When Dreams Become Nightmares
By Edgar J. Steele, Attorney-at-law
|
Edgar J. Steele is the attorney
representing the Christine parents. This article was published on Yahoo!
Groups Conspiracy PenPals on The article is reprinted/republished here upon the special permission granted to all non-profit organizations. |
Ever have a dream
where life was just perfect? That everything you did and said was
the epitome of grace and everybody was kind and supportive? Ever have a
dream just like that, but which suddenly took a nasty turn to reveal
its true nature and show it for the nightmare that it really was? That's
about when you wake up in a cold sweat, grateful to be given back your mundane
existence, right?
Dream along with me for a moment. Imagine that you are in your
late twenties.
Imagine that you and your wife (or husband) have three beautiful
little girls - blond, blue eyed and button cute.
Imagine that your wife is (or you are) pregnant again, due to
deliver in a month.
Now, imagine that you are traveling around the country with your
family in your motor home, hoping to see as much as possible before the girls
reach school age. Imagine stopping for a time in a picture-book perfect little
town.
It's summertime. It's warm. Birds are singing. There's a light
breeze soughing through the tree branches, carrying the smell of lilacs.
Imagine that, while your family has lunch in the motor home,
parked for the morning in the public library parking lot, you are inside using
the public-access internet computer. You have a modest business, buying and
selling things on eBay, mostly computer-related, but it's enough to supply
money for gas and food while your family takes this extended vacation.
Your littlest girl is just getting over a bout with the flu. But
she's coming around now - kids always do.
Life is good, huh? Now your dream takes an unexpected turn.
You look up and see your mate coming toward you, shepherding the
girls like a mother hen...followed by several police officers.
After a heated discussion, you take your family and retreat to
your motor home. The police demand entry. They speak with your youngest girl in
private. Before nightfall, you are in jail on unfounded and false charges of
child neglect, the result of a stranger's anonymous call to the
authorities earlier that day. Your three girls have been taken by the state.
You don't yet know that you will see them only twice during the coming year.
Your wife is left alone, pregnant and with no money, sitting in the motor home
as the sun goes down.
Released on bail a few days later, you and your wife demand to
see your children. No, you are told. You fight the system. You haven't done
anything wrong.
Deeply religious, you and your wife pray for guidance and have
faith that God will guide you to the reunification of your family.
Then the authorities say they will take the girls away from you
permanently because you haven't played ball. Because you didn't go for the
psychological evaluations or the counseling they required. Because you didn't
bow and scrape for the authorities or the judge. You believe them because they
tried so hard to take your newborn baby, too, who you gave to your mother
halfway across the country for safekeeping, granting her permanent
guardianship. Though a local judge issues an order to seize that baby, a judge
in that distant state says no.
Finally, you agree to do what the state requires, but still they
insist that it is too late and your little girls all will be adopted out.
Desperate, crazy with worry and pushed into a corner, you persuade
the state to allow you to visit with the girls for only the second time since
they were taken from you. At the designated spot, you verify that they are
okay. You cry and you laugh together for a time. Then, you tearfully part
company.
You leave your wife and follow them. Allegedly at gunpoint, you
commandeer the state car they transported the kids in and drive a short
distance to where you have stashed a car. Together with your wife, you flee the
state with your children, leaving behind the motor home and all your
possessions. It doesn't matter. You are a family again. All that matters is
that your children are safe. By the way, your wife is seven months pregnant
again.
They catch you, of course, two states away.
The girls are immediately taken back to the foster home they had
been placed in. You and your wife are held in two different jails, several
hundred miles apart.
Ever have a dream take a nasty turn like that? That's
about when you wake up in a cold sweat, thankful for the return to your humdrum
reality.
Imagine this, though: imagine that all of this is true and, not
only do you never wake up from it, but it actually gets worse. Meet Brian and
Ruth Christine. They have been living this nightmare-come-to-life for the past
year.
The three oldest Christine
Girls: Bethany, Miriam and Lidia.
Brian and Ruth refused extradition from the
This is the point at which I was asked to help Ruth and Brian.
Although I am allowed to practice law in
Finally, in frustration with Montana lawyers that did nothing and
demanded to be paid anyway, I employed a once-in-a-legal-career device called pro
hac vice admission to enter the Montana court myself and forced a
guardianship hearing just as Montana was about to railroad a custody hearing
into a transfer of the just-born baby Abbey Rose to the Oregon authorities.
We were assigned to a judge that listened, thankfully. He agreed
with us that baby Abbey Rose should not be handed over to
Brian's mother and Abbey Rose left the next day. Little Abbey
Rose saw her older sister, Olivia, that night for the first time. She has never
seen her three oldest sisters. Neither has Olivia, for that matter.
Brian and Ruth were swiftly taken back to Oregon, where they have
been sitting in jail cells in Roseburg ever since, awaiting trial on a raft of
criminal charges. If convicted of even half of them, this young couple will
spend the rest of their lives in prison. Foremost among them: kidnapping, of
course...kidnapping their own children.
Brian, Ruth and the three oldest
girls in happier times.
Their trial starts on March 19, less than one month from now. Two
weeks ago, they finally signed away their parental rights to their three oldest
girls, hoping to spare the girls any further trauma in what was a doomed
struggle to retain custody. Only because they were assured that Ruth's parents,
residents of
Such a parental rights termination "trial" is held
before a judge, only, in a closed hearing and the presentation of witnesses and
evidence is limited to what the state produces. Parents have no rights to
independent examinations in these proceedings, thereby ensuring the outcome in
the state's favor. This is truly a guilty until proven innocent railroad job,
all but impossible to derail.
The Douglas County District Attorney had steadfastly refused to
discuss any sort of plea arrangement, saying to call him once Ruth & Brian
gave up rights to the three girls, suggesting a reasonable plea offer would be
made once they did such. Today, that offer was communicated to us. Now that
they have spent six months in jail already and now that they have given up
their three oldest girls to Oregon authorities and their two babies to Brian's
mother, here is what Oregon thinks they should still suffer: plead guilty to a
"Measure 11" felony (mandatory minimum sentencing) and serve 7-1/2
years each in prison. No kidding.
We have a technical term in the law business for this sort of situation:
it's a "no-brainer." Call your first witness, Mr. DA, because we'll
take our chances with a jury.
Once we got the baby safely out of
Now, we must make up lost ground because we are adamant about suffering
no further delay. We feel as though the DA snookered us this last time,
by causing us to delay the trial once already, yet produce nothing reasonable
by way of a plea deal. What would a reasonable deal have looked
like? Plead to misdemeanor custodial interference and time served.
Anything beyond that gets Ruth deported (she is a British citizen). She
would not be allowed back to visit her two babies or Brian and you can bet that
Brian would never be allowed into
All because some busybody called the authorities in
Ruth and Brian now face life in prison for rescuing their
children. Meanwhile, rapists get probation and murderers are out in
two-to-four. Oh, did I forget to mention that Ruth and Brian are somewhat
politically incorrect? Silly me. It makes such a difference these
days, doesn't it?
-ed
"I didn't say it would be easy. I
just said it would be the truth."
- Morpheus
ã Edgar J. Steele, 2002
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