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For those who might be interested, below is reproduced, in text format, the
entire brief submitted to the Court in connection with this morning's
Christine bail reduction hearing:


Edgar J. Steele
Attorney at Law
O.S.B. #93135
102 So. Fourth Ave., Suite C
Sandpoint, Idaho 83864

Facsimile:  (208) 265-5329
Telephone: (208) 265-4153

Attorney for Respondents
Brian & Ruth Christine




IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
FOR THE COUNTY OF DOUGLAS


                                     ) Case No. 01CR2994FA
The State of Oregon,                 ) 01CR2994FB
                    Plaintiff        ) 01CR2994FC
                                     )
         vs.                         ) DEFENDANTS' MEMORANDUM FOR USE AT
Brian Edward Christine, Ruth E.      ) BAIL REDUCTION HEARING
Christine And Mathew Barry Gerawan,  )
                                     ) Date:  March 6, 2002
                    Defendants.      ) Time:  9:00 a.m.
_____________________________________) Dept:  Judge Lasswell

Come now defendants Brian and Ruth Christine, by and through their attorney
of record herein, and offer their memorandum for use at the bail reduction
hearing set for March 6, 2002.

Facts
There are two sides to every story.  The saga of the Christine family is no
different.  Here is a point of view that diverges remarkably from that
presented thus far to this Court and through extensive media statements by
sundry representatives of the state of Oregon:

Brian and Ruth are late-twenties Vegetarian, Christian, home schooling
nomads.  They sold their home and bought a motor home, a converted bus, to
live on the road for a while with their three young daughters.  Brian had
something of an Internet business that he ran from public-access computers,
generally in public libraries.  While in Grants Pass, Oregon, over a year
ago, an anonymous caller told the police, who called in Oregon's Services to
Children and Families, that one of the Christine girls looked abused.  She
was thin and she looked dehydrated.  It was a hot day, and the little girl
was just getting over an illness.

The police, together with SCF, surrounded the Christine motor home,
conducted an illegal search and interrogation of the Christine children,
accused Brian and Ruth of child abuse and seized all three of their
beautiful little girls.  Brian was arrested for abuse because he
acknowledged having physically disciplined one of his children as a part of
her toilet training.

Brian and Ruth were somewhat put out at this intrusion into their personal
affairs and, distrustful of both the system and lawyers, represented
themselves and their children during the ensuing year, growing increasingly
demanding and resentful.

SCF does not like having its nose tweaked, so it refused to give in and
eventually moved to take the children permanently from the Christines.
At the time of the beginning of this saga, Ruth was 8 months pregnant.  SCF
demanded that child, too, so she disappeared for a time, had her child and
left it in the custody of Brian's mother, Teri Christine, back home in
Indiana.  Teri Christine has long since been designated the permanent
guardian of baby Olivia

.
Teri Christine tried repeatedly to have Oregon's SCF give the three older
girls to her, too, under guardianship, but was continually rebuffed and
ignored while those children were placed with strangers.
Finally, Brian and Ruth realized that they had gotten bad advice from
others and began to cooperate, submitting to extensive psychological
evaluations, which recommended counseling, visitation and eventual
reunification.  Despite that, SCF redoubled its efforts to terminate
parental rights and adopt out the children.

This case is most assuredly a modern American tragedy and reflective of
government bureaucracy run amuck.  Admittedly, the Christines' refusal to
cooperate with officials or trust court-appointed lawyers has been a major
cause of the plight in which they find themselves today.  However, the fact
remains that they have not had good advice or counsel and have at all times
done what they felt was right according to their religious principles and
moral code.  At all times, they have considered themselves loving parents
doing what was necessary to reunite their family.

The Christines have made a commitment to do whatever is necessary in order
to wend their way out of the legal thicket into which they have been thrust.
A review of the file documents provided the Christines' attorney reveals
inconsistencies between representations made by Oregon's SCF and the medical
charts.  For example, SCF says the girls were all badly malnourished when
first taken into custody, yet in only two weeks they were perfectly normal.
Simple logic undercuts SCF's position.

It should be remembered that the medical and psychological professionals
who rendered opinions shortly after the girls were taken into custody make
their living by providing these opinions to the state, opinions that often
appear quite similar from case to case.  Furthermore, the Christines were
denied access to their children or any opportunity to have them
independently evaluated, such that now the only record that exists is the
one that the State has produced.

It took several diagnostic studies to reveal an alleged skull "fracture,"
what came to be the linchpin of SCF's case against Brian and Ruth. Multiple
direct exams did not reveal it.  Computerized Tomograhic studies (CT scan)
did not reveal it.  No films have been produced which do reveal it, yet the
state finally found a doctor willing to conclude that such did exist.  Even
if such a fracture did exist, there is no evidence that it resulted from the
disciplinary episode recounted supra.  And, even if such a fracture did
exist and did result from the disciplinary episode, there is no evidence
that such was a natural consequence rather than the result of a freakish
accident.

