Story Summary
The question before the House is not what specialized training the Family Division needs. The question is what specialized training is needed to violate the constitutional rights of families while collecting federal money for doing it.
- QUESTIONS FOR THE PEOPLE’S HOUSE
- SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONS FOR THE PEOPLE’S HOUSE
- THE SYSTEM PERFORMED EXACTLY AS DESCRIBED
- THE HOUS HAS THE POWER TO ACT
1. Referee Forrest admitted under oath: “I do not practice law.” Under RSA 490-F:10, referees are not required to be attorneys. What specialized training does the House believe is needed to preside over equity proceedings under RSA 490-D:3 when the presiding officer does not practice law?
2. Three separate Bureau of Child Support Services (BCSS) attorneys — including Supervising Attorney Melissa S. Penson-Mesa, Esq. — have confirmed on the record that they “represent the State of New Hampshire and do not represent any party in this matter.” What specialized training prepares an attorney to prosecute a case in which she represents no party, the respondent has no counsel, and the proceeding operates under equity jurisdiction?
3. The State’s own administrative rules at N.H. Admin. Code He-W 401.01(q) define a “never-assistance case” as any child support case where the family has never received AFDC, TANF, or foster care IV-E benefits. State Chief Staff Attorney Brisson admitted that ninety-five percent (95%) of the BCSS caseload involves non-welfare families. What specialized training is required to collect federal incentive payments under 42 U.S.C. § 658a on cases where the State has no public assistance cost to recover?
4. On January 14, 2026, and January 20, 2026, Respondent filed two separate motions for discovery — the right to access evidence to defend. Referee Forrest denied both on January 21, 2026. Respondent filed a motion to reconsider. Referee Forrest signed the denial of his own reconsideration, and on February 11, 2026, Jean Kilham, Clerk of Court for the 8th Circuit Family Division, issued the Notice of Decisions. On March 5, 2026, David Forrest — signing with no legal title noted on his position — denied Respondent’s demand for trial by jury. On July 29, 2026, Judge Hersh denied Respondent’s motion for fiduciary discovery. What specialized training teaches an officer of a statutory tribunal to deny a father access to evidence four separate times and deny trial by jury — rights guaranteed by the New Hampshire Constitution Part I, Articles 15 and 20, and the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution?
5. The Supreme Court of the United States held in SEC v. Jarkesy, 603 U.S. 109 (2024), that private rights require adjudication in Article III courts with jury trial protections. A child support obligation arising from a parental duty is a private right. What specialized training equips a statutory tribunal officer — who admits he does not practice law — to override a United States Supreme Court ruling on constitutional jurisdiction?
6. RSA 490-D:3 grants the Family Division the powers of a court of equity. The clean hands doctrine requires the party invoking equity to come with clean hands. The State conceals a sixty-six percent (66%) federal reimbursement rate on its Title IV-D operations, collects federal performance incentive payments under 42 U.S.C. § 658a on cases with no public assistance cost to recover, charges a thirty-five dollar ($35.00) annual fee for a service never requested under He-W 405.01, and classifies fathers as “absent parents” by administrative default under He-W 408.01. What specialized training teaches a court of equity to operate with dirty hands?
7. On September 15, 2026, Chief Justice Gordon J. MacDonald resigned after admitting three violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct (JD-2026-0004), all involving improper manipulation of the Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts — the office that administers the very court system the House voted to preserve. What specialized training does the House believe survived the resignation of the chief officer responsible for the system’s integrity?
8. N.H. Admin. Code He-C 200 confirms that child support proceedings are executive branch proceedings administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. He-W 401.01(ad) confirms that Title IV-D is “the joint federal-state program” administered by the division of child support services. Every rule the Family Division operates under — He-W 401, He-W 403, He-W 405, He-W 408 — is a Department of Health and Human Services administrative rule, not a judicial rule. Every dollar the system generates — the sixty-six percent reimbursement, the § 658a incentives, the thirty-five dollar fees — flows through executive branch accounting. If the proceedings are administrative, the officers do not practice law, the attorneys represent no party, and the rules are executive branch rules — what exactly is the House preserving as a court, and what specialized training transforms an administrative revenue program into a judicial function?
