Barton hearing transcript

[Keith Henson]

1 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA; TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 1998; 9:16 A.M.
2 DEPARTMENT NO. 52 HON. JAMES A. BASCUE, JUDGE
3
4 THE COURT: No. 8, Barton versus Henson.
5 MR. CHODOS: Good morning, Your Honor.
6 David Chodos for the plaintiff.
7 MR. ABELSON: Elliot Abelson for the plaintiff, Your
8 Honor.
9 MR. BERRY: Brian Berry for the defendant, Your Honor,
10 Mr. Henson, accompanied by Mr. Henson.
11 THE COURT: Good morning.
12 MR. CHODOS: Good morning, Your Honor.
13 THE COURT: This is a -- was on calendar at the request
14 of moving party, Defendant Henson, and this is a motion to
15 vacate a prior restraining order that this Court had
16 instituted.
17 And you may be seated.
18 MR. CHODOS: Thank you.
19 MR. BERRY: Thank you, Your Honor.
20 THE COURT: And then the Court received documents
21 regarding Mr. Henson's bankruptcy filing, and the Court is a
22 bit, I guess, befuddled, much like the recent President has
23 said, bewildered, I guess, what bankruptcy should have to do
24 with the restraining order, I guess. That's my question.
25 MR. BERRY: I filed the notice, Your Honor, purely
26 because I thought the Court should be advised of it, although
27 I had made clear it was my view, having looked at the law,
28 that the stay did not apply to it because this is not a



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1 collection proceeding. In fact, there's some suggestion that
2 the bankruptcy might automatically lift the Court's order by
3 itself, but I haven't researched that point. But, certainly,
4 Mr. Henson wants it to go ahead.
5 THE DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor.
6 MR. BERRY: The only reason Mr. Barton would not want it
7 to go ahead is because they want this order in place next
8 Thursday when the criminal court is going to hopefully have
9 this Court's order.
10 THE COURT: I just -- you -- the defendant's position is
11 that the notice to this Court re bankruptcy has no impact,
12 and you're requesting this Court to reconsider.
13 MR. BERRY: Yes. Exactly, Your Honor.
14 MR. CHODOS: Your Honor, my position was if it is -- my
15 letter yesterday was to inform the Court of what I learned at
16 11:00 this morning. I went to the lawyer who was involved in
17 the bankruptcy proceeding on the other side, got the
18 authorities from him, and incorporated them into the letter.
19 My only concern was one thing, Your Honor. If this
20 is a barred proceeding, then my filing papers is an act of
21 contempt. I advised the Court that I don't want to file
22 papers until the Court's made a ruling. This Court's made a
23 ruling that has nothing to do with the bankruptcy stay, and I
24 understood that to be the Court's ruling, I filed the papers,
25 and if the Court wishes to go ahead, we go ahead.
26 THE COURT: Well, I will just say that it's this Court's
27 experience that the bankruptcy courts take a view of the
28 supremacy clause and give it broad brush, if you will, to fit



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1 their purpose. So it is very possible that some federal
2 magistrate or bankruptcy judge might feel that the supremacy
3 clause vests them with discretion to vacate this restraining
4 order. I don't know. I don't think so. But as I suggest,
5 they might have the last say on that, and they paint very
6 broad brush with their interpretation.
7 The Court will proceed with the hearing, feeling
8 that there is no stay. This is a separate issue involving
9 constitutional federal and state rights of the parties.
10 This Court's previously had heard a full hearing.
11 Mr. Henson represented himself -- and I thought very well --
12 in a hearing, and the Court tried to balance competing
13 interests and work out something that would be fair to all
14 sides and protect the constitutional rights of each party.
15 The Court's tentative ruling is to deny motion to
16 vacate the restraining order. The motion to vacate is this
17 Court's October 31, 1997 restraining order. The Court feels
18 that the service of petition was proper as defendant has, in
19 fact, admitted he was served on October 28, 1997, three days
20 before the hearing, which was October 31st. Only two days'
21 notice is required under C.C.P. 527.6(g) as there was no
22 restraining order issued prior to the hearing on
23 October 31, '97. The Court believes that substantively,
24 defendant has failed to submit any evidence that would compel
25 this Court to modify the stipulation that was signed on
26 October 31, 1997, and the Court finds that the 25-yard buffer
27 zone is fair under the circumstances.
28 And the record will speak for itself. There was a



