Bailiff
Sal Nouth
King
County Courthouse W-905
516
Family Support Division,
King County
Prosecutor
King County Courthouse E-400
516
Royanne M. Schmitz
address redacted for website
redacted
for this website
Re:
Measures in the Face of the Antipeonage
Act.
There
will be an appeal, and it will probably end with a petition for writ of
certiorari to the Supreme Court of the
I
actually have won some appeals, so I have some expertise when it comes to
litigating them. The first thing one
looks at is to determine exactly what it is the judge did, and perhaps, why he
did it.
The
ruling in this case is
that an appeal of an agreed order is
by
definition
frivolous.
This
should be an easy argument to win in an appellate court, at least to plead. Of course there will be circumstances where
such appeals are not frivolous and in fact meritorious. Examples include appeals of guilty pleas,
which are agreed orders. These appeals
are heard without the lawyers being threatened with sanctions, and on a few
occasions, the guilty plea and conviction are vacated or reversed.
RAP 2.5(a) provides that some issues may be
raised for the first time on appeal, including a manifest error affecting a
constitutional right. Please see
State v. McNeal, (2002) 145
The Antipeonage
Act is appropriate legislation affecting a constitutional right. Thus at first glance, Judge
Gonzalez’s
ruling
is patently in error.
The
issue I raised in the
motion to modify the commissioner’s order is that if the
order imposes peonage, 42 U.S.C. §1994 declares it null and void whether I
agreed to it or not. Authority that supports
this proposition include
US. v. Reynolds where I cited it, the quote from 235
If I had more time to write
the
reply brief I would have cited these cases.
Looks like I will have plenty of time to write the
Brief of Appellant.
Thus any law school
professor knowledgeable with
13th Amendment, peonage, and slavery
litigation would say that I raised an inherently reasonable argument, that if
an agreed order imposes peonage, mere fact that I signed it and agreed to it
does not strip me of the right to challenge it as peonage. Ms.
Jeske cannot
claim fraud because I told her at the time that is the way I saw it.
But it is a touchy argument simply because anything declared null and void by
42 U.S.C.
§1994 is the crime defined by
18 U.S.C.
§1581. There is no way around that, many of the cases where the
Supreme Court
defined what is peonage covered by the statute arose from criminal indictments, including the
Clyatt,
Reynolds, and
Gaskin
cases. Anyone who attended law school and
many who haven’t can read a claim of peonage and
recognize that it is inherently a claim of federal
offense even if
the party is only asking for an order vacating or reversing the matter on the
grounds that it is declared null and void.
So
what were my alternatives on November 10?
I suppose I could have dragged Ms.
Jeske and a
reluctant Paul King into the courtroom and required Mr. King to plead the Antipeonage Act to Commissioner
Sellers. Commissioner
Sellers would have denied the
plea, imposed the Order, and maybe sanctioned Mr. King for wasting her time
with it. I would then file the same pro
se motion for revision of commissioner’s order.
Then I could file a complaint with the
Commission on Judicial Conduct (I
can neither confirm nor deny ever doing so) alleging that Commissioner
Sellers
should have recused because she has a substantial
personal interest in the outcome of any claim that any order in a child support
hearing imposing employment requirements is declared null and void by
42 U.S.C.
§1994. She has
signed at least one other
such order in King County Superior Court No.
03-3-06249-2. I can find other such orders whenever I look
in the ECR computers. For her to find
such an order declared null and void is to convict herself of the crime. Let the federal Grand Jury get wind of this
and they might start indicting people such as Commissioner
Sellers and Ms. Jeske for the crime of peonage.
That
is why I decided to dispense with that step and bring the claim to a judge who
might not have such a history in his background. I do not know if Judge
Gonzalez ever signed
or affirmed such an order before
There are some unintended consequences to all of this:
Over
the years I have had conversations with assistant US Attorneys,
FBI agents,
illegal immigrants, immigration attorneys, restaurant workers, and others who
tell me that the Child Support Crusade and the attempts of a few noncustodial parents to enforce the Antipeonage
Act where the debt or obligation is child support have had an effect on their
situations.
In
1)
You can stand around rice paddies barefoot and bent over planting, weeding, and
harvesting rice. If this is not your
idea of a good time you can
2)
Go into town and
work at a grungy factory
where management considers
adequate
lighting, tools, machinery,
safety, heating, ventilation,
air conditioning, and
decent wages to be unnecessary expenses.
You can be asked to work 70 hours per week but get paid for only
40.
You can live on the premises in a
tiny prison cell like room. If you find
housing outside the factory gates, you may still have rent for the tiny on
campus room deducted from your paycheck.
Your pay is a fraction of what the minimum wage is in
3)
Or you can agree to get smuggled into the
This
is why we have shipping containers show up in
Classic peonage.
Though Shackney
did not find the threat of deportation to rise to the level of proving a crime
of involuntary servitude under the facts of that case.
In
past decades the federal authorities would prosecute such human traffickers for
peonage and for involuntary servitude under
18 U.S.C. §1584 and they would get
convictions, even given the difficult tests imposed by case law such as Shackney where
the extortionate threat includes deportation.
They might toss in a charge of extortion, which requires a lower level
of threat and coercion than any charge of involuntary servitude or peonage,
just to make sure they can get a conviction.
But now, here in the
Western
District of Washington any attorney representing a defendant indicted for
peonage can cite
Judge Lasnik’s order in my case
against
As
would Judge
Lasnik!
Of
course the US Attorney’s office could cite
US
v. Reynolds and other decisions and argue that Judge
Lasnik
was wrong!
But do they really want to?
Even
before they get that far, in ANY
judicial district of the
“That’s what child support is.”
That’s
a problem, ain’t it!
Particularly with a group of people who have the power to DO SOMETHING about it. All it would take is 12 or 13 of them drawing
the conclusion that the Child Support Crusade has gone too far!
Sincerely,
_________/s/____________________
Roger
W. Knight
rogerwknight@hotmail.com
Q. What is the difference between the Loch
Ness Monster and hard evidence proving Scott Peterson murdered his wife Laci?
A. There are those who claim to have seen
the Loch Ness Monster.