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Earlier this month, Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California decided to traumatize a child for attending a public hearing to support her father. That sounds like it must be taken out of context — that there must be some precipitating action that justified the judge’s actions.

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But as it turns out, that is the whole story!

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The events arose from a final revocation hearing for Mario Puente. After admitting to violating his supervised release, Puente told the judge that he feels he needs to be able to leave San Diego to make a total break from his problematic contacts. A reasonable request. He cited his young daughter, seated in the spectator area, as his motivation to build a new life because he feared that she might end up hanging around the wrong people if the family remained in his established San Diego circles.

The sentencing memo details what happened next.

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Several minutes later, Judge Benitez asked a U.S. Marshal, “You got cuffs?” The Marshal confirmed he did. Judge Benitez then ordered the 13-year-old girl to leave the spectator area, approach the front of the courtroom, and stand next to her father’s lawyer. He told the Marshal to “[p]ut cuffs on her.”

What the actual fuck? To be clear, she’s not done anything disruptive other than be in the room and inspire her father to seek a new life.

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The Marshal did so, cuffing the girl’s hands behind her back. As he did so, she was crying. Judge Benitez then instructed the Marshal to “put[ ] her over there in the jury box for me for just a minute.” The Marshal complied, placing the girl in the jury box in handcuffs. She continued to cry.

Yes. She continued to cry because she’s a child who has done nothing wrong and got handcuffed for it. It any other context, this would give rise to a false imprisonment claim in California, since he detained her without lawful privilege. While the broad power a judge has to maintain order in the courtroom might authorize cuffing a disruptive spectator, it shouldn’t extend to detaining someone just for showing up. But everyone just sort of accepts that courtrooms occupy a liminal space between the rule of law and the rule of one person.

After a long pause, Judge Benitez released the girl. But he did not allow her to immediately return to her seat. Instead he told her, “don’t go away. Look at me.” He asked her how she liked “sitting up there” and “the way those cuffs felt on you.” Still in tears, she responded that she “didn’t like it.” He told her she was “an awfully cute young lady” but that if she didn’t stay away from drugs, she would “wind up in cuffs” and be “right back there where I put you a minute ago.”

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So this was some bush league Scared Straight? Because whenever you see one of those stunts the kids are either already in juvenile hall or the parents have consented to have their child subjected to that treatment. They don’t pluck kids out of an audience to humiliate them. Also, telling a 13-year-old that she’s “awfully cute” after handcuffing her reads more like a scene from a horror movie than something that should emanate from the bench.

Judge Benitez then sentenced Puente to 10 months and 2 years of supervised release.

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As one might imagine, this case was transferred to another judge. Puente’s lawyer cited the whole being forced to watch his daughter be abused by a federal judge thing in the sentencing memo as evidence that Puente has been punished enough and should be sentenced to time served. Judge Robert Huie agreed.

Meanwhile, Judge Benitez remains busy putting the final touches on what is expected to be a ruling obliterating California’s gun laws. I guess if you think it’s fine to torture children in the courtroom, there’s no reason to worry about school shootings either.

Sentencing memo on the next page…

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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Courts, Crime, Roger Benitez