{"id":148283,"date":"2026-04-08T15:52:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/04\/08\/judge-who-handcuffed-crying-13-year-old-girl-retiring\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T15:52:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:52:30","slug":"judge-who-handcuffed-crying-13-year-old-girl-retiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/04\/08\/judge-who-handcuffed-crying-13-year-old-girl-retiring\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Who Handcuffed Crying 13-Year-Old Girl Retiring"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2023, Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California ordered his marshals to handcuff a crying child<\/a> attending her father\u2019s 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 \u201can awfully cute young lady.\u201d He then revoked her father\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s retiring.<\/p>\n

Benitez earned a formal complaint<\/a> over the handcuffing incident, which the Ninth Circuit was forced to announce publicly after Above the Law<\/em> reported on it. After sitting on the complaint for over a year to let the heat die down, the Judicial Council found<\/a> \u201cthe shackling of a spectator at a hearing who is not engaged in threatening or disorderly behavior exceeds the authority of a district judge,\u201d and that \u201ccreating 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.\u201d Despite these serious findings, Benitez received gentle slap on the wrist with a wet noodle<\/a>. He responded to his punishment by telling Reuters that he disagreed with it<\/a>. Well, at least he learned absolutely nothing!<\/p>\n

But when he wasn\u2019t traumatizing children directly, Benitez was traumatizing them indirectly as one of the federal judiciary\u2019s 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>. 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 \u201csimilar\u201d issues, giving gun advocates a fast track to the gun manufacturing lobby friendly Benitez once he took on his first gun rights case. <\/p>\n

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 \u201cSwiss Army knives,\u201d which is accurate assuming someone affixes a bayonet and a corkscrew. <\/p>\n

As a senior status judge, his retirement does not give the administration a vacancy to fill.<\/p>\n

One might think that even those who appreciated his rulings might shy away from celebrating a guy known for handcuffing innocent kids, but you\u2019d be wildly underestimating how much conservatives care about guns more than kids.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Remember, when Lott says Benitez made \u201ca safer and better country,\u201d a specific statute at issue was \u201cmaybe we run a check to make sure we\u2019re not selling ammunition to someone who just escaped a psych ward.\u201d If your definition of America\u2019s \u201csafety\u201d is ensuring that someone who scribbles \u201cI am the angel of death\u2026 the time of purification is at hand<\/a>\u201d all over their walls can buy a thousand rounds of 5.56 like they\u2019re picking up bubble gum, then Benitez was definitely your guy.<\/p>\n

Benitez once wrote \u201cGuns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law abiding responsible citizens are necessary.\u201d 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\u2019s almost like all the sanctimonious rights talk is just a contrivance to make sure no one puts a dent in Winchester\u2019s profits.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Points for honesty though. While most would applaud a judge for their commitment to \u201cthe Constitution\u201d or \u201crule of law\u201d \u2014 however disingenuous those claims might be \u2014 at least someone is willing to just admit Benitez was a gun rights movement activist with a robe. Also, you\u2019ve got to love injecting a little sacrilegious idolatry!<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not fair to reduce Benitez\u2019s whole career to being a shill for the gun lobby. <\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yes, he\u2019s also the judge from Mirabelli<\/em>, stripping away a law protecting children from having teachers inform parents about a child\u2019s LGBTQ+ identity. While opponents of the law cast it as infringing on parents\u2019 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\u2019t 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019ve thought. So maybe his fans are right, and Benitez has, at last, finally made America a safer and better country. By retiring.<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Federal Judge Handcuffs Crying 13-Year-Old Girl Attending Father\u2019s Hearing<\/a>
Formal Complaint Lodged Against Federal Judge For Handcuffing Crying 13-Year-Old Girl<\/a>
Judge Given Slap On Wrist After Handcuffing Innocent, Crying Child<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Judge Who Handcuffed Crying 13-Year-Old Girl Retiring<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California ordered his marshals to handcuff a crying child<\/a> attending her father\u2019s 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 \u201can awfully cute young lady.\u201d He then revoked her father\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s retiring.<\/p>\n

Benitez earned a formal complaint<\/a> over the handcuffing incident, which the Ninth Circuit was forced to announce publicly after Above the Law<\/em> reported on it. After sitting on the complaint for over a year to let the heat die down, the Judicial Council found<\/a> \u201cthe shackling of a spectator at a hearing who is not engaged in threatening or disorderly behavior exceeds the authority of a district judge,\u201d and that \u201ccreating 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.\u201d Despite these serious findings, Benitez received gentle slap on the wrist with a wet noodle<\/a>. He responded to his punishment by telling Reuters that he disagreed with it<\/a>. Well, at least he learned absolutely nothing!<\/p>\n

But when he wasn\u2019t traumatizing children directly, Benitez was traumatizing them indirectly as one of the federal judiciary\u2019s 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>. 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 \u201csimilar\u201d issues, giving gun advocates a fast track to the gun manufacturing lobby friendly Benitez once he took on his first gun rights case. <\/p>\n

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 \u201cSwiss Army knives,\u201d which is accurate assuming someone affixes a bayonet and a corkscrew. <\/p>\n

As a senior status judge, his retirement does not give the administration a vacancy to fill.<\/p>\n

One might think that even those who appreciated his rulings might shy away from celebrating a guy known for handcuffing innocent kids, but you\u2019d be wildly underestimating how much conservatives care about guns more than kids.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Remember, when Lott says Benitez made \u201ca safer and better country,\u201d a specific statute at issue was \u201cmaybe we run a check to make sure we\u2019re not selling ammunition to someone who just escaped a psych ward.\u201d If your definition of America\u2019s \u201csafety\u201d is ensuring that someone who scribbles \u201cI am the angel of death\u2026 the time of purification is at hand<\/a>\u201d all over their walls can buy a thousand rounds of 5.56 like they\u2019re picking up bubble gum, then Benitez was definitely your guy.<\/p>\n

Benitez once wrote \u201cGuns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law abiding responsible citizens are necessary.\u201d 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\u2019s almost like all the sanctimonious rights talk is just a contrivance to make sure no one puts a dent in Winchester\u2019s profits.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Points for honesty though. While most would applaud a judge for their commitment to \u201cthe Constitution\u201d or \u201crule of law\u201d \u2014 however disingenuous those claims might be \u2014 at least someone is willing to just admit Benitez was a gun rights movement activist with a robe. Also, you\u2019ve got to love injecting a little sacrilegious idolatry!<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not fair to reduce Benitez\u2019s whole career to being a shill for the gun lobby. <\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yes, he\u2019s also the judge from Mirabelli<\/em>, stripping away a law protecting children from having teachers inform parents about a child\u2019s LGBTQ+ identity. While opponents of the law cast it as infringing on parents\u2019 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\u2019t 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019ve thought. So maybe his fans are right, and Benitez has, at last, finally made America a safer and better country. By retiring.<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Federal Judge Handcuffs Crying 13-Year-Old Girl Attending Father\u2019s Hearing<\/a>
Formal Complaint Lodged Against Federal Judge For Handcuffing Crying 13-Year-Old Girl<\/a>
Judge Given Slap On Wrist After Handcuffing Innocent, Crying Child<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Judge Who Handcuffed Crying 13-Year-Old Girl Retiring<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2023, Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California ordered his marshals to handcuff a crying child attending her father\u2019s 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 \u201can awfully cute young lady.\u201d He then revoked her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":148274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Headshot-300x200-66NRda.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}