Posted on 08/08/2003 8:33:25 AM PDT by You Dirty Rats
Defense may backfire for motorist Husband takes stand for breast-feeding defendant, says she was driving, nursing and talking on phone By Ed Meyer Beacon Journal staff writer
RAVENNA - Hoping to prove she was doing nothing wrong when she was breast-feeding her infant daughter while driving on the Ohio Turnpike, Catherine Donkers called her husband to the witness stand Thursday.
His testimony, however, may have backfired on both of them as the misdemeanor child-endangering case entered its second day in Portage County Municipal Court.
Brad L. Barnhill, Donkers' husband, testified that he was talking to his wife on her cell phone, directing her every move, before she pulled off the turnpike with the lights of a state trooper's cruiser flashing in her rearview mirror.
When Donkers finished her questioning, Prosecutor Sean P. Scahill practically shot out of his seat to cross-examine Barnhill.
``So,'' Scahill said, ``she was nursing your child, she was talking on the cell phone and she was driving down the turnpike?''
Barnhill, 46, paused and said: ``That would be a fair characterization.''
Donkers, 29, who is defending herself in the case, could be sentenced to six months in jail and fined $1,000 if she is convicted of the child-endangering charge, a first-degree misdemeanor.
She also was charged with driving without a license, failure to comply with the order of a police officer and other driving infractions.
It is a case that has drawn international attention because Donkers and Barnhill have claimed in their voluminous court filings that their actions should be governed by their ``strict religious beliefs.''
The principal tenet of their beliefs, to which Barnhill also testified, is that ``there can be only one public voice'' in their family and that, as such, Donkers ``must do what I say.''
Closing arguments
Judge Donald H. Martell, who is deciding the case without a jury, scheduled closing arguments for 9 this morning.
The judge, who has guided two days of questioning and testimony by both sides, gave Donkers a warning before adjourning.
``Let's try to take this evening to make that closing argument as short as possible,'' he said.
Twice during Thursday's proceedings, Martell had to stop testimony so that the two court reporters could reload their transcribing machines with paper.
``I think we're into another tree,'' he quipped.
In the afternoon, Martell permitted Donkers to make a statement from the witness stand because, acting as her own lawyer, she could not call herself as a witness.
It took 10 minutes, alone, for Donkers to state that she would tell the truth. She refused to take the sworn oath that the bailiff tried to read to her, she said, because it would be ``repugnant to my faith to swear an oath.''
She eventually promised to tell the truth, without swearing.
Under cross-examination by the prosecutor, Donkers gave even more details of what she was doing when she was talking to her husband with the trooper trailing her.
Donkers said she was taking notes -- on a piece of paper on the steering wheel of her Chrysler Sebring convertible -- for an unrelated court case in which she and her husband are involved.
``I had a piece of paper on the steering wheel, and I was writing something down -- with my right hand,'' Donkers said.
When Scahill asked her where her child was as she was doing that, she replied that the baby was ``nursing on the nursing pillow'' in her lap.
``So,'' Scahill said, ``now you're going down the turnpike, writing on a piece of paper... with your infant in your lap?''
She said she was.
Donkers had said earlier in her statement that she didn't believe ``any substantial risk was posed to my child'' by anything she did before the trooper finally stopped her car.
The stop was at a toll plaza, according to testimony, three miles after Trooper Adam M. Doles left the median to pursue Donkers' car.
A New York truck driver testified on the trial's first day that he called 911 to report the incident after seeing the baby in Donkers' lap.
Trip recounted
Donkers corroborated that testimony when she answered another of Scahill's questions about the events of May 8.
After crossing the line from Pennsylvania, Donkers said she stopped at the first Ohio rest area and fed the baby some formula with rice.
After that, she said, the baby was still hungry, so she put the child in her lap and ``drove along.''
She estimated she drove with the baby in her lap for about 40 minutes before the trooper got involved.
What would she have done if she needed to take evasive action?
``Probably hit the brake pedal,'' she told the prosecutor.
In what may have been her strongest defense, Donkers said she did not pull over immediately after seeing the trooper behind her because ``I wasn't going to place myself and my child in jeopardy by going off on the side of the road.''
To bolster that argument, Donkers entered into evidence a magazine from the Geico insurance company, noting a section called ``Ticket Etiquette,'' which advised drivers to slow down and pull over to a safe area if they feel their safety is at risk.
Her husband testified she had been assaulted twice before by police officers. Donkers, too, said she was afraid to pull over immediately for Doles because she had been ``twice sexually assaulted, once while I was unconscious.''
When she started to describe in detail what happened on those occasions, the judge stopped her in mid-sentence and said he did not need the ``minute details.''
``The court does not disbelieve that you've had difficulties with other individuals,'' Martell said.
While all this was going on, Donkers' mother was taking care of the baby girl in the hallway outside the courtroom, feeding her and taking her for walks in a stroller.
During testimony, Scahill managed for the first time to get Barnhill to state the baby's name, Seren, and to establish her date of birth as Nov. 18.
Donkers said during the lunch break that the child's name was Welsh for ``star.''
Donkers says her home was Michigan at the time of the traffic stop, though Barnhill had been staying in Pittsburgh for work. The car she drove had license plates from Michigan, where the child-restraint law has a nursing-baby exception.
She testified she had no driver's license from any state, and couldn't get one from Pennsylvania because she refuses to get a Social Security number.
Barnhill said the family has just moved to Hollywood, where he works for a California firm that helps people get out of debt.
``We got in the truck and moved to Beverly,'' he said during a break.
He told the judge he makes ``25 ounces of gold per month'' in his new job and that the cash equivalent was about $8,500 to $9,000.
Couldn't she just affirm the oath -- I do affirm that I will tell the truth...
Hey, it's Constitutional...
What is your basis for that statement? I very much doubt that is so. If she is driving on an Ohio highway, she is bound to follow the traffic laws of Ohio.
You missed one:
Under cross-examination by the prosecutor, Donkers gave even more details of what she was doing when she was talking to her husband with the trooper trailing her.
Donkers said she was taking notes -- on a piece of paper on the steering wheel of her Chrysler Sebring convertible -- for an unrelated court case in which she and her husband are involved.
``I had a piece of paper on the steering wheel, and I was writing something down -- with my right hand,'' Donkers said.
When Scahill asked her where her child was as she was doing that, she replied that the baby was ``nursing on the nursing pillow'' in her lap.
I'm going to keep this defense in mind next time I need one.
"I'm sorry officer, but my wife told me to get home in a hurry. And I'm shaving cuz she doesn't like my stubble. And she told me to have a beer cuz it relaxes me and makes me more personable."
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/portage/1060335541303231.xml
When police pulled her over, Donkers produced a homemade identification card showing an address in Pennsylvania.
Why are such people allowed to procreate?
Police have a duty to know the law, whatever it may be. The officer failed his duty in this case. She is being prosecuted as a result of his dereliction of duty.
So can her husband. He's still married to his first wife.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/portage/1060335541303231.xml
Donkers and a man she says is her common-law husband - Brad Lee Barnhill - belong to an organization called the First Christian Fellowship for Eternal Sovereignty. The couple oppose forms of governmental registration, such as Social Security numbers and marriage certificates.
Donkers testified she and her husband had no wedding ceremony, that their relationship simply evolved about two years ago.
<snip>
Barnhill, in an interview yesterday, said his divorce from a woman he married years ago is not final. "I accept the consequences of my actions," he said. "It [the divorce] has been in process for years. I lack the will to force her to do it."
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