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1 full-on hearing. All sides presented their issues. The
2 Court is very concerned about Mr. Henson's right to picket,
3 right to his 1st Amendment and constitutional rights.
4 And the order entered by the Court was -- I will
5 say that Mr. Henson conducted himself intelligently, and it
6 was an amicable hearing and a balancing, if you will, of
7 competing interests; that Mr. Henson himself acquiesced.
8 There was no objection posited by Mr. Henson and only since
9 that he has subsequently been arrested -- and really, what we
10 should look at now is that Mr. Henson, the Court is aware,
11 has been arrested for violating this Court order and is being
12 prosecuted in, I think, a Municipal Court for violating that
13 order. And that's why the motion to vacate this particular
14 order is being heard at this time, I believe.
15 And the Court, again, finds that the rulings made,
16 the dialogue -- and I'll incorporate by reference all of the
17 hearings and the record from that hearing into this
18 reconsideration.
19 The plaintiff's objections to evidence submitted by
20 moving party, Court is going to overrule. Also, defendant's
21 objections are overruled. This is the Court's tentative.
22 Mr. Berry, you wish to be heard?
23 MR. BERRY: Yes, Your Honor.
24 This Court has inherit jurisdiction to modify
25 previous orders that it has made upon a showing of fraud and
26 in this instance, unclean hands, because this is an equitable
27 remedy that has been sought and obtained. The Court -- the
28 Court on the previous occasion did indeed show extreme



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1 concern for Mr. Henson's constitutional rights of picketing.
2 They are paramount, and they are absolutely provided for in
3 the statute. Constitutionally-protected activities, says the
4 statute, cannot constitute harassment for the purpose of
5 527.6.
6 At the hearing that the Court conducted so
7 diligently, it was expressed that Mr. Henson's acquiescence
8 was contingent upon Mr. Barton not chasing him. And as the
9 evidence has since showed, Mr. Barton has chased him. He has
10 used this as a sword and not a shield. Mr. Barton's function
11 in the church is not that of a mere pastoral minister. It is
12 to insure security. Only last weekend, he was in the streets
13 of Los Angeles threatening protesters with arrest.
14 We have here in the courtroom today Mr. Farney, one
15 of the highest ranking members of the Church's Office of
16 Special Affairs, charged with intimidating and harassing its
17 critics. They have another member of the Office of Special
18 Affairs right here. Their job is to stifle dissent, stifle
19 the public's perception of Scientology, to remove any adverse
20 comment on the church. And they have been carrying out that
21 mission since this Court's order with a vengeance. That is
22 why the Schenck decision and the Madsen decisions are so
23 explicit. Floating buffer zones are fraught with the
24 potential for abuse, as we've seen here.
25 Mr. Henson does not object to a fixed buffer zone
26 that was discussed and applied in Schenck and Madsen. We
27 have suggested in our papers that a fixed buffer zone would
28 be appropriate, 15 feet, no picketing within the 15 feet of



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1 any Scientology ingress or egress, other than to walk across.
2 THE COURT: Make sure I'm following the argument.
3 You've posited before, I believe, and mentioned the concern
4 about the floating buffer zone. In other words, Mr. Henson
5 has been ordered to stay I believe it was 25 yards or so away
6 from Mr. Barton, but Mr. Barton -- the concern I think that
7 we had is that Mr. Barton must go in and out of the church.
8 He is an official there who has some duties, and the Court
9 was concerned that the ingress, egress of Mr. Barton. I was
10 just trying to not have any conflict. But what you're saying
11 is that Mr. Barton has abused, if you will, that concept that
12 he is merely going to and from, ingress, egress, to do his
13 duties and has used the floating buffer zone to harass
14 Mr. Henson.
15 MR. BERRY: Correct, Your Honor, and the videotapes that
16 were submitted by Mr. Barton -- I'm sorry -- Mr. Henson, if
17 the Court wanted to take the hours and hours to review, those
18 would show that Mr. Barton was doing more than just
19 ingressing and egressing. And Mr. Henson and all other
20 protesters should be restricted from that narrow --
21 THE COURT: Let me ask you one more question.
22 The arrest of Mr. Henson for violating the Court's
23 order, was that as a result of his being within the 25-yard
24 buffer zone of Mr. Barton?
25 MR. BERRY: It was as a result of Mr. Barton coming
26 himself -- himself coming within the buffer zone, Mr. Barton
27 pursuing Mr. Henson, and then using his private investigator,
28 Mr. Richardson, to tackle him from behind and throw him to