9. The House states that transferring family matters to Superior Court would hinder operations. In the matter underlying these questions, Superior Court Justice Edwards jailed Respondent for fifty-five (55) days without a seventy-two-hour hearing. If Superior Court can jail a father without constitutional process, what operational burden would be added by requiring that same court to follow its own equity rules, allow discovery, and permit trial by jury?
10. The People’s House created the Circuit Court system by statute under RSA 490-F. What the People’s House created by statute, the People’s House has the authority and the obligation to examine. The question before the House is not what specialized training the Family Division needs. The question is what specialized training is needed to violate the constitutional rights of families while collecting federal money for doing it — and whether that training is something the People’s House wants on its record. The documented record of this case — including the State’s own administrative rules, the admissions of the State’s own officers, and the denial of every constitutional protection requested — is available for public review. I respectfully request that these Committees and the Executive Council review it.
SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONS FOR THE PEOPLE’S HOUSE
11. The New Hampshire Constitution speaks in the language of rights. Part I, Article 2 declares that “all men have certain natural, essential, and inherent rights.” Part I, Article 14 guarantees “every subject” the right to “obtain right and justice freely.” Part I, Article 15 secures the right of the accused “to produce all proofs that may be favorable to himself.” Part I, Article 20 guarantees trial by jury. The Constitution vests these rights in the people — they exist before government and cannot be taken without consent. The statutes the House passes speak a different language. RSA 490-F says “the State shall” establish the Circuit Court. N.H. Admin. Code He-W 401 says “the division shall” administer child support. N.H. Admin. Code He-C 200 confirms these are executive branch proceedings. Statutes vest power in the State. The Constitution vests rights in the people. When the power the House created by statute is used to override the rights the Constitution reserved to the people — when a father is denied discovery, denied jury trial, denied access to evidence, and denied access to his child by officers who do not practice law, operating under executive branch administrative rules — which document controls: the statute the House wrote, or the Constitution the House swore to uphold?
12. New Hampshire House members receive one hundred dollars ($100.00) per year with no per diem — the lowest legislative compensation in the United States. The Title IV-D system the House legislated into existence under RSA 490-F generates a sixty-six percent (66%) federal reimbursement rate on every dollar collected, federal performance incentive payments under 42 U.S.C. § 658a, and thirty-five dollar ($35.00) annual fees on families who never requested government involvement. State Chief Staff Attorney Brisson admitted that ninety-five percent (95%) of the caseload involves non-welfare families with no public assistance cost to recover. The House created a system that pays the executive branch millions in federal revenue while paying the legislators who created it one hundred dollars a year. Who benefits from the system the House built — the families whose constitutional rights it was built to protect, or the executive branch that collects the federal revenue? And what does it mean for representative government when the people’s elected representatives are compensated less than the thirty-five dollar annual fee the system charges a single family?
13. Every member of the House of Representatives swears an oath to uphold the New Hampshire Constitution and the Constitution of the United States. The New Hampshire Constitution guarantees the right to due process (Part I, Article 15), the right to trial by jury (Part I, Article 20), the right to obtain justice freely (Part I, Article 14), and the right to produce evidence in one’s own defense (Part I, Article 15). The statutes the House passed created a system that has denied all of these rights in the documented record of a single case: discovery denied four times, jury trial denied, evidence production denied, and a father separated from his child for over fourteen years without a finding of unfitness. If the oath is to the Constitution and the statutes the House enacted have produced a system that systematically violates the Constitution, what does the oath require the House to do — preserve the system, or honor the oath?
14. When law enforcement arrests a citizen in New Hampshire, officers transport that citizen to the Circuit Court — a statutory tribunal created by the House under RSA 490-F, staffed by officers who “shall not be permitted to engage in the practice of law to any degree” (RSA 490-F:10). Law enforcement does not bring citizens before the Superior Court — the constitutional court established under Part II, Article 73 of the New Hampshire Constitution, presided over by justices who are members of the bar. If the Circuit Court cannot practice law, and the officers who preside over it cannot practice law, what exactly is law enforcement enforcing? The documented record shows that the rules being applied are not judicial rules — they are N.H. Admin. Code He-W 401, He-W 403, He-W 405, He-W 408, and He-C 200 — executive branch administrative rules written by the Department of Health and Human Services. Law enforcement is bringing citizens before administrative officers to enforce administrative policy and calling it a court of law. Is the House aware that the system it created results in citizens being arrested and brought before officers who cannot practice the law they are charged with enforcing?
