C$ paid, yet Judge orders prison time for not paying child support..??

Gini wrote:
"Random Stranger" wrote
....................................
Perhaps he'll think twice or three times before witholding support for

the next 8-10 years. In that regard the child may be way better off.
Without the jail time the guy may go another 10 years without paying
support, directly affecting the child.

==
Perhaps. But, you are now making assumptions to fit your argument. There is
nothing
in the system requiring the custodial parent to spend the money on the
child.

Agreed. I was responding to the question about how the childs best
interests will be served. I was speculating; notice I said "perhaps".

There aren't enough facts for us to know. I'm just trying to point out
this isn't a clear-cut case of "innocent dad, evil judge, poor child".
It might be, or it might not be. It could be "truly dead-beat dad, wise
judge, poor child". Likely, the truth is somewhere between the extremes.

Hence, we
cannot conclude that not paying the support directly affects the child. In
fact, if there
were checks in place to insure the money is reserved strictly for the
child's needs, there
would be greater compliance by the payor. As it is, only noncustodial
parents are mandated
by law to spend a percentage of their income "on their child(ren)."
(Actually, they are only mandated
to give it to the custodial parent.) There is no such mandate
of custodial parents or parents in intact families.
==

*sigh* Agreed. I never quite understood why CPs don't have to somehow
account for how the CS is spent. Even if numbers are bogus, I'd like
them to have to make the effort to justify it (XXX as part of rent, YYY
as part of groceries, ZZZ for dance lessons, ...).

It'll never happen.

P. Fritz wrote:
Child support is foisted on the NCP, and enforced, literally by
gunpoint,

"literally by gunpoint"? I don't think so.

I'm sure its happened, but hardly to the extent you imply.

I think we all agree the CS situation is horribly busted, but the
hyperbole does nothing but fan the flames.

On Fri, 26 May 2006 02:48:11 GMT, Random Stranger
wrote:

Ray Gordon wrote:

The difference here is that society has an interest in people having
children, and unless you want to restrict childbearing only to the wealthy,
then you'll have to deal with people of lesser means having them. Note that
if the parents were married, the government would not be able to intervene
even if he were financially irresponsible. A man who does not earn a lot of
money is now risking prison time simply because he couldn't keep up his
child support payments.

You must have read a different article than I did. The article posted in
this newsgroup said nothing about his inability to pay, only about his
unwillingness. Actually, there wasn't any proof he was unwilling either,
just the word of the judge. I think, though, you're making assumptions
to fit your argument.

How is it in the best interest of the child to have his father destroyed
like that?

Perhaps he'll think twice or three times before witholding support for
the next 8-10 years. In that regard the child may be way better off.
Without the jail time the guy may go another 10 years without paying
support, directly affecting the child.


So by putting him in jail for six months, chances are he will lose his
job. This will limit his ability to pay. So, the balance of
probabilites are that he will - again - be forced into arrears as a
result of the calus and heavy handed actions of the court and through
no fault of his own.

However, the second he is in arrears again, the door is wide open for
the system to declare him a repeat offender, and put him in jail
again! How nice! Daddy get to spend quality time with his cell mate
"bubba", while he has no means to pay, and while his child support
debt continues to accumulate! And I bet mommy wont be bringing sonny
to jail to visit daddy either! Would not want to have to explain to
sonny why daddy is in jail not, would we!

The court has just put this man into a situation where he may well
NEVER be able to pay, and will therefore be "at the mercy of the
court" for the rest of his life!

This is a case of abusolute power corrupting absolutely. The jusge
probably gets his kicks from toying with other mens lives with
impunity.

And as a repeat offender for "failure to pay child support", he can
get wages garnished, professional designations revoked, drives license
revoked, passport revoked....

Yes, while ex-cons that murdered and robbed and raped can get a job
and a drivers license and have no fear of having their wages
garnished, dead-beat dads cannot. dead-beat dads have beed so
villified that they are now lower than all too common criminals.

After the jail term he will (presumably) be more motivated to keep up
support payments, and the childs best interest will be served.


After the jail term, being an ex-con, he may well have trouble finding
a job at all!

I'm not saying jail was absolutely the best thing here. From the facts
presented in the article, however, it seemed quite justified.

The courts can "justify" anything they want. My experience with them
is that they make up their mind well in advance, and in spite of the
evidence and facts on record, and then twist the law in an effort to
justify their actions. This case, as far as presented, is no
different.

For all we
know, this judge has dealt with this guy a dozen times over the years
and simply ran out of ways to incent him to pay.

