The Barnes Brief: Friday. February 21, 2025
Art of the Day
Schedule
Past
- Live w/ Duran
Future
- Friday at 9ish pm eastern: Betting w/ Barnes: SportsPicks Subscribers Exclusive AMA
- Saturday Night at 9 pm eastern: Movie TBD
- Sunday at 9 pm eastern: Viva & Barnes, Law for the People
- Tuesday-Thursday February 25 to 27, Bourbon w/ Barnes at 9ish eastern
Book Recommendation: Lords of Poverty detailing the fraudulent way many “aid” NGOs work. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53331.Lords_of_Poverty
Art of the Day: From one of the meme maker maestros, an elegant image of simply luxuries to end a hard day’s labor – a smooth glass with a big piece of ice draped in the inviting bourbon sharing the space with a lit cigar, against the backdrop of a whiskey cast with the name slipped in Viva/Barnes…very well done!
Wisdom of the Day: “I still remember, 40 years ago, when I was shackled and put in prison…Being an American citizen didn’t mean a thing then.” Fred Korematsu.
The Library: Top 5 Curated Articles of the Week
- A new disease: post Covid vaccination syndrome
- Language police
- Populist left protest
- Homeless rise
- Left uncovers why young people shifted
*Bonus: King of late night
Top 10 Cases TBD Sunday
- SCOTUS: Civil Rights
- SCOTUS: No Justice
- SCOTUS: Qui Tam Fraud
- SCOTUS: Prejudicial evidence
- Senseless in Seattle: Benshoof Case
- 1st Amendment Prosecutions
- Indentured servants
- Parental rights undermined
- Trans protections in prison
- Doge in court
*Bonus: High Seas power.
Closing Argument: Politicized Punishment
From my sentencing brief in the Senseless in Seattle case:
- How much is enough? Mr. Benshoof has lost his car, lost his home, lost the right to contact his son, and lost his liberty for months in jail. He faces another trial on related charges. The Prosecution suggests an 81-year prison sentence, and formally now seeks an unprecedented, harsh, punitive six-year prison sentence with de facto termination of parental rights in a 5-year no contact order with his own son – for what? A father texting his teenage son. The son often sought out the contact, and never complained about the contacts. Instead of the facts of this case, the government focuses on everything but this case, while ignoring the punishment that has already been imposed on the defendant. A just sentence conforming to Constitutional principles calls for a time served sentence, not a sentence longer than what some rapists get.
- Indeed, the entire case is predicated on a serious Constitutional offense – punishing a defendant for asserting his fundamental right to parent. A court cannot circumvent the Constitutional and statutory processes for terminating parental rights with “no contact” orders. The government’s sentence, if imposed, raises additional Constitutional questions, including terminating parental rights without due process of law and punishing defendants based on the individual interest of prosecutors and courts because the defendant brought legal complaints against them.
- Few fundamental rights are more important than the parental right to contact, control and custody of their minor children. Indeed, “[a] parent's right to control and to have the custody of his children is a fundamental civil right which may not be interfered with without the complete protection of due process safeguards.” In re Dependency of K.N.J., 171 Wash. 2d 568, 574, 257 P.3d 522, 526 (2011) (quoting Halsted v. Sallee, 31 Wash. App. 193, 195, 639 P.2d 877 (1982)). Mr. Benshoof, as a “natural parent, has a fundamental liberty interest in his custody and care of” his son. Id. (quoting In re Custody of C.C.M., 149 Wash.App. 184, 203, 202 P.3d 971 (2009)). “Procedures used to terminate the relationship between parent and child must meet the requisites of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” Id. at 574 (quoting Lassiter v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 452 U.S. 18, 24–32 (1981)). Indeed, the Court of Appeals has previously noted that relocation and dependency proceedings are distinguishable from termination proceedings because they do not “sever all contact between the nonresidential parent and child.” In re Marriage of Wehr, 165 Wash. App. 610, 615, 267 P.3d 1045, 1048 (2011). Here, however, the no-contact order at issue in the case, and the no contact order recommended by the prosecution would sever all contact between Mr. Benshoof and his son: without Due Process or the required statutory termination procedures.
- None of these steps ever occurred: the prior court order stripped the Defendant of his fundamental rights without conforming to Constitutional or statutory process, and punishing him for asserting that right is as problematic as now seeking to create a new no contact order stripping him of those fundamental rights into the future. The Prosecution seeks to skip right over all of the Due Process protections built into a termination procedure and skip directly to the results of the termination: preventing Mr. Benshoof from seeing or contacting his son ever again. The Prosecution is essentially demanding a constructive termination of the parental relationship. Worse still, they demand this against the wishes of Mr. Benshoof’s son – who has the legal right to choose which parent he wishes to retain custody.
- The government asks this court to commit the very abuses of power that led to standardizing sentencing in the first place: the need to treat similarly situated people similarly. The government’s punitive sentencing request invites yet another legal error: it demands punishment because the defendant has brought legal action against prosecutors and judges. This demand violates the defendant’s right to petition the government for redress of grievances, a Constitutional policy that prevents people seeking extra-legal remedies. While the government objects to the defendant constantly seeking out the courts for remedy, the government ignores his Constitutional right to do so, including the defendant challenging the service of process of the no-contact order at issue in this case, and challenged its constitutionality and jurisdictional authority as well. No one – until now – has sought to imprison someone for petitioning the court for redress of grievances, a First Amendment protected right. Aside from the Constitutional concerns, the government’s complaints about the defendant’s pro se litigation ignores that this case doesn’t concern those matters and that the defendant had already been punished. Mr. Benshoof has already been penalized with denial of the right to sue without advance court permission, dismissal of his petitions, denial of his complaints and appeals, and financial fines. By contrast, a time served sentence conforms to other comparable cases, Constitutional principles, and just sentencing.
- It is apparent the legal authorities of the Seattle area dislike Benshoof’s pro se litigant and Covid policy protest past, but that is not the basis for imposing the harshest punishment ever imposed on a middle aged defendant with very little criminal history, who has already lost his ability to seek judicial redress without advance judicial permission, lost his car, lost his residence, and lost custody of his son, when that sentence will undermine confidence in the legal system and not be a truly just sentence. How much is enough?
