SUPERIOR COURT OF WASHINGTON

COUNTY OF KING COUNTY

 

ROGER W. KNIGHT,                                    )

                                                                        )           No.  04-2-10673-7 SEA

                                    plaintiff,                        )

                                                                        )           SUPPLEMENTAL

            v.                                                         )           DECLARATION OF ROGER W.

                                                                        )           KNIGHT IN SUPPORT OF

STATE OF WASHINGTON ex rel.                )           APPLICATION FOR STATUTORY

ROYANNE M. SCHMITZ, NORM               )           WRIT OF PROHIBITION,

MALENG, King County Prosecutor,                )           CHAPTER 7.16 RCW

KATHLEEN ANN O’BRIEN, Chief of           )

Family Support Division of King County            )

Prosecutor, LLOYD PATRICK CORGAN,    )

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, and                     )

JENNIFER MARIE SANDVIK,                     )

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney,                           )

                                                                        )

                                    defendants.                   )

____________________________________)

 

            I, ROGER W. KNIGHT, plaintiff, declare that:

            Subsequent to the filing of the Application for Statutory Writ of Prohibition and the Declaration of Roger W. Knight the following events occurred:

            The charge in State v. Knight, King County District Court, West Division No. C438381 was dismissed without prejudice.  The prosecution, through Jennifer Worley, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, cited City of Redmond v. Moore, (June 3, 2004) ____ Wash. 2d. ____ as the reason for moving for dismissal.  This Court dismissed without prejudice for mootness my application for writ of prohibition with regard to that case, No. 04-2-07991-8 SEA.

            On June 21, 2004, I filed my Brief of Appellant in Knight v. State of Washington and Department of Social and Health Services, Court of Appeals Division One No. 54129-3-I.  This is an appeal of King County Superior Court No. 03-2-27325-2 SEA, which is a judicial review of an administrative proceeding before the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) wherein Administrative Law Judge Gail Maurer refused to reinstate my driver’s license.  In this Brief I raise the issue of Redmond v. Moore and argue that as RCW 74.20A.320(13) provides that the hearing before the DSHS specified in RCW 74.20A.320 is the only administrative proceeding available for a child support license suspension, it is facially unconstitutional for the reasons Redmond v. Moore found RCW 46.20.289 and RCW 46.20.324(1) to be facially unconstitutional.  Because of RCW 74.20A.320, the Department of Licensing (DOL), pursuant to RCW 46.20.324(1) which Moore has already found unconstitutional, suspended my license without offering a formal hearing which can be judicially reviewed.

            In my Brief, I reserved the right to seek damages for wrongful suspension of my driver’s license since September 2001.  I would not settle such a claim for moneys insufficient to pay off the support arrearage and I cannot imagine the State offering such a settlement without stipulating that the support arrearage be paid off as part of the deal.

            Under these circumstances, contempt proceedings are simply unnecessary and would interfere with my pursuit of this avenue for relief.  There is a hearing scheduled before the Court of Appeals on July 9, 2004 concerning the nature of the appeal.

            In the contempt action at issue in this matter, Mr. John R. Scannell, WSBA #31035, entered an appearance without waiving objection to service in State ex rel Schmitz v. Knight, King County Superior Court Number 90-3-04471-1 KNT.  The hearing in that case has been continued a number of times, and it was transferred to the Courthouse in Seattle, it is now 90-3-04471-1 SEA.  A hearing is presently scheduled for July 8, 2004.

            Attached as Exhibit A is a true and correct copy of a letter and package of documents sent by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jacqueline L. Jeske on or about June 11, 2004 to Mr. Scannell.  The package contains a copy of a Declaration Re Contempt with attached Exhibits.  It is impossible for me to determine if all of the documents attached are actually submitted into the Court file or not.  There are no date stamps to indicate IF, let alone when this Declaration and its Exhibits were filed.

            Therefore, on Friday, July 2, 2004, I went to the Courthouse in Seattle to look up the case file in the Clerk’s Office on the Sixth Floor.  It is not scanned into the computer “ECR” system as are most cases filed prior to 1997 and all unsealed cases filed since January 1, 2000.  So I could not look up the case file on those computers.  The remedy for this situation is to check out the file the way we did before January 1, 2000.  That computer told me that the file was “unavailable”.  I went to the Information Clerk and she told me that the file was unavailable and she could not tell me where it is.

