Posted on 09/12/2007 8:16:16 AM PDT by RabidBartender
David Salazar was jailed for not paying child support - for a girl that isn't his biological daughter.
The Missouri Supreme Court heard Mr. Salazar's case Tuesday, and its decision could have sweeping impact on child support cases throughout the state. Mr. Salazar, a former Buchanan County resident, was found guilty and jailed for 28 days for failing to pay child support for a 5-year-old girl whom no one argues is his biological daughter. Even the girl's mother, Shannon McClure, says Mr. Salazar isn't the father.
But under current Missouri statute none of that matters. If a man is married to a woman at the time she gives birth, a court administrative order can legally bind the man as the child's father, regardless of whether he's the biological parent.
Mr. Salazar's public defender, Merle Turner, appealed the conviction on the grounds Missouri's paternity laws are "antiquated," in part, by not allowing Mr. Salazar to challenge paternity with a DNA test.
"In Missouri, where failure to pay child support can result in a misdemeanor, and even felony convictions and long incarcerations, the state's refusal to use simple, respected DNA testing in situations (like Mr. Salazar's) is inexcusable," Ms. Turner wrote in a brief submitted to the Supreme Court.
"This really only deals with situations where the wife committed adultery," Ms. Turner said in an interview Tuesday after appearing in front of the state's highest court.
Buchanan County assistant prosecutor Laura Donaldson argues the conviction followed the law, since an administrative order deemed Mr. Salazar the father and he failed to fight paternity when given the chance.
"Once such an order has been entered establishing (the girl) as the child of (Mr. Salazar), biological paternity is irrelevant," Ms. Donaldson wrote in a brief submitted to the court.
There's a time frame during which a man can challenge paternity, but after that time lapses, there's no recourse.
Both Mr. Salazar and Ms. McClure said they did not have sexual relations in the 14 months leading up to the girl's birth in 2001, according to court documents. The two were separated but still legally married at the time of the birth.
Mr. Salazar was named as the girl's father on her birth certificate because a hospital clerk insisted her husband's name be placed on the document, Ms. McClure has testified. The two even contacted Missouri's Division of Child Support Enforcement (DCSE) to deny Mr. Salazar's paternity after he was notified that he had financial responsibility for the girl.
But Mr. Salazar failed to appear for a paternity hearing in 2003 and was ordered to pay almost $300 a month in child support. Since he failed to appear, the DCSE director authorized the administrative order establishing Mr. Salazar as the girl's father.
Two years later, Mr. Salazar was charged with misdemeanor nonsupport.
After Mr. Salazar admitted that he knew he was ordered financially responsible for the girl but had failed to make any payments, Associate Circuit Judge Keith Marquart found Mr. Salazar guilty in 2005 and sentenced him to 28 days in jail.
Ms. Turner appealed the case to the Western District Court of Appeals, where Mr. Salazar's conviction was affirmed by a 6-5 margin in February.
There's no timetable for a decision, according to a Missouri Supreme Court representative. If the Supreme Court finds a state statute unconstitutional, the Legislature would be the body that addresses the issue.
During the past legislative session, a bill that would have allowed fathers to present DNA evidence at any time proving that they are not the biological parent and shouldn't be obligated to pay child support failed to come up for a final vote this year.
Attempts to contact Mr. Salazar, who now resides in Kansas City, have been unsuccessful. Ms. Donaldson didn't immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
Ummmmmm, in the 1950's this law would have made sense... Today? It's nuts.
'Duped dads' fight back in paternity cases
This is not a ping list - just a one-time ping because of your interest in the earlier report. My apologies if it is unwanted.
State marriage law is mostly about property. That’s why gays want to be married.
I hope he wins this one. If he’s not the father he shouldn’t have to pay for his ex’s irresponsible behavior.
That clerk in the hospital was out of line, too. If she did what the wife claimed, she really screwed up this guy’s life.
Why not make HER reimburse the guy for the grief she caused him.
I'm not sure it would make any sense anytime. Both parties state that he is not the father. Why should it be inflicted on him and then required of him to pay support?
No doubt the child, given her druthers, would have rushed everything through court so that her baby-daddy could pay the bills, .....
Wonder if the putative father who's complaining claimed the baby on his income tax filing.
Bernard Goldberg in one of his books tells of a man who was named as the father by a women he had never even met. He didn't find out about it until later when it was too late to challenge it (supposedly they sent him a notice but to the wrong address), so he had no recourse. The California legislature even passed a law to help men in his situation who were being required to pay support for children they were not the fathers of, but Gray Davis vetoed it to please the feminists.
They didn't. They pay.
Why not have the biological father pay child support?
It’s traditional English and US common law, based on the old assumption that men owned both their wives and their children, and were thus responsible for controlling what their wives did.
They are long overdue.
How do they deal with car accidents there? If the cop writes down the wrong tag number of a person causing a fatality, does an innocent person get arrested for manslaughter? Are they nuts?
No man should be forced, against his will, to pay support for a child he did not sire. Any statute of limitations should begin at the time of discovery. Any man who discovers that the child’s mother has fraudulently caused him to pay child support should be able to recover financial costs with interest from her.
All it does is reward immoral behavior. Some guy can screw around and get as many women as he wants pregnant but as long as they’re married, he’s free. No responsibility for the children he fathered either financially or morally. It’s just party time and he’s screwed more than the women.
I don’t see why innocent people should have to pay. It’d be like requiring someone who happened to be in the bank when it was robbed to pay the bank back because they happened to be there when it got robbed; and letting the robber go.
It’s robbing an innocent person for something they had no control over.
And that's why true conservatives should be looking to get government out of the marriage business. Marriage laws serve only to transfer decision-making about property from the citizens who own it, to the government, thus essentially making government a co-owner of the property.
The state wants to enforce child support payments from *somebody*, and there’s no particular benefit, for the state, in making sure the actual sperm donor pays.
My vote would be no support from any third party. The mother can get a job, or place her child for adoption, or both.
In most states, “a trip to court” doesn’t end a marriage immediately. There is usually a significant waiting period before it’s final.
Such laws--or, rather, legal clarifications--they are probably already the law under the equal protection clause of the Constitution--would be not only fair and just but would tend to discourage irresponsible behavior, promiscuity, and infidelity.
Under the existing legal injustice concerning this--there is little incentive for a man not to copulate with another man's wife if the chances are good that they will dupe her husband into supporting any child conceived.
This guy married this foolish woman and a child was born during the period of the marriage. It's up to the guy to deal with his own problems.
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