A few more details:
Man uses strict faith as defense
Husband says woman shouldn't be defendant in breast-feeding case
By Ed Meyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
Ed Suba Jr., ABJ
Brad Barnhill, wife Catherine Donkers and their daughter prepare to fight the charges brought against Catherine.
A woman given a ticket for breast-feeding her daughter while driving on the Ohio Turnpike last month could have gone on her merry way with a slap on the wrist and a $100 fine.
At least that was the offer from the Portage County Prosecutor's Office on May 9, the day after a trucker called 911 to report that he had seen the woman driving her car with a baby in her lap.
The woman's husband, however, is trying to make a federal case out of it -- literally -- by claiming she is not the real defendant.
He said he is.
He made that claim, citing Mosaic law from the Old Testament and writings from the days of the Founding Fathers because of the couple's ``deeply held spiritual beliefs'' that the husband is ``the sole head of the family'' and the only one who can punish the wife for a public act.
He said he would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to prove his position.
Local court officials bite their tongues at the mere mention of the case, but it's all on the record in three bulging case folders filed in the Portage County Courthouse in Ravenna.
Charges against mother
According to the court docket, 29-year-old Catherine Nicole Donkers is scheduled to go on trial Aug. 6 on misdemeanor charges of child endangering, failure to comply with the order of a police officer and several other driving infractions.
She could have had the original charges -- driving without a license, obstructing official business and violating the child safety-seat law -- reduced to a single guilty plea to driving under suspension, according to court records.
But that, said her husband, 46-year-old Brad L. Barnhill, would have been an impermissible violation of their faith.
``The situation here,'' Barnhill said during an interview last week, ``is that, according to our faith, I'm the head of the household. I'm responsible for what she does, and no one can punish her except me.
``So if they want to punish somebody, let them punish me. I am the defendant.
``That's the way I have to do things under my faith. And if I fail in that duty, I'm going to hell.''
Barnhill, who said he lives with his wife in an apartment near Pittsburgh, said they will never compromise their faith.
``If they refuse to allow me the free exercise of my religion,'' he said, ``then we're going to appeal this all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States and they're not going to be able to try her before then.''
Religious beliefs
Barnhill said his faith is rooted in The First Christian Fellowship for Eternal Sovereignty, an organization founded in the late 1990s, according to information on its Web site. The founder was a man named Christopher Hansen.
The Web site, which bears the heading Patriot Saints for the Kingdom of God on Earth, says the fellowship's headquarters is in Henderson, Nev.
Hansen says on the Web site that the fellowship's main objectiveis to convert and educate sovereign Americans ``to demand and defend their God given rights and fulfill their duties as freedom loving Christians against the encroachment of the Beast and his agents.''
Hansen identifies the Beast as the federal government and some of its agents as the IRS, Social Security Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Barnhill said he is a minister in the fellowship with 650 followers who ``regularly correspond'' with him by e-mail and letters.
He and his followers, Barnhill said, believe in the strictest interpretation of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and other writings from the late 1700s.
``You can understand we're a little different,'' Barnhill said.
His wife was prohibited from paying the fine in the initial offer from the prosecutor, he said, because that would have meant she was ``bearing false witness,'' which would deny her ``entrance to the Kingdom.''
Violating state law
He said, his wife was not in violation of Ohio's child-restraint law because of a provision in the statute that permits the nonuse of a restraint system if there is a law to that effect in the state of which the person is a resident.
Despite the fact that he and his wife live in Allegheny County near Pittsburgh, where Barnhill said he is working under a six-month contract as a computer systems analyst, his wife has a home in Michigan and, therefore, is a resident of that state, he said.
Michigan law makes an exception to its child-safety seat requirements for an infant being nursed.
Sean P. Scahill, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said he could not comment on any aspects of the case.
Lt. Rick Fambro, an official at State Highway Patrol headquarters in Columbus, said Barnhill and his wife are mistaken that they were following Michigan law.
Because she was operating a vehicle in Ohio, Fambro said, she is ``covered by Ohio law.''
Lt. Chris Butts, a commander at the patrol's post in Hiram, where the incident originally was investigated, said Catherine Donkers initially refused to give the responding trooper any identification but finally turned over an ID card from Pennsylvania.
Butts also said Donkers drove for 3 miles after the trooper turned on his siren and overhead lights and told her to stop over his patrol car speaker.
Donkers had an explanation for that in an affidavit her husband filed for her among the ever-growing stack of court documents.
She said she has been ``physically assaulted by several police officers on two prior occasions -- once on the side of a road near an interstate highway.''
It further stated: ``My Husband has directed me that if I am ever stopped by a law enforcement officer, that I should go to the nearest public place with witnesses where I would have a reasonable assurance of my safety and that of our Infant Child.''
The affidavit went on to say she signaled the trooper that she was going to stop and pulled off at a tollbooth plaza.
Asked why his wife did not stop to nurse the child, Barnhill said she didn't want to turn ``a 5-hour trip to Michigan into a 7-hour trip.''
Lisa Mansfield, an Akron leader in La Leche League, which supports the rights of breast-feeders, said Donkers erred.
``I don't agree with what she did,'' Mansfield said, ``because the safety of the child is the big issue here. She should have pulled over. That's just what's going to happen when you have kids.''
A conviction for the offense of child endangering carries maximum penalties of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Scahill, the assistant prosecutor, filed that charge and the charge for failure to comply with the order of a police officer, on June 5 after receiving the completed highway patrol investigation.
And now he, too, has become a defendant in the case -- according to Barnhill.
The additional charges, Barnhill said, were made in ``bad faith'' and with an intent to ``intimidate'' him and his wife.
Barnhill said he will remedy that during his next court appearance by making a citizen's arrest on Scahill.
``If the people do not hold public officials responsible for their actions,'' Barnhill said, ``who will?''
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