15. In the matter underlying these questions, Respondent was brought before the Circuit Court — a statutory court whose officers do not practice law — where his constitutional rights were denied at every stage. When the matter reached the Superior Court — a constitutional court under Article 73 — Justice Edwards jailed Respondent for fifty-five (55) days without a seventy-two-hour hearing, without a finding of guilt, and without a determination of ability to pay as required by Turner v. Rogers, 564 U.S. 431 (2011) and Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983). The statutory court denied constitutional rights because it does not practice law. The constitutional court violated constitutional rights because it did not follow its own constitutional obligations. If the statutory court cannot protect rights because it lacks the authority, and the constitutional court will not protect rights because it lacks the will, where does a citizen of New Hampshire go to obtain the justice that Part I, Article 14 of the Constitution the House swore to uphold guarantees “freely, without being obliged to purchase it”?
THE SYSTEM PERFORMED EXACTLY AS DESCRIBED
Questions 16–20 for the People’s House
16. On September 28, 2026, Judge Hersh presided over the resolution of Case No. 449-2026-CR-01046. Upon seeing the Respondent, Judge Hersh stated to the public defender that he was “well familiar with Mr. Collier.” Judge Hersh is the same judge who, on July 29, 2026, denied the Respondent’s motion for fiduciary discovery in the child support proceeding (Case No. 649-2025-DM-00255) — a motion seeking access to the financial records underlying the State’s Title IV-D revenue collection from the Respondent’s family. Judge Hersh is “well familiar” with Mr. Collier because he has already denied Mr. Collier’s constitutional rights in another proceeding. The same judge who denied a father access to evidence in a child support case then presided over that father’s criminal matter. Question 4 of the September 27th letter asked the House what specialized training teaches a court to deny evidence access four separate times. The answer appeared on September 28: the same judge who performed one of those denials was assigned to preside over the next proceeding. Does the House consider it consistent with the appearance of justice — or the reality of it — for a judge who has already denied a citizen’s constitutional rights in one case to preside over a different case involving that same citizen, and to announce from the bench that he is “well familiar” with him?
17. The criminal case arose from a traffic stop. The State charged three offenses: speeding, operating after suspension, and disobeying an officer. On September 28, 2026, the State offered a plea: dismiss speeding, dismiss operating after suspension, and plead to disobeying an officer — a Class B misdemeanor, five-hundred-dollar ($500) fine, no jail. The Respondent accepted. He accepted because the alternative was trial in a court whose officers cannot practice law, before a judge who had already denied his constitutional rights in another proceeding, with a public defender who raised no constitutional arguments — and if convicted, the same system that jailed him for fifty-five (55) days without a seventy-two-hour hearing could jail him again. The system is designed so that even when the State knows its charges will not survive trial, the threat of incarceration forces compliance. But the plea itself is an admission. The charges the State offered to dismiss are the substantive charges: the charges that were the stated basis for the stop itself. If speeding was the lawful basis for the stop, why did the State offer to dismiss it? If operating after suspension was a valid charge, why did the State offer to dismiss it? The State dismissed its own justification for the stop. The charge the State kept is the process charge: a charge that exists only because the stop occurred. The United States Supreme Court held in Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491 (1983), that an investigative detention must be “temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop.” When the State dismisses the purpose of the stop but prosecutes what happened during the stop, the stop itself becomes the purpose. Six days before this plea, on September 22, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in Rosales v. Lewis, No. 25-30650, that “an officer cannot pull someone over without reasonable suspicion and thereafter concoct a fabricated traffic violation,” and that “the law that prohibited Officers from searching Rosales has long been clearly established.” That was the third denial of qualified immunity in that case — from the magistrate, the district court, and the Fifth Circuit. New Hampshire’s own Motor Vehicle Code confirms what the Constitution requires. RSA 266:78-f provides that law enforcement officers “shall only illuminate emergency lights and warning lights when in pursuit or stopping a violator.” The statute does not say “stopping a suspect.” It does not say “stopping a motorist.” It says “stopping a violator” — a person who has actually violated the law. The officer activated emergency lights under RSA 266:78-f on the claimed authority of RSA 265:60, the speed limit statute. The State dismissed