A Father's constitutional rights are violated because with no written justification armed courthouse security guards began harassing and stalking him every time he entered the courthouse. Three months later with no reason given Chief Judge Lang issued an order for Father to be escorted by armed guards. Find out what happened when Father, wise about his constitutional rights, began digging beneath the surface.

• Over the last year, armed security officers at the Bernalillo County Courthouse shot and killed a parent in a case, claiming that he had a knife. Many questions remain, such as why officers could not detain the man without shooting to kill. Needless to say, many of us were wary upon entering the courthouse after this horrific incident. One father who is particularly concerned is CFJ member, Chuck Sain.
• Chuck is a father of two children and an honorably discharged Veteran of the U.S. Navy (1977-1983). Not only did he hold a high security clearance because of his work in weapons systems, but he was also responsible for nuclear weapons security - a fairly elite group. Clearly our country has entrusted Chuck with much responsibility. In 1991, Chuck and his wife had their first child and Chuck agreed to become a full-time, stay-at-home father. He remained so for thirteen years. In 2003, his wife filed for divorce after starting an affair with a man she met over the internet.
• Once his savings were depleted in paying attorneys to represent him in the case, which included a custody battle, Chuck began representing himself Pro Se. In time, Judge Ernesto Romero removed the children from Chuck, their primary caregiver for most of their lives, put the children with mother, and gave Chuck only a few days a month with his children. As a Pro Se litigant, Chuck filed many motions expressing his concerns over the apparent unlawful behavior of judges, attorneys, and other officials associated with the family court cottage industry. Chuck confined his protest of the manner in which he was treated to lawful means - the means any of us as U.S. citizens are entitled to make use of as per the United States Constitution.
• See related story in which Judge Ernesto Romero bestowed Chuck with a felony record from the family court bench.
• Nevertheless, in late 2005, Chuck arrived at the Bernalillo County Courthouse one day to find that he was excessively searched and escorted by armed guard for the entire time he was inside the building. This behavior continued every time he visited the courthouse. Chuck, fully understanding his constitutional rights, repeatedly objected to his treatment by courthouse security and demanded to see the written order they relied on as their authority for violating his rights and subjecting him to the risks of escort by "armed government troops", as he refers to courthouse security guards. Finally, on or about late February of 2006, courthouse security approached Chief Judge William Lang and requested such written authority. Days later, on March 1, 2006, an order was finally created and provided to Chuck.
• Chuck requested, and received, a meeting with the Bernalillo County Court Administrator, Juanita Duran, and the head of courthouse security. After the meeting, Chuck mailed a letter to request "all information regarding the legal basis and requesting Party" for issuing the armed escort order, among other items, including a list of other, similar orders issued against persons visiting the courthouse. Juanita Duran wrote an initial response, stating that the request was being reviewed and that she would respond no later than May 17. On May 22, 2006, Juanita Duran issued a second letter, stating that after consulting with legal counsel, "internal documents" of the Court Administrator's office are "not public records" and would not be provided for review. So the Court's position was that even though Chuck had a right to see the order requiring armed escort, he had no right to find out who requested the order or any other information supporting the reason for its existence! The Courthouse and its operations are funded by state and county taxpayer funds, and as such, no proceedings or documents should be secret from the public's scrutiny, especially documents justifying the escort of U.S. citizens by armed guards in a public building.
• After being shut down by Juanita Duran, Chuck did not give up. He next subpoenaed this information from Bernalillo County District Court Chief Judge William Lang. Then Attorney General Patricia Madrid, the woman we affectionately call the "judges' fairy godmother" because she does everything she can to protect judicial wrongdoing, issued a motion for protective order and to quash subpoena in the case, claiming that the information was "irrelevant" and "too burdensome" for Chief Judge Lang to produce. Note that with this step, we now see the highest authority in our state (the NM Attorney General), ostensibly there to oversee the judges, joining in the effort to hide information from, and thus deceive, the public. In other words, we paid Patricia Madrid her salary from our taxes while she hid and protected judicial wrongdoing from the public light.
• Chuck filed his response, stating therein that he was being guarded for three months prior to the issuance of the order, that he had been refused information material to the making of the order, that the Attorney General's claim that Chief Judge Lang did not have "any personal knowledge or information" about the guarding order was not true, that his due process rights had been violated, and that the setting of the order was "arbitrary, capricious, tyrannical and fraudulent". Chuck asked that the Court throw out the guarding order, and that the subpoena be allowed to proceed.