            This is a significant disadvantage for me and for Mr. Scannell.  There is a hearing scheduled on July 8, 2004.  We have a Declaration re Contempt with a check mark in the box for “TRACK B (CONTEMPT SANCTIONS OR INCARCERATION MAY BE SOUGHT), and neither myself nor my attorney can access the case file at the Courthouse to see what is actually entered into the record.

            The documents included in the package mailed to Mr. Scannell include the usual documents one would expect to be attached to such a Declaration.  Some of these documents, Motion and Declaration for Order to Show Cause re Contempt (identical to one of the documents served on me on March 16, 2004 outside the courtroom wherein I appeared in the criminal DWLS case), are signed by defendant Lloyd Patrick Corgan, a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney who went through his own divorces, In re Marriage of Corgan, King County Superior Court No. 79-3-00666-5 with children and In re Marriage of Corgan, King County Superior Court No. 02-3-05821-7 without children.

            I investigated the background of people involved in the enforcement of support over a period of time, starting long before this present contempt prosecution.  I wanted to determine if there were conflicts of interest and biases that might preclude these persons from engaging in such prosecutions.  From reviewing Mr. Corgan’s 1979 divorce file, I determined:

            In the 1979 divorce case, the wife testified in a sworn affidavit that she was forced to leave the family home "after having been physically abused and struck several times by the petitioner".  She stated that she was kept from using the telephone to call the police and kept from taking their minor child.  She called the police from another location.  An initial temporary order kept Lloyd Corgan out of the house except for visitation, imposed a financial strait jacket, required that he keep the mortgage payments current, and ordered him to show cause why he should not be required to pay child support.  Lloyd Corgan moved for temporary custody of the child and claimed the wife physically attacked him.  A new temporary order turned the tables on his wife, giving him the house and keeping her from entering said house except for child visitation purposes.  In the final divorce decree, he kept the house, got joint custody of the child, and only had to pay a minimal child support amount of $225 per month.

            If I was offered a deal like that and had a job that is not readily “outsourced”, we would not have a problem.  Most men accused of domestic violence do not come off with such favorable results.  A man with such obvious conflicts of interest initiated this present round of contempt proceedings.

            The documents in the June 11, 2004 package includes the DSHS Trial Brief filed in Knight v. State of Washington and DSHS, King County Superior Court No. 03-2-27325-2 SEA.  This is the proceeding I mention herein above on page 2.  This Trial Brief mentions a large amount of litigation that I have presented in assertion of my rights under the Constitution of the United States, the Washington Constitution, and several statutes, including the Antipeonage Act, 42 U.S.C. §1994 and 18 U.S.C. §1581. 

            Attached as Exhibit B is a State's Reply dated July 2, 2004.  This proves that the hearing is currently scheduled for July 8, 2004.  Attached to the State's Reply as part of its Exhibit 7 is a copy of the Declaration of Roger W. Knight in Support of Petitioner's Reply Brief on Motions that I filed in Knight v. State and DSHS, King County Number 03-2-27325-2 SEA.  It appears that the Exhibits attached to that Declaration are mixed up, incomplete, and out of order in the Exhibit 7 to the State's Brief.

            These proceedings are clearly within the exercise of my right to due process of law and to nonviolently present argument as to law within and pursuant to procedure, venue, and jurisdiction statutes and within and pursuant to the rules of court.  The State's Brief makes it clear that the prosecutor is attempting to prejudice a tribunal who presumes the authority to imprison me in a civil proceeding by informing such tribunal that I have repeatedly asserted that such presumption of authority is offensive to these statutes and constitutional provisions.  Lack of success in such presentation of argument as to law does not mean that I lacked the right to present such arguments as to law.  To threaten or attempt punishment in any way for exercising a right chills the free exercise of that right.