the speeding charge. By the State’s own plea offer, there was no violation of RSA 265:60. If there was no violation, the citizen was not a violator. If the citizen was not a violator, the officer had no statutory authority to illuminate emergency lights under RSA 266:78-f. If the emergency lights were not lawfully activated, the stop was not lawfully initiated under New Hampshire’s own statute. The State cannot dismiss the reason for the stop and keep the stop. Their own Motor Vehicle Code will not let them. A criminal charge requires three elements: corpus delicti — proof that a crime occurred and that an injury resulted; mens rea — criminal intent; and actus reus — a criminal act. The State charged a citizen with disobeying an officer. The corpus delicti: the State dismissed the substantive charges that were the basis for the stop. If the stop itself was not worth prosecuting, what crime occurred? Who was the injured party? The mens rea: the citizen did not initiate the encounter. The State came to him. Whatever occurred during the stop was a response to a government action, not a criminal enterprise. The actus reus: “disobeying” an order issued during a stop whose stated justification the State itself abandoned. If the order arose from a stop the State concedes was not worth taking to trial, the act of disobeying that order is not a criminal act — it is a citizen’s response to an encounter the State now admits it cannot justify. The State charged a crime missing all three elements required to constitute one. The court then required the citizen to sign a written waiver acknowledging that he understood the constitutional rights he was surrendering and that the plea was voluntary. The presiding judge — the same judge who had already denied this citizen’s constitutional rights in the child support proceeding — asked him on the record whether he understood the rights he was giving up. The citizen said yes. The record now reflects a knowing and voluntary waiver of constitutional rights. But the waiver was signed under duress, in a court that lacks constitutional authority, before a judge who had already demonstrated bias, to resolve a charge missing every element required to constitute a crime. The system coerced the plea and then required the citizen to certify on the record that it did not. That is not a waiver. That is the system laundering coercion through paperwork. If the State’s own plea offer dismissed the purpose of the stop, what authorized the continued prosecution of a charge that existed only because the stop occurred? And does the House recognize that a citizen of New Hampshire was coerced into a plea under a framework that, six days earlier, the Fifth Circuit ruled violates the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution?
18. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right to effective assistance of counsel. On September 28, 2026, the public defender assigned to represent Mr. Collier did not raise a single constitutional argument on the record. She did not challenge the constitutional jurisdiction of the Circuit Court under RSA 490-F:10 or Part II, Article 73 of the New Hampshire Constitution. She did not argue that dismissal of the substantive charges (speeding and operating after suspension) while prosecuting the process charge (disobeying) evidenced a pretextual prosecution under Florida v. Royer. She did not move to dismiss the disobeying charge on the grounds that the State’s own dismissal of the substantive charges eliminated the legal basis for the stop — and without a lawful stop, there was no lawful order to disobey. She did not reference the fiduciary discovery denial in this case or in the related child support proceeding. She did not mention the pending federal civil rights action (Case No. 1:26-cv-00226-SM-TSM, U.S. District Court, District of New Hampshire) in which the Respondent has raised structural constitutional challenges to the very system that produced this criminal charge. She did not note that the First Circuit appeal (No. 26-1564) is pending and unopposed after the State of New Hampshire defaulted on September 11, 2026. The public defender recommended accepting the plea. This is not a criticism of the public defender personally. She may well have raised constitutional issues with the prosecutor in private. She did assist the Respondent in avoiding incarceration, and in a system designed to coerce compliance through the threat of jail, that matters. But that is precisely the point. The system is built so that the only way defense counsel can protect a client is to accept the deal — not to challenge the court’s authority, not to preserve constitutional arguments on the record, not to object to a prosecution missing the three elements of a crime. The constitutional arguments never reach the record because the system makes it too dangerous to raise them. The plea closes the case. The record reflects no challenge. The system survives. Question 14 of the September 27 letter asked the House: “What exactly is law enforcement enforcing?” The companion question is: why is the system the House created designed so that even competent defense counsel cannot raise constitutional arguments on the record — because the only way to protect a client from the system is to surrender to it?