There are serious issues about how the children came into custody, how they
were evaluated, and what their condition was, none of which have been
properly explored and/or litigated.  The children appear to have been
handled and examined by the State in a sexually improper manner from the
beginning, which the normal citizen could well perceive to be abuse well
beyond anything with which the Christines have thus far been charged.
It should also be remembered that Oregon's SCF is an agency that has been
rife with controversy and suffered a very large number of highly-publicized
and negative outcomes in similar cases.

The Christines are parents with a strong sense of right and wrong.  When
they perceived the State to be acting wrong, their moral and religious
precepts mandated the responses they provided.  Unfortunately that was not
calculated to bring about a happy result.  Indeed, Oregon's SCF grew more
and more disenchanted with the Christines as time went on and they refused
to knuckle under, and set upon a path of terminating their parental rights
at a very early stage.  That drove the Christines even further into the
reactive mode they adopted from the beginning.

SCF denied the Christines visitation with their children on supposition and
speculation, then tried to tell a court that it was because of "threats."
SCF denied them visitation, save only two occurrences, but then told a court
that their failure to visit more with their children was somehow because
they were uncaring and unfit, in a twist of logic seen repeatedly in cases
litigated with SCF in Oregon in recent years.

Though the paternal grandmother, Teri Christine, repeatedly requested that
SCF give her custody of the girls during 2000 and into 2001, who knew her
well from having lived in her home for over a year previously, and in whose
home their baby sister, Olivia then lived, SCF chose instead to shuttle the
girls from one foster home to another, putting the lie to the
statutorily-espoused policy of favoring family members.

Before things took a decidedly bad turn for the worse, with the alleged
kidnapping, Brian and Ruth Christine had begun to cooperate with the State
and had undergone extensive psychological evaluation and testing, again by a
doctor who makes a significant portion of his income from such evaluations
for the State.  His conclusions:  "Ruth is angry and hostile.  Brian is
untrusting."  Scarcely a surprise after what they had been through.  He
diagnosed them both with what has come to be the boilerplate diagnosis in
these cases:  Adjustment Disorder and Personality Disorder.  He recommended
treatment, which he undoubtedly would be pleased to provide (paid for
through the extensive federal funding created in recent years, which has
prompted a dramatic upsurge in these termination cases in every state), and
eventual reunification of the family.

Nevertheless, SCF told the Christines the girls were to be taken from them
permanently and adopted out.  Their reaction should have been predictable.
In a very real sense, the State drove them, due to the love they had for
their girls and the feeling of isolation and desperation that they had been
reduced to, to rescue their children at any cost.  What parent could really
fault them their motives or objectives?  It was the means that leaves a good
bit to be desired, of course.

Right down the line, Oregon's SCF was hostile, uncooperative and interested
only in terminating the Christines' parental rights.  The Oregon Attorney
General's office was steadfast in pursuit of termination and not at all
receptive to discussions of anything that might eventually reunify this
family, even spurning an offer by the Christines to stipulate to a Permanent
Guardianship with the maternal grandparents, so as to hold the door open to
a possible future reunion.

The Christines already had been tried in the media and found guilty by
every party to the proceedings but the court itself and been accorded the
treatment deserved only by those convicted of true child abuse.
With nowhere to turn and about to lose everything in life that mattered to
them, Brian took their children, allegedly at gunpoint, during a
state-supervised visitation session and fled the state.

The authorities caught up with them in Montana.  Ruth sat in jail in
Missoula and Brian was held in a cell in Billings.
Brian and Ruth were extradited to Oregon and arraigned on a truly nasty set
of criminal charges.

Before leaving Montana, however, Ruth Christine gave birth to Abbey Rose.
Oregon's SCF made clear its intent to move to seize the baby the moment it
was born and had its proxy counterpart in Montana's Child Protection
Services visit Ruth in jail to terrorize her with the representation that
nobody would be allowed in the delivery room but them and the doctor and the
baby would be taken upon delivery and handed over to Oregon authorities for
transport back to Oregon.  No breast feeding, no bonding, no kidding.
Via pro bono legal assistance, the Christines persuaded a Montana court to
deny SCF baby Abbey Rose, giving guardianship over to Brian's mother, Teri
Christine.  Mrs. Christine returned to Indiana with the baby, there to be
united with Abbey's older sister, Olivia, and initiated permanent
guardianship proceedings.

In retaliation, Oregon's SCF vowed a scorched-earth campaign to terminate
the parental rights of Brian and Ruth in the three girls held in Oregon
foster care.

Meanwhile, Ruth's parents moved temporarily from their home in Great
Britain to Oregon, in an attempt to adopt the three older girls.  Extracting
a written promise from the Oregon Attorney General's office that the three
older girls would be placed with Ruth's parents, both Brian and Ruth in a
Solomon-like decision reluctantly stipulated to the termination of their
parental rights, so as to spare their children any further trauma from the
ongoing struggle.  That adoption is now in process.