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1 the ground and physically restrain him and injure him.
2 THE COURT: So you're asking the Court -- you're not
3 asking this Court to strike or quash, if you will, the
4 initial restraining order. You're asking mere modification
5 to delete a floating buffer zone and to go to a fixed buffer
6 zone.
7 MR. BERRY: Correct, Your Honor. Correct. Because that
8 would be consistent with the decisions by the Supreme Court,
9 it would satisfy the Court's proper concern for ingress and
10 egress from the buildings, and it would eliminate any further
11 abuse by the order being used as a sword and not a shield.
12 THE COURT: Mr. Henson flies down here from the Bay
13 Area. One of the problems -- yes, Mr. Henson, or drive
14 down. I don't know.
15 THE DEFENDANT: Your Honor, I have never come to
16 Los Angeles with the sole intent of picketing the Church of
17 Scientology.
18 THE COURT: That was the impression the Court got, that
19 you were coming down to -- anyway, I'll take your
20 representation. It was my belief -- I know that you reside
21 in the Palo Alto area somewhere. My recollection is that
22 your daughter goes to Stanford and you were coming down to
23 picket, and we got into this discussion about a Saturday
24 event that the Church of Scientology was having and you
25 stated that since you were down here anyway, you were going
26 to go ahead and picket that particular event.
27 My concerns -- and I think that raised some
28 concerns with the Court, is that the church has I forget how



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1 many different locations it has, but a number of locations
2 that Mr. Barton, in his official capacity, must work at or be
3 at. Then occasionally, there are functions such as -- I
4 forget the name of the place in Hollywood where this one
5 particular event was.
6 MR. CHODOS: Shrine Auditorium.
7 THE COURT: Shrine. That they have church events that
8 Mr. Barton must be at. And I think due to the nature of
9 Mr. Barton's work and the church activity and Mr. Henson
10 wanting to be present -- I mean you want to picket the Church
11 of Scientology, you've got to go to where the events are, and
12 the more popular, the crowded events, if you want to assert
13 your 1st Amendment rights, you've got to be there.
14 What I'm saying is that the concern I have and I
15 think the reason we articulated what you call a floating
16 buffer zone was to address that concern because how -- how
17 can I know and you can -- how arduous it is to craft
18 something for each location or maybe different facilities
19 that may come up in the future. I mean why don't you address
20 that for me.
21 MR. BERRY: Why should Mr. Henson be discriminated
22 against? Last weekend, there were at least 50 people
23 picketing right in front of Mr. Barton. He was ordering them
24 arrested. They had flown from as far as Germany --
25 MR. CHODOS: I'm sorry.
26 MR. BERRY: -- to protest.
27 MR. CHODOS: In --
28 MR. BERRY: Why should those picketers have the right to



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1 picket right in front of Mr. Barton and not this man here?
2 THE COURT: Well --
3 MR. BERRY: They carry the same placards.
4 THE COURT: I understand. But those 50 or so and
5 travelers or vacationers, if you will, from Germany are not
6 before this Court, are not jurisdictionally here. There was
7 a threshold showing. You weren't here.
8 MR. BERRY: I've read the transcript.
9 THE COURT: One of the concerns that was articulated is
10 Mr. Henson was carrying a -- his sign on a pool cue and there
11 was concern -- and there was some evidence referred to, I
12 remember, in the moving papers that he was the bomber from
13 the desert setting off explosives in the desert and -- I mean
14 there was an initial picture sort of painted of Mr. Henson
15 that the church was -- and some fear --
16 MR. BERRY: Exactly, Your Honor.
17 THE COURT: -- of his activity.
18 MR. BERRY: That is part of the fraud.
19 THE COURT: Well, I'm just saying the Court did not make
20 any findings in any of those regards. Mr. Henson, the Court
21 believed, had done some puffing, perhaps, about some prior
22 activity and the Court -- the Court itself, I picked up the
23 pool cue and found it to be a very intelligent way, if you
24 will, because it had a nice handle to carry a sign; so the
25 Court did not follow through in any of those areas of
26 danger.
27 But that's what brought Mr. Henson. So Mr. Henson
28 was brought with some serious concerns from the church,