You know what? So what! The guy had reduced arrears to less than
$1000. This showed a measure of "good faith" on the part of the man,
despite past actions. As the saying goes, no good deed goes
unpunnished!

If I were in this man's shoes, I can tell you how motivated I would be
to make any further payments! I would be saying "let the crime fit the
punishemnt", go on welfare, and then do some work under that table to
make ends meat. I would not pay a single red cent more for a LONG
time.

Even on welfare he would at least be spared the heavy-handed
treatment! But as a working man, he if fodder for the legal cannon.


Without more facts, we're all just pushing agendas around. I for one am
going to assume the judge knew way more about the situation than we do.

Perhaps he did. That still does not mean that he acted with fairness,
and with every persons best interests in mind. The decision as
rendered is immoral, it is narrowly focused on a small aspect of "the
law" and fails to take into account the "bigger picture".

This is typical of the crap that went on in my divorce. The only thing
I can say is THANK GOD my ex and I never had "children of the
marriage". I managed to avoid the whole child support bull**** as a
result. And since we were never connected at the hip by a child, the
severance is FINAL. And now that the court is out of my life, they
cannot come back in!

I am greatful for small mercies.

My prayers go out to this man. May God grant him the wisdom and
ability to rise up above the unconstitutional persicution that he now
faces.

On Thu, 25 May 2006 20:16:52 -0400, Werebat
wrote:



Ray Gordon wrote:
What a f%cking nut-bar. This is nothing short of abuse of position -
for which this judge should be thrown from the bench in disgrace, and
be barred from practicing law for good.

A dad finally comes clean, but the judge feels the need to "teach him
a lesson". I wonder if the judge gave any consideration to the precise
lesson that has been taught to this man????

Lord knows, the judge has certainly sent a clear message - don't get
married, and don't have children or the system will treat you with
more distain than a murderer.

To me, the message came across as "purposefully ignore a court order and
fail to meet your obligations for a decade and end up in jail". And I
hardly see how being thrown in jail for six months equates to "more
distain [sic] than a murderer". I think the judge was more than fair.

Do you think if a bank robber offered to give the money back to the bank
the judge would just say "ok, you can go now. Thanks for returning the
money"?


The difference here is that society has an interest in people having
children, and unless you want to restrict childbearing only to the wealthy,
then you'll have to deal with people of lesser means having them. Note that
if the parents were married, the government would not be able to intervene
even if he were financially irresponsible. A man who does not earn a lot of
money is now risking prison time simply because he couldn't keep up his
child support payments.

How is it in the best interest of the child to have his father destroyed
like that? How is it in society's best interest to have men's survival
instincts (our strongest) override our reproductive instinct (our second
strongest) by pitting them against each other?

A more analogous situation would be if the man owed back taxes. Unless he
was sitting on a large pile of cash and thumbing his nose at the system, the
IRS would usually just get the money, close the file, and move on. Interest
and penalties were more appropriate than prison time here.

Have to say I agree with Ray here. The guy shouldn't have gotten off
scott-free, but jail time? Seems like this judge was a bit
prison-happy. Almost like he had someone or group of ones to impress.


Probably an elected judge looking for the female votes.

The normal interest accrued on the money owed should have been
punishment enough, and was probably assessed anyway.

- Ron ^*^

Indeed, and now "the state" will have to pay to house and feed the man
too! This really is a no-win situation of anyone. Of any decision that
could be made, this seems like the WORST of all possible outcomes.

Judge is a retard. He should be removed and disbarred. He is a perfect
example of stupid and incompetent lawyer, who was unable to survive with his
own practice as a lawyer, so he bribed and kissed ass around to be a public
employee - nominated judge.

How can he (and for that reason you people) suggest, that a civil case for
owing money is offense to go to jail for?

How can you people compare this civil matter to robbing bank - a federal
criminal offense?

Are you all stupid? This f*cked-up judge certainly is.

--
Pursuant to Public Law No 109-162 I hereby certify, assert, testify,
warrant, and affirm that it is not (nor has it ever been) my intent,
aim, objective or purpose in any way to irritate, frustrate, bother,
provoke, gall, aggravate, bother, bug, chafe, fret, irk, nettle, peeve,
put out, rile, bait, beleaguer, beset, plague, tease, torment, worry,
disturb, vex, exasperate, ruffle, harrass, harry, pester, bedevil, ****
off, **** on, or in any other way annoy the reader of this post.

NewMan wrote:

So by putting him in jail for six months, chances are he will lose his
job. This will limit his ability to pay. So, the balance of
probabilites are that he will - again - be forced into arrears as a
result of the calus and heavy handed actions of the court and through
no fault of his own.