• The District Court set the matter of the Motion for Protective Order and to Quash Subpoena for hearing, providing a Notice of Hearing. Ironically, the hearing was set for September 11, 2006 and it was provided by the Attorney General's office, not by the Court.
• In the meantime, Judge Ernesto Romero was replaced by Judge Stan Whitaker in the case. Judge Whitaker issued an Amended Notice of Hearing, changing the matter to be heard to "Pre Trial Conference".
• The New Mexico Rules state (NMRA 1-016) that a pretrial conference is to be used for "conferences before trial for such purposes as: (1) expediting the disposition of an action; (2) establishing early and continuing control so that the case will not be protracted because of lack of management; (3) discouraging wasteful pretrial activities; (4) improving the quality of the trial through more thorough preparation; and (5) facilitating the settlement of the case.
• At the hearing, Judge Stan Whitaker did none of the above, abusing the Rules of Civil Procedure - laws which govern his actions in the courtroom. There was no trial pending. Instead, he used this more vague term to allow him to even further violate Chuck's constitutional due process rights by opening up discussion to any issue desired by the parties present at the hearing, allowing them the "element of surprise" - something that should never occur regarding issues before a judge in a courtroom in this country.
• In the end, Judge Stan Whitaker issued an Order stating that "The Motion . . . is well taken and the subpoena . . . is hereby quashed."
• So, with all the relevant cottage industry players participating - Bernalillo County District Court Chief Judge Lang, Judge Ernesto Romero, Judge Stan Whitaker, Court Administrator Juanita Duran, and Attorney General Patricia Madrid - our system has managed in its finest hour to subject a father who has devoted his life to protecting our country and rearing his children to incalculable risk of bodily harm by armed guards every time he enters a public building to represent himself. Governor Richardson has also chosen to ignore this problem. You and I, as taxpayers, funded the whole fiasco. How many precepts in our Constitution have been violated? Many, including Chuck's right to equal access under the law. Most of us don't have to endure guns to file a motion in the district court. It's looking more and more like we are entering an era in which we are a police state. Another significant step toward fascism . . .
• Thomas Jefferson said about the judicial branch of our government, "This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt." (to Edward Livingston, 1825)
• Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? A latin phrase from the Roman poet Juvenal, translated, "Who will guard the guards?" Wikapedia states, "The saying has since been used by many people to ponder the insoluble question of where ultimate power should reside. The answer in modern democracies was found in the separation of powers. Never give ultimate power to any one group; the executive, legislative, or judicial; have the interests of each compete and conflict. Each group will then find it in its best interest to impede the functioning of the rest and this will keep ultimate power under constant struggle and, thereby, out of any one group's hands."

Through this letter, Governor Richardson simply washed his hands of the matter, hiding like a coward behind the "separation of powers". This response illustrates the biggest problem in New Mexico - no one is in charge. Certainly, the Governor is not in charge. The letter insults Chuck's intelligence because it implies that Chuck does not understand the way our U.S. Constitution and government were set up. Does the reader remember basic grammar school? Sure, there is the "separation of powers". The Governor should not be trying legal cases. But what about "check and balance"? The three powers of government - judicial, executive, and legislative - were set up specifically to perform a check on one another. At any rate, the events regarding the "guarding" of Chuck in a public courthouse are the Governor's responsibility because they are occurring in a state-funded, public building and perpetrated at least in part by the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department over which the Governor has direct authority. If the Governor does not think it's his problem that ordinary citizens in his state are being guarded by loaded guns and law enforcement officials without a trial or even an explanation of the reason for such extreme and dangerous behavior, then perhaps the Governor had better find another job that does not involve oversight for the welfare of others. I wish the Governor would state openly what many of us have come to realize: he does not care what happens to the citizens in his own back yard, he either has no understanding of his responsibility to New Mexicans or does not care about such responsibility, and the last thing he feels like wasting time on in his busy national schedule is the plight of the ordinary parents and children of his state. What's in it for him, after all? Once again, we publicly challenge the Governor's office to prove us otherwise. We will continue to post the plethora of letters to Governor Richardson about this problem from our members and friends and prove to you what we already see - Governor Richardson has not done anything about any such problem shared with him to date - he simply responds by saying it's not his problem. Heaven help us if we give him a bigger part of our country to ignore at the national level!