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1 perhaps overstated somewhat, perhaps overstated because of
2 statements by Mr. Henson, if you will. But the Court --
3 that's what got Mr. Henson here, and Mr. Henson participated
4 in a hearing with the jurisdiction of this Court and agreed
5 to the compromise that the Court worked out.
6 What I'm trying to address is why people from
7 Germany may be in a different situation than Mr. Henson, but
8 I understand what you're saying. You're asking the Court to
9 reconsider and raising the constitutional issue that the
10 floating buffer zone is inappropriate.
11 So I would like to hear from other counsel now.
12 Mr. Henson, just have a seat.
13 MR. BERRY: Might I add, Your Honor. We have no
14 criticism of the Court's previous decision. It's what has
15 been done with the decision that brings us back here.
16 THE COURT: Okay. I understand that. Cause I cannot
17 undo -- and the Municipal Court has the criminal matter, and
18 a Municipal Court is the court of jurisdiction as to whether
19 or not the -- Mr. Henson violated then in existence Court
20 order that he acquiesced to. If you're -- and because what
21 this Court would do, if it did alter, would not nunc pro tunc
22 and change that prior order. If the Court is to even
23 consider at all, it would be to reconsider from this day
24 forward the restraining order.
25 Counsel, you can be heard now. I'm sorry.
26 MR. CHODOS: Let's first address the floating buffer
27 zone issue.
28 Your Honor, this -- I think you've had a chance to



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1 review counsel's papers and mine. This is not a floating
2 buffer zone as defined by the Supreme Court. The Supreme
3 Court, first of all, did not outlaw all floating buffer
4 zones. It was quite explicit as to why it outlawed the one
5 it was looking at, because it made it impossible for -- it
6 held it made it impossible or impracticable for the
7 demonstrator, the abortion counselor, and the picketers to
8 have contact with their target group.
9 As a matter of fact, that buffer zone specifically
10 kept them away from their target group, who was anybody who
11 might work in the abortion clinic or anybody who might want
12 to go there. They wanted the right to exercise their 1st
13 Amendment rights to persuade people not to have abortions,
14 not to work in abortion clinics. And for all of the violence
15 that went on there, the Court held the floating buffer zone
16 is too strict and it's strict for one reason. It prevents
17 you from getting to your target group.
18 This is not a floating buffer zone by that
19 definition. This does not -- as a matter of fact, the best
20 proof of -- and I'll go into it in a moment -- are
21 Mr. Henson's own declarations. This does not interfere
22 between Mr. Henson and his target group. Mr. Barton,
23 according to Mr. Henson's declarations and his points and
24 authorities, is not the target group. The target group, in
25 Mr. Henson's eyes, are all of those, as he put, brainwashed
26 people who ascribe to Scientology and those people who might
27 be going into places cause he's afraid they might be
28 brainwashed.



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1 Now, he has not shown and cannot show because of --
2 because of the facts, he has not shown that he was prevented
3 from access to his target group. Quite the contrary. If you
4 read his own declarations, he picketed the area for hours
5 before he was ever -- before he ever ran into a problem with
6 Mr. Barton. It's only when he came into contact or within
7 the space where Mr. Barton -- on that one occasion, he was --
8 he was arrested on a -- at the Shrine Auditorium, and
9 Mr. Barton at the time was standing on the Shrine private
10 property doing his job; and on the other occasion, when it
11 took place right in front of one of the Christmas displays
12 where Mr. Barton was leaving and going into the building.
13 Now, that is not a floating buffer zone at all. If
14 you looked at -- and if you want to go into an exercise of
15 sheer boredom, you might want to sit down and look at those
16 two hours of movies. You will neither see him ever being
17 restricted from communicating with any third parties ever in
18 that -- cause I've watched those tapes ad nauseam. Okay.
19 Nor will you ever see him being prevented from communicating
20 with his target group.
21 The only -- by the way, you'll never also see in
22 any of those tapes -- and Mr. Henson is carrying the
23 videotape -- Mr. Barton ever jump out at him. Okay.
24 But going back to the floating buffer zone, this is
25 not a floating buffer zone. This does not stand between him
26 and his target.
27 THE COURT: Let me ask you this. If Mr. Barton, who has
28 been painted as an evil person to deny the 1st Amendment