            The prosecutor thus including a proceeding, that with the new rule of law and change in legal climate established in Redmond v. Moore, could result in a finding that my driver’s license was wrongfully suspended, and therefore, be ultimately successful.  It appears to me that the prosecutor is attempting to punish me, through contempt proceedings, for pursuing relief from a wrongful suspension of a license.  With an award for damages or a settlement for such damages, the contempt proceedings would no longer be necessary.

            The most serious thing in the Exhibit A package is the inclusion of hard copies of the index page to my web site, the Antipeonage Act Website.  I actually maintain two websites that are similar: www.geocities.com/rogerwknight and www.antipeonage.0catch.com.  This second web site is advertised in the posters that are included in Exhibit 7 to the State's Brief, Exhibit B.  I keep the older Geocities web site because search engines such as www.yahoo.com, www.google.com, www.msn.com, and www.findlaw.com appear to be more familiar with it.  If you type in the keyword “Antipeonage” or “Antipeonage Act” in any of these search engines, you will find the index and sitemap pages for both of these web sites near the top or at the top of the list of results.  If you type in the key words “Roger Knight DWLS” you find many of the pages on my web sites.  Even more if you click the link labeled: "Repeat the search with the omitted results included".

            The reason for concern is that the prosecutor is attempting to use my exercise of my constitutional right to free speech in a public forum, the Internet, to prejudice the family court commissioners against me and to make them more likely to impose sanctions and imprisonment.  The State's Brief, Exhibit B, is specifically asking for a bench warrant in the event I do not show up.  Currently I have no reason to believe that they will not ask for immediate incarceration in the event I do show up.  This seriously chills the exercise of free speech rights on the part of noncustodial parents as well as the exercise of the right to due process of law by showing up.  A similar thing was done by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kathryn Kim in the criminal DWLS case recently concluded, please see page 1 herein above.  She submitted to the court a page off of my website wherein I criticize Judge Barbara Linde’s rulings.  I rewrote that page to include my response to that.

            Please see www.antipeonage.0catch.com/cq54646kc.htm.

            Everything on that page is constitutionally protected, before and since the dismissal.

            The overall subject of the Antipeonage Act website is the proposition that most of the things done in child support enforcement are contrary to our constitutional rights with respect to due process of law, equal protection of the laws, particularly as to due process and as to state constitutional provisions, including Article I Section 17 of the Washington Constitution, that prohibit imprisonment for debt, involuntary servitude, and that many of the statutes recently passed are bills of attainder aimed at noncustodial parents unable to comply with their support orders.  I also make the assertion that many acts of the Washington Legislature, including the WorkFirst Act which includes provisions for suspension of licenses for child support, are void as multi-subject bills if the Tim Eyman Initiatives are void as two subject bills.  But most of all, I assert that such license suspension practices, and other enforcement methods, including contempt proceedings, where used to coerce employment to enable compliance with a support order, are declared null and void by 42 U.S.C. §1994.

            And the crime defined by 18 U.S.C. §1581.

            I believe that I have the right to say this in any public forum, including the Internet.

            I believe that family court commissioners who routinely order noncustodial parents to make at least three, five, or ten job contacts per week until they find employment, and to present evidence of such job contacts or of success in finding employment at subsequent hearings, where imprisonment is in the offing upon failure to comply with such orders, would be seriously prejudiced against any noncustodial parent who has asserted on that most public of fora, the Internet, that such practice is a felony punishable by not more than 20 years of imprisonment.  Please see 18 U.S.C. §1581 as amended in 1994, 1996, and 2000.

            This impression is exacerbated by the backgrounds of many of the people who serve as family court commissioners in King County:

            Bonnie Jean Canada-Thurston served as a deputy prosecuting attorney in the Family Support Division of the King County Prosecutor's Office for many years before being appointed to serve as a family court commissioner.  Most of her work as a court commissioner is in family law, including contempt proceedings.

            Hollis Cay Holman was sued, along with other defendants, by noncustodial parent Johnny E. Birchfield in King County Superior Court No. 00-2-05168-9.  Mr. Birchfield accused the defendants in this action of "negligence, gross negligence, willful misconduct, and violations of due process and civil rights".  Allegations against the family court commissioners in this complaint include: failure to consider evidence, not providing a fair hearing, failure to serve the best interests of the children, and gender bias.  No finding was made in this action on the merits of Mr. Birchfield's complaints.  While most people believe that every litigant is entitled to a fair hearing before an unbiased judicial officer, the doctrine of judicial immunity effectively prevents any determination that is in fact, what happened.