No small part in the Christines' decision to give up their children was
played by the Douglas County District Attorney's office, which had
steadfastly refused to offer any sort of plea bargain deal until after they
had signed a stipulation to terminate parental rights. In fact, the
Christines even waived their right to a speedy trial, so as to see to the
handling of their children before standing trial on the criminal charges
The DA's offer was made last week, revealing the DA's extreme bad faith in
"negotiating," when it stipulated that both Brian and Ruth would plead to a
class I felony and accept 7-1/2 years each in prison...for rescuing their
own children from what they perceived to be mistreatment at the hands of a
rogue state agency.  The DA's offer was rejected out of hand and the
Christines replaced all their appointed public defenders with the same pro
bono attorney who had helped them with baby Abbey Rose in Montana and
prepared to go to trial.

The state immediately cut off all payment for investigative and other trial
preparation efforts, placing the Christines in a decidedly handicapped
position for their effrontery in discharging their public defenders.
Now the Court has delayed the trial for another month and one half, owing
to its trial schedule.  The Christines have already been imprisoned for six
months, under bond so excessive as to be arguably unconstitutional.

  A third defendant, Matthew Gerawan, was easily bailed out by his wealthy family.

  No such resource is available to the Christines.

Argument

Clearly, the Christines qualify for reasonable bail.  "Offences, except
murder and treason, shall be bailable by sufficient sureties."  Or Const,
art I, §14.

The Christines have been held under bail in excess of one-half-million
dollars each.  They have nothing.  Their relatives are all of modest means.
This is bail set so ludicrously high as to boggle the mind and to violate
the Constitutional prohibition against excessive bail.  "Excessive bail
shall not be required."  Or Const, art I, §16.  See also, US Const, 8th Am.
The Christines are not flight risks.  This is their first brush with the
law, albeit a series of significant encounters which have grown like Topsy.
There has never been a hint that they are not the honorable, God-fearing
citizens that they appear to be.  They will be present for trial, no matter
what.

ORS 135.230(7) sets forth the primary release criteria to be considered.
Of those, only the one concerning the nature of the charge is in play today,
as the others clearly are not applicable.  And, as noted below, merely
because one is charged with multiple crimes for the same act does not
translate into conviction.  The state's conduct in this case gives a whole
new meaning to the phrase "piling on."  Of the various charges, the only one
with any serious chance of success is custodial interference, misdemeanor
flavor.  Thus, the provisions concerning minimum bail deriving from charges
with minimum required sentences should not apply.  The state must not be
allowed to subvert the constitutional prohibition against excessive bail
through its own excessive charging of crimes.

The Christines are no danger to society.  The only "danger" they previously
presented was realized when they "rescued" their daughters.  A repetition of
that is rendered impossible, in view of the deal that has been reached
whereby the girls are to be adopted by Ruth's parents, the only people who
will be able to come up with even a modest amount of bail money.
The Christines have now been denied investigative resources because they
have chosen not to further suffer representation by public defenders and
have been fortunate enough to secure private representation pro bono.  While
in jail, they cannot track down witnesses and retrieve evidence themselves.
For this reason alone, they should be released immediately, pending trial.
The first delay in trial on the criminal charges was due to the state
linking the issue of their children to a plea bargain.  They acceded and
suffered several months' imprisonment while resolving that issue, only to be
slapped in the face with a patently unacceptable plea bargain offer by the
state when the time came.

The second trial delay has come due to the court's own trial schedule.  The
Christines have acceded to that delay in an accommodation to the Court,
though it appears they could have proceeded to trial as scheduled.
The two trial delays, suffered by the Christines to accommodate the state
in both instances, strongly support their request for a significant
reduction in the bond now set for their release pending trial.
It is one thing to charge a defendant with crimes.  It is quite another to
secure a conviction following trial by jury.  Defendants respectfully
suggest to the Court that, upon hearing all the evidence, a jury is likely
to exonerate Ruth altogether and convict Brian of only misdemeanor custodial
interference, if anything at all.  The lengthy recitation of facts in this
memorandum is designed to support that suggestion by defendants today.  The
current bail is so ridiculous in view of the likely outcome as to be outlandish.

Oregon Statutory authority creates a strong presumption in favor of release on personal recognizance.  Collins v. Foster, 299 Or 90, 95, 698 P2d 953 (1985).

Conclusion

Brian and Ruth Christine have gotten themselves into a very deep hole with
regard to the criminal charges now pending against them.  They deserve
better.  However, the initial abuse charges are far from a foregone
conclusion and based upon highly suspect procedures and examinations.  The
balance of the criminal charges are related to what they did out of love for
their children, and, in a very real sense, in pursuit of the children's best
interests.  The defenses of necessity, defense of another and diminished
capacity are very properly used in the case at bar today.

What matters today is that the State seeks to complete the destruction of a
family that it undertook that hot day a year ago last August, with suspect
procedures and examinations.  We have a young couple who desperately love
their children and who really did nothing particularly wrong, who have been
driven by the State to such a mental state that the State now has had them
jailed for over six months and seeks to punish them for manifesting their
love by, in their minds, "rescuing" their daughters from a situation that
provided them no alternative.

Wherefore, defendants respectfully request that Ruth Christine be released,
pending trial, on her own recognizance and that Brian Christine be released,
pending trial, upon the posting of bail of no more than $10,000.
March 5, 2002 Respectfully submitted,

__________________________________________
Edgar J. Steele, OSB #93135
Attorney for Defendants Brian & Ruth Christine