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1 rights of picketers, that is if Mr. -- that's a
2 characterization.
3 MR. CHODOS: Sure.
4 THE COURT: Court's not finding that.
5 If Mr. Barton, with this 25 yards of floating
6 buffer, would go out into the street or sidewalks or area,
7 query, does -- has the Court vested him with the ability by
8 walking out into a particular area to quash or chill
9 Mr. Henson's 1st Amendment rights? And I'd just like --
10 because that's the way they portray Mr. Barton. That's not
11 just ingress, egress but a proactive person who is concerned
12 about security of the church and who goes out into the
13 street. If that is true, would that not be more akin. So
14 we've got the key, if you will, to the dimensions of
15 Mr. Henson's 1st Amendment rights in the pocket of
16 Mr. Barton. He merely has to go into an area and Mr. Henson
17 would have to move 25 yards.
18 MR. CHODOS: That's not the way the -- first of all,
19 that's not the way your injunction reads. You were a little
20 more careful than that, Your Honor.
21 Number two, and that's not what he stipulated to.
22 And number three, you made it quite clear in the
23 transcript -- and that transcript's going to be available in
24 the criminal court -- that if Mr. Barton is chasing
25 Mr. Henson, this zone doesn't apply. Mr. Henson doesn't have
26 to run away from him. Other than Mr. Henson's perhaps
27 allegations, there's going to be no evidence that took place,
28 but that's what the criminal court's going to have before



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1 it. And if the criminal court finds that Mr. Barton is
2 running around chasing Mr. Henson out of the area wherever
3 Mr. Henson wants to hold up a picket sign, Mr. Barton is
4 running after him, then the Court's going to find, under the
5 terms of your order and under the explanation of your order
6 and the transcript, there's no offense here. But that's for
7 that Court to decide in an evidentiary hearing where
8 everybody has the right to call witnesses and confront
9 witnesses.
10 THE COURT: So in response to my question, what you're
11 saying that is this Court's existing order already has a
12 protection built in to see that Mr. Barton does not have the
13 ability to restrict, if you will, Mr. Henson's --
14 MR. CHODOS: Exactly.
15 THE COURT: -- 1st Amendment rights.
16 MR. CHODOS: Because when you look to the interpretation
17 of that order, Your Honor, counsel -- and this is going to be
18 defense counsel. Counsel is going to have the transcript of
19 proceedings in which you said that doesn't work. If
20 Mr. Barton is running around chasing Mr. Henson, Mr. Henson
21 isn't in violation of the order. That interpretation by a
22 city attorney, a prosecutor, trying to say that you were
23 wrong, that interpretation will be laughed out of court.
24 Your order, first of all, has to be construed in
25 such a way by the criminal courts to make it constitutional.
26 It wouldn't be constitutional if you allowed him to do that.
27 But the Court doesn't even have to stretch to
28 interpret because you stated your intent quite clearly, and



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1 if Mr. Henson can show that Mr. Barton was chasing him
2 around, he's going to win these criminal cases and going to
3 be suing people for malicious prosecution in two shakes of a
4 dog's tail. There's no question about it because that is
5 what you said.
6 Now, what the Court allowed was Mr. Barton -- I
7 think, if you'll recall what we said -- and, you know, this
8 idea that this was to interfere with his picketing rights,
9 the first thing, if you'll recall, I said when I came into
10 the courtroom was we recognize this man has a 1st Amendment
11 right to picket. This is America. We're Americans. He's an
12 American. That's the way we work around here. Our concern is
13 for the security of Mr. Barton based on the threatening
14 gesture and all the rest of the stuff that went on.
15 Okay. You fashioned an order and you were very
16 careful to fashion an order because we'd asked for what the
17 standard order is out of the Municipal Court, which is a
18 hundred yards. You said hey, there's no way this guy can
19 picket because although they might be able to see his sign,
20 he isn't going to be able to communicate with anybody. So
21 you set it down to 25 yards, and we took into consideration,
22 if you recall, what the layout of these places was and how
23 wide the streets were, and that's how you worked this out
24 with Mr. Henson.
25 Mr. Henson agreed that was reasonable, he could
26 live with it, and he wasn't doing it in the blind. He had
27 been to these places before. He hadn't been to the Shrine
28 Auditorium, but he'd been to these very places before.



