In 2023, Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California ordered his marshals to handcuff a crying child attending her father’s hearing and place her in the jury box. Then he asked the 13-year-old girl if she liked the cuffs and told her she was “an awfully cute young lady.” He then revoked her father’s parole and sentenced him to prison, a ruling swiftly reversed by the next judge who heard the case, who decided that the man having to watch his daughter psychologically tortured by a federal judge was probably punishment enough.
Now he’s retiring.
Benitez earned a formal complaint over the handcuffing incident, which the Ninth Circuit was forced to announce publicly after Above the Law reported on it. After sitting on the complaint for over a year to let the heat die down, the Judicial Council found “the shackling of a spectator at a hearing who is not engaged in threatening or disorderly behavior exceeds the authority of a district judge,” and that “creating a spectacle out of a minor child in the courtroom chills the desire of friends, family members, and members of the public to support loved ones at sentencing.” Despite these serious findings, Benitez received gentle slap on the wrist with a wet noodle. He responded to his punishment by telling Reuters that he disagreed with it. Well, at least he learned absolutely nothing!
But when he wasn’t traumatizing children directly, Benitez was traumatizing them indirectly as one of the federal judiciary’s most enthusiastic supporters of the school shooting industrial complex. Benitez used his senior status to pursue ideological assaults on the will of California voters, routinely striking down gun regulations in cases cynically routed to his courtroom. A rule allowing one party to request (without the other party having a right to object) that cases be transferred to a judge hearing a matter involving “similar” issues, giving gun advocates a fast track to the gun manufacturing lobby friendly Benitez once he took on his first gun rights case.
From this perch, he struck down everything from background check legislation and large-capacity magazine limits. Neither, of course, prevents someone from exercising their Second Amendment rights to possess a firearm in a regulated space, but both did make it harder for wingnuts to carry out high-impact violent rampages. Benitez also compared AR-15s to “Swiss Army knives,” which is accurate assuming someone affixes a bayonet and a corkscrew.
As a senior status judge, his retirement does not give the administration a vacancy to fill.
One might think that even those who appreciated his rulings might shy away from celebrating a guy known for handcuffing innocent kids, but you’d be wildly underestimating how much conservatives care about guns more than kids.
Remember, when Lott says Benitez made “a safer and better country,” a specific statute at issue was “maybe we run a check to make sure we’re not selling ammunition to someone who just escaped a psych ward.” If your definition of America’s “safety” is ensuring that someone who scribbles “I am the angel of death… the time of purification is at hand” all over their walls can buy a thousand rounds of 5.56 like they’re picking up bubble gum, then Benitez was definitely your guy.
Benitez once wrote “Guns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law abiding responsible citizens are necessary.” And yet, he struck down statutes narrowly tailored to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and terrorists while not imposing any more than a clerical wait upon law-abiding citizens. It’s almost like all the sanctimonious rights talk is just a contrivance to make sure no one puts a dent in Winchester’s profits.
Points for honesty though. While most would applaud a judge for their commitment to “the Constitution” or “rule of law” — however disingenuous those claims might be — at least someone is willing to just admit Benitez was a gun rights movement activist with a robe. Also, you’ve got to love injecting a little sacrilegious idolatry!
But it’s not fair to reduce Benitez’s whole career to being a shill for the gun lobby.
Yes, he’s also the judge from Mirabelli, stripping away a law protecting children from having teachers inform parents about a child’s LGBTQ+ identity. While opponents of the law cast it as infringing on parents’ rights or even religious rights, the statute was more about keeping teachers from outing students against their will since parents themselves remain one of the most dangerous threats to LGBTQ+ children. And it wasn’t just protecting LGBTQ+ children, because the law also endeavored to keep teachers with no real qualifications in this area from snitching to parents because they thought Johnny playing dolls at recess was the start of something.
Handcuffing a crying child as a prop to traumatize both her and her father really was more of a feature than a bug. Children were, consistently, the victims of Judge Benitez’s time on the bench. They were a population to be routinely sacrificed for his preferred personal politics, dressed up with obligatory references to what the Framers would’ve thought. So maybe his fans are right, and Benitez has, at last, finally made America a safer and better country. By retiring.
Earlier: Federal Judge Handcuffs Crying 13-Year-Old Girl Attending Father’s Hearing
Formal Complaint Lodged Against Federal Judge For Handcuffing Crying 13-Year-Old Girl
Judge Given Slap On Wrist After Handcuffing Innocent, Crying Child
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 or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
The post Judge Who Handcuffed Crying 13-Year-Old Girl Retiring appeared first on Above the Law.