            Judicial officers who are sued routinely plead judicial immunity, and therefore never need to deny the factual allegations.  I find that such lack of denial is, nevertheless, a cause for concern.

            Mr. Birchfield was angry with how DSHS's Child Protective Services treated him with respect to his ex-wife's allegations of child abuse against him.  He claimed that these allegations were false.  He believed that the judges and commissioners he named as defendants denied him fair hearings.

            Among the pro tempore family court commissioners, we have this:

            David George Kontos is also a Birchfield defendant.  But while he was protected by the doctrine of judicial immunity from Mr. Birchfield's claims, no such doctrine protected him from claims of legal malpractice in King County Superior Court No. 00-2-26326-1.  The allegations in that complaint included that Mr. Kontos acquired real estate without fair compensation, charged $27,000 for legal services that were not rendered, had conflicts of interest, failed to exercise due diligence in defending his clients in a civil lawsuit resulting in large judgments against them and loss of real property, and even filed documents in this Court with forged signatures of his clients.  This case was ultimately settled out of court, not long before the scheduled trial.  The Washington State Bar Association has disciplined him for negligent misrepresentation.  On July 3, 2004, at about 9:14 pm, I again looked at this Discipline Notice posted by the Bar Association on its web site:

David G. Kontos (WSBA No. 12710, admitted 1982), of Kent, received an admonition following a stipulation. The admonition was based upon his negligent misrepresentation in a petition filed with the court in 1998.

In 1998, Mr. Kontos represented a husband and wife in a lawsuit filed against them by their former accountant. In spring of 1998, the Court dismissed the clients’ counterclaims against the accountant on summary judgment. In June 1998, Mr. Kontos filed a notice of withdrawal from this representation. In September 1998, the clients filed a grievance against Mr. Kontos with the Association. In October 1998, Mr. Kontos filed a petition for an antiharassment order against the clients. Mr. Kontos’ statement in support of his antiharassment petition, indicated that the clients’ bar complaint had been dismissed on its face. At the time Mr. Kontos executed his petition, the grievance had not been dismissed. Mr. Kontos alleged several grounds for his antiharassment order. The parties stipulated that it was unclear whether the statement regarding the grievance had any effect on the proceeding.

Mr. Kontos’ conduct negligently violated RPC 8.4(c), prohibiting lawyers from engaging in conduct involving misrepresentation.

C. Elizabeth Williams and Jonathan Burke represented the Association. Leland Ripley represented Mr. Kontos.

 

I find it to be of great cause for concern that this Court will tolerate the service of a pro tempore judge or commissioner who has a Bar Association Discipline Notice finding that he engaged in conduct involving misrepresentation.  I find that it is of even greater cause for concern that Mr. Kontos is allowed to serve as a family court commissioner, which among other things, involves adjudicating numerous petitions or applications for anti-harassment orders.

            Georgina Darlene Sierra twice petitioned for divorce against the same man, King County Superior Court Nos. 92-3-08831-6 and 02-3-02967-5.  In the 1992 case, she asked for alimony and child support, and alleged that her husband, during their arguments, threatened to take their child to Spain and that he threatened physical harm.  Nevertheless, this earlier divorce action was dismissed.  As a result of the second divorce action, this time completed, in spite of being an attorney, she is receiving child support through a bank account wherein her husband prepaid the entire amount until time comes for any post-secondary education support to be considered.  It was based on "imputed" income of the husband because he was allegedly "voluntarily underemployed".  However, there was a substantial deviation downward due to considerable time he is allowed to be with his child.  Indeed, it looks like the kind of joint parenting plan most of us would like to have but are denied.  With the support order prepaid, the husband is free and need not worry about enforcement issues.  The better off usually do not impose upon each other what is imposed upon those of us who are not so fortunate.  This kind of thing provides those noncustodials who are capable of mounting a fight a disincentive for doing so.