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1 So all that you've asked is that when Mr. Barton is
2 out about his duties -- and Mr. Barton can't sit at a desk
3 and do his duties in the shield of the inside of a building.
4 That's just not his job. When he's out about his duties,
5 Mr. Henson keep his distance.
6 Now, no matter where Mr. Barton stands in that
7 group, there's no way in the world -- in that area, there's
8 no way in the world we can prevent, by standing in any one
9 place, Mr. Henson from picketing, as evidenced by
10 Mr. Henson's own declarations. He picketed the area. He
11 picketed around the area. He picketed two or three other
12 areas. He was picketing apparently at the Shrine Auditorium
13 for an hour and a half to an hour until the time came, which,
14 according to Mr. Richardson and Mr. Barton, he started
15 advancing on Mr. Barton.
16 Now, whether he just got bored or wanted to find
17 out if Mr. Barton was really there, I don't know. That's
18 something for the criminal court. But the fact of the matter
19 is he did picket. He picketed for hours.
20 Counsel says -- and it's an extrajudicial statement
21 I have no chance to confront -- that last weekend, people
22 were out there picketing. Okay. He wasn't arrested.
23 Nobody -- he wasn't arrested for picketing out there. He
24 claims people were threatening him. I don't know what these
25 threats are. It's easy to make charges when it's too late to
26 produce the evidence to counter it. The fact of the matter
27 is he picketed for hours.
28 As a matter of fact, I looked at one of the tapes



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1 that he had. He was out there chasing people -- it was a
2 rainy day. There's almost nobody on the street the day of
3 the second arrest. It was pouring rain. And he's chasing
4 people down the street talking to them and trying to hand
5 them -- asking them if they want some folders on little -- he
6 had some leaflets along with his sign. Most of the people
7 are looking over their shoulders and walking away from him.
8 He was doing this for a half an hour. Mr. Richardson,
9 according to that film, was watching him, cause he took a
10 picture of Mr. Richardson watching him, for a half hour, 45
11 minutes before anything happened. It wasn't until Mr. Barton
12 was in front of one of the buildings and Mr. Henson refused
13 to leave that he got arrested.
14 Now, it's easy to do your 1st Amendment job and
15 obey that order. I mean we agree. Their 1st Amendment
16 rights are paramount in this country, and they darn well
17 ought to be, but the fact of the matter is he is carrying it
18 on a pool cue. If he was carrying the sign on the barrel of
19 a shotgun, one would say maybe there's some danger, you
20 better keep him away from them.
21 That's what the Court tried to do, and the Court
22 was very careful not to infringe on his rights to picket, and
23 the Court didn't, as evidenced by the fact that he picketed
24 last weekend, according to his statement. I don't know
25 whether he did or not, picketed last weekend. He's picketed
26 all over the place. And he got arrested on two occasions, on
27 those two occasions.
28 It isn't hard to stay away from Mr. Barton. He



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1 can't be everywhere. He's not on roller skates. The fact of
2 the matter is where the arrest took place at the Shrine
3 Auditorium was when he was approaching Mr. Barton and
4 Mr. Barton was on Shrine property. He was told to stay off
5 the private property of the Shrine. He was within 25 yards
6 of it.
7 Now, whether he was or not is an issue that the
8 criminal courts can decide. Whether he was or not the second
9 time around or what his videotape proves -- and I don't think
10 he's going to be too anxious to enter this into evidence, if
11 it's the same videotape I saw.
12 What his videotape proves will be for the criminal
13 courts to decide. The enforcement of the order, the decision
14 as to whether he violated the order or he was being -- or
15 Mr. Barton was chasing him around is what the subject of that
16 hearing is going to be. That court has perfect competence to
17 handle that matter. But I don't think there's anything wrong
18 with your order. Keep -- keeping an individual away from
19 another individual does not violate the constitutional rights
20 of the individual to picket as long as you don't keep them
21 away from his target group, and he doesn't even claim he was
22 kept away from his target group. He doesn't claim that he
23 couldn't get to picket people.
24 If you read his declarations -- I don't know what
25 he's going to claim now, but if you read his declarations,
26 you'll see hours of picketing all over the place.
27 MR. BERRY: If you read his declaration, you will find
28 that he has to be forever vigilant, hiring people to look out



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1 for Mr. Barton. There has been no showing of any threats
2 directed at Mr. Barton as opposed to the church. No showing
3 whatsoever. And the Riverside court has commented on that.
4 Absolutely not one scintilla of evidence that the harassment
5 statute is applicable here in the first place.
6 Secondly, Mr. Barton arrested Mr. Henson. It was
7 Mr. Barton who chased after Mr. Henson and arrested him and
8 then had Richardson throw him to the ground, physically
9 injure him.
10 It was Mr. Barton and Mr. Richardson who arranged
11 for the LAPD to arrest Mr. Henson at the Shrine.
12 The criminal proceedings are irrelevant here. The
13 argument as to what the criminal court will do or will not do
14 is irrelevant.
15 What is relevant is that Mr. Barton has followed
16 this man on one occasion from the Cedars complex of buildings
17 right down to the Celebrity Center, and the Court has already
18 judicially noticed that this organization owns a lot of
19 property in this area, and that property has lots of
20 sidewalks. And those sidewalks are public fora, and this man
21 has a right to be on that public fora demonstrating. There
22 has been no showing that his rights should be restricted
23 because there has been no showing that he has engaged in any
24 activity within the meaning of 527.6 directed at Mr. Barton.
25 The target audience he wishes to reach is
26 restricted by the order allowing Mr. Barton to chase him off
27 wherever he doesn't want him to be, and if the Court takes
28 the time to look at the videotapes, to hear from Deana