In 2023, Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California ordered his marshals to handcuff a crying child attending her father’s hearing and place her in the jury box. Then he asked the 13-year-old girl if she liked the cuffs and told her she was “an awfully cute young lady.” He then revoked her father’s parole and sentenced him to prison, a ruling swiftly reversed by the next judge who heard the case, who decided that the man having to watch his daughter psychologically tortured by a federal judge was probably punishment enough.
Now he’s retiring.
Benitez earned a formal complaint over the handcuffing incident, which the Ninth Circuit was forced to announce publicly after Above the Law reported on it. After sitting on the complaint for over a year to let the heat die down, the Judicial Council found “the shackling of a spectator at a hearing who is not engaged in threatening or disorderly behavior exceeds the authority of a district judge,” and that “creating a spectacle out of a minor child in the courtroom chills the desire of friends, family members, and members of the public to support loved ones at sentencing.” Despite these serious findings, Benitez received gentle slap on the wrist with a wet noodle. He responded to his punishment by telling Reuters that he disagreed with it. Well, at least he learned absolutely nothing!
But when he wasn’t traumatizing children directly, Benitez was traumatizing them indirectly as one of the federal judiciary’s most enthusiastic supporters of the school shooting industrial complex. Benitez used his senior status to pursue ideological assaults on the will of California voters, routinely striking down gun regulations in cases cynically routed to his courtroom. A rule allowing one party to request (without the other party having a right to object) that cases be transferred to a judge hearing a matter involving “similar” issues, giving gun advocates a fast track to the gun manufacturing lobby friendly Benitez once he took on his first gun rights case.
From this perch, he struck down everything from background check legislation and large-capacity magazine limits. Neither, of course, prevents someone from exercising their Second Amendment rights to possess a firearm in a regulated space, but both did make it harder for wingnuts to carry out high-impact violent rampages. Benitez also compared AR-15s to “Swiss Army knives,” which is accurate assuming someone affixes a bayonet and a corkscrew.
As a senior status judge, his retirement does not give the administration a vacancy to fill.
One might think that even those who appreciated his rulings might shy away from celebrating a guy known for handcuffing innocent kids, but you’d be wildly underestimating how much conservatives care about guns more than kids.
Remember, when Lott says Benitez made “a safer and better country,” a specific statute at issue was “maybe we run a check to make sure we’re not selling ammunition to someone who just escaped a psych ward.” If your definition of America’s “safety” is ensuring that someone who scribbles “I am the angel of death… the time of purification is at hand” all over their walls can buy a thousand rounds of 5.56 like they’re picking up bubble gum, then Benitez was definitely your guy.
Benitez once wrote “Guns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law abiding responsible citizens are necessary.” And yet, he struck down statutes narrowly tailored to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and terrorists while not imposing any more than a clerical wait upon law-abiding citizens. It’s almost like all the sanctimonious rights talk is just a contrivance to make sure no one puts a dent in Winchester’s profits.
Points for honesty though. While most would applaud a judge for their commitment to “the Constitution” or “rule of law” — however disingenuous those claims might be — at least someone is willing to just admit Benitez was a gun rights movement activist with a robe. Also, you’ve got to love injecting a little sacrilegious idolatry!
But it’s not fair to reduce Benitez’s whole career to being a shill for the gun lobby.
Yes, he’s also the judge from Mirabelli, stripping away a law protecting children from having teachers inform parents about a child’s LGBTQ+ identity. While opponents of the law cast it as infringing on parents’ rights or even religious rights, the statute was more about keeping teachers from outing students against their will since parents themselves remain one of the most dangerous threats to LGBTQ+ children. And it wasn’t just protecting LGBTQ+ children, because the law also endeavored to keep teachers with no real qualifications in this area from snitching to parents because they thought Johnny playing dolls at recess was the start of something.
Handcuffing a crying child as a prop to traumatize both her and her father really was more of a feature than a bug. Children were, consistently, the victims of Judge Benitez’s time on the bench. They were a population to be routinely sacrificed for his preferred personal politics, dressed up with obligatory references to what the Framers would’ve thought. So maybe his fans are right, and Benitez has, at last, finally made America a safer and better country. By retiring.
Earlier: Federal Judge Handcuffs Crying 13-Year-Old Girl Attending Father’s Hearing
Formal Complaint Lodged Against Federal Judge For Handcuffing Crying 13-Year-Old Girl
Judge Given Slap On Wrist After Handcuffing Innocent, Crying Child
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 or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
The post Judge Who Handcuffed Crying 13-Year-Old Girl Retiring appeared first on Above the Law.
