Child-Stealing Case : Father’s Death-Threat Defense Barred

Ronald Whitelaw on Tuesday was prohibited from basing his defense for stealing his two daughters on alleged death threats made by his ex-wife.

The ruling by San Fernando Superior Court Judge Howard J. Schwab that the threat allegations are inadmissible in court effectively undermined Whitelaw’s defense strategy as his trial on one count of child-stealing was about to begin.

“We don’t have anything left in terms of a defense,” Whitelaw’s attorney, Harland Braun, said after the ruling, which came just before jury selection began.

Whitelaw claims that he failed to return his two daughters to his ex-wife’s Valencia home after a weekend visitation more than seven years ago because she had threatened to kill him and the girls if he did not drop his battle for custody of them and move back in with her.

Faith Canutt, Whitelaw’s ex-wife, has denied ever making such threats.

The 1978 abduction spurred Canutt to become active in the then-fledgling movement to locate missing children. Last year she won the nation’s first civil damage case involving parental child-stealing when a judge ruled she was entitled to $1.5 million from Whitelaw.

The whereabouts of Whitelaw and the children, ages 6 and 3 when they disappeared, was unknown until August, when the family was found living under an assumed name on a farm in Oregon.

Whitelaw, who has been barred by the court from communicating with his children since his arrest, and close friends have repeatedly said he took the girls because he feared for their lives.

But Schwab said Whitelaw could not use the so-called “necessity” defense unless he first proved that he had exhausted all alternatives before stealing the children. Canutt had been granted custody of the girls after Whitelaw had dropped his own custody bid.

Defense attorney Braun said he will defend Whitelaw the best he can rather than advise his client to change his plea of not guilty.

If Whitelaw is convicted, Braun said, he can appeal the case based on the judge’s ruling Tuesday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth Barshop, who asked Schwab to rule out the “necessity” defense, pointed out that Whitelaw did not pursue several legal alternatives before stealing his children.

“He could have sought a modification of the custody order,” Barshop argued to Schwab. “He could have reported the threatening telephone calls to the police. . . . He could have placed the children as wards of the court at any time for their protection while he sought a modification.

“We will never know what would have happened because Mr. Whitelaw did not avail himself of the legal system,” he said.

Braun told Schwab that Whitelaw feared that Canutt would follow through on her alleged threats if he had not dropped his custody suit or if he had made any other legal moves to take the children from her.

“What does a parent have to do? Play Russian roulette with the children to test the adequacy of the legal system?” Braun said. “The threat went to the legal system. He was trying to obey the law, but she said she would kill the children if he went through the system.”

But Schwab said Braun’s argument “almost gives an aura of vigilantism.”

“We have to at some point in time believe in the system because otherwise the system collapses,” he said.

Whitelaw could receive up to a year in state prison if convicted.