 20


1 Holmes, the Court will hear that Mr. Barton was hiding behind
2 bushes. He was hiding behind doorways. He even traveled to
3 Florida where they thought he was going to go picket, and he
4 checked into the same hotel in Clearwater that Mr. Henson had
5 reserved a room in months before.
6 Your Honor, that is not going about his job, even
7 if he had been subject of a threat, within the meaning of
8 527.6. That is harassment. That is taking this Court's
9 order and using it as a shield -- as a sword and not a
10 shield. The 15-foot fixed buffer zone accommodates the
11 Court's proper concerns as to Mr. Barton's ingress and egress
12 and that of any other member of the Church of Scientology
13 because consider for one moment if this Court allows this
14 order to stand, it is going to be besieged with orders from
15 all kinds of Scientology staffers saying, "I have read the
16 Internet. I feel personally threatened. I want an order
17 against this one, that one and the next one," and it's going
18 to be bedlam in Hollywood.
19 THE DEFENDANT: Your Honor, earlier, you were referring
20 to the church as being the real -- inadvertently, perhaps,
21 but if you went back and look at the record, it was not
22 Mr. Barton that's really the person that's behind this. It's
23 the Church of Scientology trying to suppress dissension.
24 They did the same thing in Florida. They did the same thing
25 out at Riverside, and the judge scathingly told them that
26 this particular statute did not apply to this. And they've
27 done it again in Arizona to a guy by the name of Bruce
28 Pettycrew, who's been picketing over there. They tried to



 21


1 get the Arizona --
2 MR. CHODOS: I don't mean to interrupt, Your Honor.
3 It's appropriate for me to object to the -- to the
4 description of facts that are nowhere in evidence in this
5 case, and I think we've had that from counsel and now
6 Mr. Henson --
7 THE COURT: I'll allow Mr. Henson a couple of more
8 minutes to make his record.
9 THE DEFENDANT: That's really all.
10 Your Honor, this stuff -- this thing was used as I
11 kind of expected it to be, as a weapon against me. The
12 Court's order was being used as a weapon. Mr. Barton himself
13 is the one who arrested me, perhaps, perhaps not, using his
14 authority as Chaplain of the LAPD in order to accomplish
15 this. Admittedly, I got -- perhaps, rather, I got within the
16 required distance at the Shrine. When I saw him, I left.
17 THE COURT: I think you probably said enough. I think
18 your attorney would like to have you to have a seat so you
19 don't hoist thyself by thy own petard, if you will, any
20 further.
21 I just want to say that I was hopeful, but, again,
22 I get to be too optimistic occasionally, that the agreement
23 that we had crafted -- and everyone had some smiles on their
24 faces and left the Court, I think, and we all had a sense
25 that we'd worked something out protecting everybody's rights,
26 and it has not turned out to be so.
27 But I still believe that the hearing that the Court
28 held and the record and any reviewing court should be aware



 22


1 that the prior orders that this Court issued in October of
2 '97 was with the full agreement and concurrence of
3 Mr. Henson and all parties, I believe. No one was
4 objecting. Well, there is an objection now, but I don't find
5 that the objection is sufficient to occasion the Court to
6 revisit this.
7 I will just state on the record, though, the Court
8 will again express some concerns that if there is actions or
9 activities by Mr. Barton, because this is who the focus
10 point -- Mr. Barton, based upon a showing, has an interest in
11 the security of the church. The church has a right to
12 protect itself as an institution. It's got a right to be
13 concerned about its securities, its members' ingress,
14 egress. These are viable concerns that they have.
15 But the Court would, if it found that Mr. Barton
16 was, in fact, using the Court's order -- and the Court is
17 certainly not inviting any more of these hearings. I spent
18 more than enough time on this, thank you. But if the
19 Court -- if there was an adequate showing to the Court that
20 Mr. Barton was abusing the intent of this Court or using this
21 Court's order as a sword instead of the shield, as was the
22 intent of the Court, the Court would probably revisit and
23 craft something. There has been no showing to that effect to
24 the Court's satisfaction at this time.
25 So the motion to reconsider is denied for purposes
26 stated by the Court. And I don't believe we need an order at
27 this time. The record will be sufficient.
28 So the motion for reconsideration at this time is