            I find it to be cause for concern that a person who is receiving child support is serving as a family court commissioner pro tempore.  Such a person should not be in the position of determining whether I or any other noncustocial parent should be imprisoned or otherwise sanctioned for nonpayment of child support.

            Janet Menasco Watson filed for divorce, King County Superior Court No. 80-3-06612-2 against a husband who was then living in DeKalb County, Georgia.  She had custody of the kids in King County, Washington and therefore obtained a support order in this Court. The divorce paperwork was served on the husband in Georgia by a DeKalb County deputy sheriff who sent an affidavit of service, and ultimately the husband was found in default.  A Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA) action subsequently brought by the King County Prosecutor's Office, King County Superior Court No. 81-3-05529-3, requesting that DeKalb County, Georgia enforce the King County decree there.  However, the URESA case was subsequently dropped on the grounds that Mr. Watson cannot then be located.

            I find it cause for concern that a frustrated custodial parent who did not receive payment of child support ordered is serving as a family court commissioner pro tempore.  The potential for bias and conflict of interest is as obvious here as the proposition that the ocean is salty.

            Whether or not the hearing presently scheduled on July 8, 2004 is before pro tempore Commissioner Kontos, Sierra, or Watson, it is great cause of concern to me that it will be before one of these commissioners, or before someone who apparently, for all that I know and can determine, does not object to the service of Mr. Kontos, Ms. Sierra, or Ms. Watson in that capacity.

            Therefore, I believe I cannot have a fair hearing before such a Court engaged in such a practice.

            These are the facts I was able to determine by simply looking through public records available in Seattle and on the Internet.  It is enough to make me wonder what else could be found out about our family court commissioners and commissioners pro tempore if I hired a private investigator and had substantial sums of money to pay for the performance what our political campaigns call "opposition research".

            The final set of papers in the package mailed on June 11, 2004 by Ms. Jeske to Mr. Scannell, Exhibit A, includes some of the pleadings filed a year ago in No. 90-3-04471-1 KNT.  At that time, Mr. Scannell was able to get that contempt action dismissed for lack of in personam jurisdiction, the service was blown.  This was after I was wrongfully imprisoned for five days for not appearing at a contempt hearing for which I lacked notice.

            The prosecution is attempting to prejudice the family court commissioners against me because of my attorney's previous success.  The document submitted is the State's Response to Motion to Modify Commissioner's Order and some Exhibits.  This Response is signed by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Bernda Lean Bacani.  Formerly known as Bernda Lean Jack, she brought action for divorce, In re Marriage of Jack, King County Superior Court No. 87-3-05748-1.  Assets split, joint custody arrangement.  In 1993, when fresh out of the University of Washington Law School and newly admitted to the bar, she brought a motion for temporary child support and custody.  Her ex-husband hired Leonid Ponomarchuk, (the family court commissioner before whom I was brought while in custody), who moved to strike the motion because Bacani did not properly note and prepare the paperwork. Commissioner Bonnie Canada-Thurston granted the motion to strike and required that if Bacani wanted to renew the motion, she note it up and prepare the paperwork properly.

            These are the people who sent a process server out to my mother's home between Renton and Maple Valley.  I never lived there, and that is why Mr. Scannell was able to obtain dismissal of that contempt action.

            Ms. Bacani's interesting background includes a charge of simple assault dismissed without prejudice in Seattle Municipal Court No. 891920322 arising from an incident alleged to have happened on July 9, 1989, and a civil lawsuit brought by her ex-husband's subsequent wife, Jack v. Bacani, King County Superior Court No. 90-2-02960-3.  Karen M. Jack alleged in her complaint that she suffered physical injuries and emotional distress from Bernda Bacani's outrageous actions and conduct.  Bernda Bacani counterclaimed that Mrs. Jack interfered with her parent and child relationship with her son.  It went to arbitration and the arbitrator awarded Mrs. Jack $425.68 as a judgment against Ms. Bacani.  Ms. Bacani eventually satisfied this judgment, a notice of satisfaction being filed in this case in January 1995.

            I certify under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of Washington that the foregoing is true and correct.

            Signed this 6th day of July, 2004 in Seattle, Washington,

 

                                                                        __________________________

                                                                        Roger W. Knight, pro se