19. On September 28, 2026, law enforcement brought a citizen before the 8th Circuit District Division — a statutory court created by the House under RSA 490-F — to resolve criminal charges. Not before the Superior Court. Not before a constitutional court established under Part II, Article 73 of the New Hampshire Constitution, presided over by justices who are members of the bar. Before a statutory tribunal whose officers “shall not be permitted to engage in the practice of law to any degree” (RSA 490-F:10). Question 14, submitted on September 27, asked the House: “What exactly is law enforcement enforcing?” One day later, the question answered itself. The citizen was brought before the same system the House was asked about. The judge announced he was “well familiar” with the citizen. The public defender raised no constitutional arguments. The State dismissed its own substantive charges and prosecuted only the process charge. The proceeding occurred in a court whose officers cannot practice law. Every constitutional protection that was denied in the family case — discovery, jury trial, due process, access to evidence — was equally absent in the criminal case. The United States Constitution does not grant the State the power to charge a citizen with a crime that is not a crime. The Fourth Amendment requires probable cause — probable cause of what, when the State dismissed its own corpus delicti? The Fifth Amendment guarantees due process — due process of what, when there is no mens rea and no actus reus? The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation — what is the accusation when the State dismissed its own basis for the encounter? The State charged a non-crime in a non-court. A constitutional court of record requires a judge operating under constitutional authority. The Circuit Court has neither the authority nor the constitutional foundation to create a lawful record. The conviction entered on September 28 was entered in a tribunal that lacks the constitutional authority to produce it. And the mechanism that makes this possible is not the Constitution — it is the Bar Association. RSA 490-F:10 says the officers of this court shall not practice law to any degree. But the individuals who sit behind the bench, with “Judge” on their nameplates, are members of the New Hampshire Bar. They are lawyers. The Constitution did not give them judicial authority — Part II, Article 73 vests that authority in the Superior Court. The statute that created their court says they cannot practice law. The only thing that gives them the appearance of judicial legitimacy is their membership in a professional association. Without Bar-credentialed lawyers sitting in those chairs, the Circuit Court would look like exactly what it is: an administrative proceeding with a nameplate. Does the House now have its answer to Question 14?
20. The fifteen questions submitted on September 27, 2026, described a system. On September 28, 2026, that system operated in real time, on the record, exactly as described. A judge who had denied a citizen’s constitutional rights in one case presided over another case involving the same citizen. A public defender raised no constitutional defenses. The State offered to dismiss its own charges — the charges that were the stated basis for the stop — and prosecuted only the charge that arose from it. The citizen accepted the plea — not because justice was served, but because the alternative was incarceration in the same system that had already jailed him for fifty-five days without a hearing. The State offered a plea because it knew its charges would not survive a constitutional challenge. The citizen accepted the plea because he knew the system would jail him before it would hear one. That is not justice. That is coercion dressed in the language of a plea bargain, administered by a court that cannot practice law, defended by counsel who raised no defense, and presided over by a judge who had already decided what he thought of the citizen’s rights. The system did not change its behavior because the House was notified. It did not change because a federal court has jurisdiction. It did not change because the First Circuit is watching. It did not change because the State’s own Chief Justice resigned three canons violated. It did not change because fifteen questions were placed on the record with every member of the People’s House. The system does not change because the system is performing as designed. The question for the People’s House is no longer whether the system is broken. The question is whether the system is working exactly as the House intended it to work — and if it is not, what the oath requires the House to do about it.
The House has the power to act. The Circuit Court was not created by the Constitution — it was created by the House, by statute. RSA 490-F is a legislative product. What the House created by vote, the House can amend, restructure, or repeal by vote. The House does not need to impeach officers of a court the Constitution did not establish — it can abolish the positions entirely. And the House does not act alone. The constitutional design of checks and balances provides that any two branches of government may overrule the third. The Legislature and the Executive, acting together, have the authority to restructure the judicial system the House created. The question is not whether the House has the power. The question is whether the House has the will.
The United States Constitution guarantees the Bill of Rights. The first ten amendments were ratified to protect citizens from exactly what happened on September 28, 2026. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable seizure. The Fifth Amendment guarantees due process. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to counsel, to confront witnesses, and to be informed of the nature of the accusation. The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. The Fourteenth Amendment extends these protections against state action. These are not suggestions. They are guarantees. Why is the People’s House allowing the complete annihilation of these guarantees by subjecting its citizens to a statutory tribunal the Constitution did not authorize? The House did not create the Bill of Rights — but the House created the court that ignores it. Every citizen who walks into a Circuit Court walks into a proceeding where the constitutional guarantees the founders died to secure do not apply. The House built that. The House funds it. The House preserves it. And every day the House does nothing, another citizen’s rights are processed through a system that was never given the constitutional authority to touch them.
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