 23


1 denied.
2 This Court is in recess. Thank you.
3 MR. ABELSON: Thank you, Your Honor.
4 MR. CHODOS: Thank you.
5 MR. BERRY: Thank you.
6 (Proceedings in the above-entitled
7 matter were concluded.)
8
9
10
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12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28



 24


1 SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
2 FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
3 DEPARTMENT NO. 52 HON. JAMES A. BASCUE, JUDGE
4
5 GLENN BARTON, )
)
6 Plaintiff, )
)
7 vs. ) No. BS 047 684
)
8 H. KEITH HENSON, ) REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
)
9 Defendant. )
)
10
11 STATE OF CALIFORNIA )
) ss
12 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES )
13
14 I, LINDA L. COMSTOCK, Official Reporter of the
15 Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los
16 Angeles, do hereby certify that the foregoing pages, 1
17 through 23, inclusive, comprise a full, true and correct
18 transcript of the proceedings held in the above-entitled
19 matter on March 17, 1998.
20 Dated this 19th day of March, 1998.
21
22
23
24 , CSR NO. 3741
OFFICIAL REPORTER
25
26
27
28






1 SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
2 FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
3 DEPARTMENT NO. 52 HON. JAMES A. BASCUE, JUDGE
4
5 GLENN BARTON, )
)
6 Plaintiff, )
)
7 vs. ) No. BS 047 684
)
8 H. KEITH HENSON, )
)
9 Defendant. )
)
10
11 REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
12 Tuesday, March 17, 1998
13
14 APPEARANCES:
15 For the Plaintiff: LAW OFFICES OF SIMKE CHODOS
BY: DAVID MANNING CHODOS, ESQ.
16 1880 Century Park East
Suite 1511
17 Los Angeles, California 90067
(310) 203-3888
18 ELLIOT J. ABELSON, ESQ.
8491 West Sunset Boulevard
19 Suite 1100
Los Angeles, California 90069
20 (213) 960-1935
21 For the Defendant: LAW OFFICES OF GRAHAM E. BERRY
BY: GRAHAM E. BERRY, ESQ.
22 One Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90017
23 (213) 629-7854
24
25
26
27 LINDA L. COMSTOCK, CSR NO. 3741
Official Reporter
28

[Anonymous]

In article <hkhensonE...@netcom.com>, hkhe...@netcom.com (Keith
Henson) wrote:

My fav parts:

...

MR. CHODOS [I wonder if he'll get paid this month]:
... If

20 Mr. Barton is running around chasing Mr. Henson, Mr. Henson
21 isn't in violation of the order. That interpretation by a
22 city attorney, a prosecutor, trying to say that you were
23 wrong, that interpretation will be laughed out of court.
24 Your order, first of all, has to be construed in
25 such a way by the criminal courts to make it constitutional.
26 It wouldn't be constitutional if you allowed him to do that.
27 But the Court doesn't even have to stretch to
28 interpret because you stated your intent quite clearly, and

1 if Mr. Henson can show that Mr. Barton was chasing him
2 around, he's going to win these criminal cases and going to

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

3 be suing people for malicious prosecution in two shakes of a

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
4 dog's tail.

and

THE COURT:... But if the

19 Court -- if there was an adequate showing to the Court that
20 Mr. Barton was abusing the intent of this Court or using this
21 Court's order as a sword instead of the shield, as was the
22 intent of the Court, the Court would probably revisit and
23 craft something. There has been no showing to that effect to
24 the Court's satisfaction at this time.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Tilman Hausherr]

> 19 THE COURT: Well, I'm just saying the Court did not make
> 20 any findings in any of those regards. Mr. Henson, the Court
> 21 believed, had done some puffing, perhaps, about some prior
> 22 activity and the Court -- the Court itself, I picked up the
> 23 pool cue and found it to be a very intelligent way, if you
> 24 will, because it had a nice handle to carry a sign; so the
> 25 Court did not follow through in any of those areas of
> 26 danger.

Wow! The judge even submitted a "success story" for the pool Q.