly two hours, showed that the entire incident could have been over in minutes if Donkers had simply stopped.
Doles said he used his overhead lights, turned on his siren at least three times and even ordered Donkers to stop over his car loudspeaker, but she drove on before finally stopping in front of a toll booth.
Trooper on tape
When Doles approached the Sebring, according to the tapes, he told Donkers she would have been free to leave after simply accepting a ticket for violating the state's child-restraint law.
But Donkers refused to turn over her driver's license or even turn off the car, Doles said, so he had no choice but to call his supervisor to the scene.
More than an hour later, Donkers and her baby daughter were finally in the back of the trooper's car on the way to the patrol post in Hiram.
She was later held at the Portage County Jail, according to testimony, while her husband drove from Pittsburgh to pick up the baby.
Donkers, meanwhile, argues in court papers that she is a resident of Michigan, which has an exception to its child-restraint law if the baby is being nursed.
Barnhill has filed reams of court documents in the case, citing the family's membership in The First Christian Fellowship for Eternal Sovereignty, which opposes many federal laws and government agencies. He has threatened to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The second day of testimony is scheduled to begin at 9 this morning.
If convicted of the highest misdemeanor charge of child endangering, Donkers could face a maximum of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
This woman made an incredibly ridiculous choice to nurse her child while driving. And then to ignore law enforcement...absolutely moronic.
Religious freedom should never be argued to overrule common sense.
It probably cost her husband more in gas money to go get the kid than her original ticket would have cost. And shoot, lets face it, she probably could have gotten away with just a warning.
While thinking to himself, "I have to find another line of work."
Or alternatively, "I can't believe my law firm volunteered me for this."
Before this one is over, they will sue every man and woman in the US! They're wacky!
He's a freeper. And a nutcase. I've forgotten his screen name.
And we have a winner, folks.
Miss Mabel, how does this couple's behavior reflect God's Law? I seem to remember something on the order of "render under Caesar"...
The husband is on an ego trip. If anything, he is giving self-purported religious folks a bad name.
Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.
Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers shrilly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.
Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.
Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I've told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.
Yet law-abiding scholars write;
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good-morning and Good-night.
Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.
And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.
If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the Law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the Law is
And that all know this
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,
Unlike so many men
I cannot say Law is again,
No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition.
Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyway:
Like love I say.
Like love we don't know where or why,
Like love we can't compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.
--W.H. Auden
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