Posted on 04/14/2015 11:41:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Why was Walter Scott running away from a policeman who tried to stop him for a broken taillight? The media are trying to make a South Carolina policeman's killing of a black man, Walter Scott, another sensational case of racism, but the media have missed the point of the tragedy.
The problem wasn't racism, or even dangerous driving or stolen property. It was caused by the obnoxious anti-father rulings of the family courts and Scott's fear that he would be returned to debtor's prison. Scott had already been jailed three times for failure to pay child support, and he didn't want to be sent to prison again.
Debtors' prisons were common in England in the colonial period. You can read about them in the writings of Charles Dickens, who wrote from first-hand knowledge; his own father spent time in a debtor's prison.
We kicked out British rule by the American Revolution and abolished some of its trappings, such as royalty and its titles, primogeniture and bowing to our top national official. We thought we abolished debtor's prisons even before we abolished slavery, but they continue to exist today to punish men who are too poor to pay what is falsely labeled "child support."
We say "falsely" because the money collected from the poor guy usually doesn't go to his kid or her mother. It just supports the welfare-state bureaucracy.
Of course, it wasn't wise to try to outrun the policeman's gun, but this sad event should make us reevaluate the policy of repeatedly sending a penniless man to jail for failure to pay so-called child support.
These guys don't have the money to hire a defense lawyer, which they should be given when jail is the cost of losing the case.
When corporations can't pay their debts, they can take bankruptcy, which means they pay off their debts for pennies on the dollar over many years. But a man can never get an alleged "child support" debt forgiven or reduced, even if he is out of a job, penniless, homeless, medically incapacitated, incarcerated (justly or unjustly), can't afford a lawyer, serving in our Armed Forces overseas, isn't the father or never owed the money in the first place.
The reason "child-support" debt can never be reduced by the court is the Bradley Amendment, named after a Democratic senator from New Jersey and one-time presidential candidate. That law should be repealed.
Fifteen years ago, a family court judge threw Scott in jail because he hadn't made his child support payments on time, and that meant he lost his $35,000-a-year job at a film company, "the best job (he) ever had." He then found some odd jobs but couldn't make enough money to make the support payments the government demanded.
The whole idea that a poor man is expected to support two households, including one with a child he never sees that may not even be his, is contrary to common sense and to all human experience. In too many cases, DNA investigations revealed that the poor guy is not the father of the kid for whom he is ordered to pay child support.
Scott seemed to turn a corner, but after making a couple of payments, he fell behind again and was sent back to jail. He said, "This whole time in jail, my child support is still going up."
Walter Scott's older brother, Anthony Scott, told the Charleston Post and Courier, "Everybody knows why he ran away." A bench warrant had been issued for his arrest for failure to pay enough child support.
A survey of county jails in South Carolina found that at least 1 out of every 8 incarcerated people is there for not paying so-called child support. All this imprisonment is imposed without any jury trial, due process or the benefit of a lawyer to defend the guy.
According to CUNY Law School Professor Ann Cammett, an expert on incarcerated parents who owe child support, "We have zero evidence that it works. If the goal of the child support system is to get support for children, parents can't do that if they're incarcerated."
One case on this issue went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011, but it didn't produce much relief. Michael Turner of South Carolina argued that his constitutional rights had been violated because he didn't have a lawyer at his hearing, even though jail was the penalty if he lost. The Court ordered some minimal "procedural safeguards," but didn't tackle the issue of giving a father the fundamental right of due process before sending him to jail.
We hope Walter Scott's death may help some dads in the future who are unfairly treated by the family courts, not given a lawyer, denied due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Oh, you can throw in tens of hundreds of thousands of guys into the category. No joke. The cages are full of those who had failure to pay-up warrants. With the Hispanics, and blacks, wage garnishments and support payments have become a never ending very ugly way of life with most who won't or can't pay. It's a meat grinder system which produces armies of very angry people.
Nope, the example you cited was a criminal contempt charge:
“Actions that one might normally associate with the phrase “contempt of court,” such as a party causing a serious disruption in the courtroom, yelling at the judge, or refusing to testify before a grand jury, would often constitute criminal contempt of court.”
http://litigation.findlaw.com/going-to-court/civil-contempt-of-court.html
I'm surprised none of the resident bootlickers have suggested the cop did him a favor by releasing him from the obligation.
I do not care about men who think with their little head. if you think with your little head, then don't whine to the rest of us when you have to face the consequences . Isn't that conservatism? Personal responsibility?
I don't care if they are angry. Tough luck.
Those are the pictures I had in mind.
The problem is, the cop, unless we can solidly prove it, shot and killed someone who was not attacking him. I don’t expect this to go down like it did for Darren Wilson, it just wasn’t a situation that really justified a cop shooting someone or fighting for his life.
Many mothers struggle to care for their children with no assistance and others have the rest of us taxpayers support the children. Children need food, clothes, shoes etc. It seems logical that since it took 2 parents to create a child both should support the child. Why should any man be allowed to walk away with no responsibility to his child? Not a very loving or conservative idea there.
You didn’t read it did you? The article is about the unfairness that allows a judge to incarcerate a dad behind on his child support payments even if he is destitute or has no job.
But you do anyway. You pay big $.
Add up all the court costs, cops, jails/prisons unions, judges and everything which goes along with incarcerating hundreds of thousands for failure to pay..Then add in medical, feeding, guards, administrative and on and on for all those incarcerated in the machine...
You're not escaping the taxes for all this.
Thank you for providing a link to show that this was civil contempt although you have managed to infer that ibsaid something that I did not.
“I think he was overcharged”.
I agree. In light of the taser wires dangling from the officers body, I think they are going to have to go for manslaugter. I’m not saying that excessive force was not used, but the vicitm is hardly blameless. Conservative Treehouse says that Scott fought with the officer for over two minutes and tased the officer. If that proves to be true, it changes things significantly.
The guy lost his job after being arrested for not paying child support. Who pays then? You garnish their wages. You don’t throw them in jail so that they lose their wages. It’s stupid to arrest people for not paying child support. It helps no one.
I'm still not seeing what you suggested. Again, if there were barbed darts sticking into his chest, I'm confident they would have broadcasted every detail of the wounds etc. I think they would have done so immediately after the video was released. But they never did.
There's no "suddenly" involved here. Not in the least. For hundreds of years in common law jurisdictions, judges have had the unilateral authority to jail a person who is in civil contempt of court. Neither jury nor "prosecution" need be involved.
Recent (in)famous examples of judge-ordered detention for civil contempt have included (a) the jailing of Bill Clinton's girl-buddy, Susan McDougall, during the Whitewater investigation; and (b) the similar detention of NY Times reporter, Judith Miller, during the Plame-Wilson contre-temps.
You can maintain as long as you want that civil imprisonment for contempt is a criminal prosecution. But you're basically butting your head against a brick wall. All the complaining in the world is not going to change the crystal-clear and long-running distinction in common law between civil contempt and the criminal law.
Dangling? Does this mean he had barbed taser darts embedded in his body?
If so his attorney should have released images of his wounds weeks ago.
Wait a minute.
If the officer was fighting with the guy and he ended up getting control of the TASER, using it and striking the officer, then this is a justified shooting.
I hadn’t heard anything about the TASER talons in the officer.
The video does show taser wires dangling from the officer’s body. I am puzzled why this has not been reported by anyone but Conservative Treehouse. Information is far too slow in being released.
You had the same reaction I did about this possibly being a justified shooting. We’ll have to wait and see what information is verified by the investigation. All I know is that the taser wires are clearly shown in the video hanging from the officer’s chest and leg.
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