Maybe. Though, from the article it sounds like this guy has made a
career of hopping from job to job in very short order. One gets the
impression he'll be able to find another job easy enough.

What's with this "no fault of his own" crap? The guy ignored his
responsibility for almost ten years. That sure sounds like fault to me.

Yeah, the penalty is a bit harsh. But maybe the guy deserved it. Maybe
not; we don't have enough facts to know for sure. The facts we do have
seem to point to the sentence not being wholly unreasonable.


However, the second he is in arrears again, the door is wide open for
the system to declare him a repeat offender, and put him in jail
again! How nice! Daddy get to spend quality time with his cell mate
"bubba", while he has no means to pay, and while his child support
debt continues to accumulate! And I bet mommy wont be bringing sonny
to jail to visit daddy either! Would not want to have to explain to
sonny why daddy is in jail not, would we!

The court has just put this man into a situation where he may well
NEVER be able to pay, and will therefore be "at the mercy of the
court" for the rest of his life!

Wow, that's an impressive use of the imagination. Yeah, that could
happen. That's one of many possible scenarios. Maybe when he gets out
he'll be a new man, find a job, and make timely child support payments.

At some point, the dude needs to be responsible for his actions. Maybe
its harsh. Maybe his life is ruined. Maybe it's the only thing that will
get him to support his kid. Maybe. Maybe not.



This is a case of abusolute power corrupting absolutely. The jusge
probably gets his kicks from toying with other mens lives with
impunity.

You simply must have read more about this specific case than was
presented in the original post. Do you have a link for more information?
I'm curious about how you seem to know as much about this case as the
judge. A life sentence might be evidence of absolute corruption. Or a
quadrupling of his support. Or a death sentence. Six months in jail,
while rough, isn't "absolutely corrupt" in my book.


...
For all we
know, this judge has dealt with this guy a dozen times over the years
and simply ran out of ways to incent him to pay.


You know what? So what! The guy had reduced arrears to less than
$1000. This showed a measure of "good faith" on the part of the man,
despite past actions. As the saying goes, no good deed goes
unpunnished!

"So what!"? The "so what" is that the guy spent ten years avoiding his
responsibility, likely to the detriment of his child. And you think it's
ok to just say "oh, that's ok if you promise to do better"? Maybe after
one year. Two even. But it's been almost ten years that he has denied
his child proper support.

Personally, I hardly think paying the arearages under threat of going to
jail is "good faith". It was more a last-ditch attempt to cover his a**.

I could be wrong; maybe the guy is a saint caught between a rock and a
hard place. Or maybe you're wrong and the guy is a total jerk who knew
that witholding child support would totally destroy his ex and the child
he never wanted.

The point is, the news article didn't give us enough facts. The facts it
does provide seem to support the judges decision. I'm not debating the
system as a whole here, I'm saying in _this_particular_case_ we have no
facts to support the extreme views that you and some others are taking.


If I were in this man's shoes, I can tell you how motivated I would be
to make any further payments! I would be saying "let the crime fit the
punishemnt", go on welfare, and then do some work under that table to
make ends meat. I would not pay a single red cent more for a LONG
time.

If I were in a similar situation, and I had not paid for ten years out
of civil disobediance due to an unfair situation, I would do possibly
likewise. The article doesn't lead us to believe this guy was a model
citizen, however, and it doesn't lead us to believe that his child
support was unfair or exorbitant.


Even on welfare he would at least be spared the heavy-handed
treatment! But as a working man, he if fodder for the legal cannon.

Well, he broke the law (well, I guess strictly speaking he defied a
court order -- is that the same thing?), so of course he should be
fodder for the legal cannon. If you fail to play by the rules you need
to be prepared to suffer the consequences.


Without more facts, we're all just pushing agendas around. I for one am
going to assume the judge knew way more about the situation than we do.


Perhaps he did. That still does not mean that he acted with fairness,
and with every persons best interests in mind. The decision as
rendered is immoral, it is narrowly focused on a small aspect of "the
law" and fails to take into account the "bigger picture".

I agree that it "still does not mean he acted with fairness" but it also
doesn't mean that he didn't. I can certainly see scenarios where this
takes into account the bigger picture. And I can see scenarios where it
doesn't. Again, there just aren't enough facts to support either extreme
view.

My point is, all the radical men are reading waaaaaaay more into this
article than there was. We don't have enough facts to know if the judge
was abusing his power, being remarkably lenient, or somewhere in between.

dizum wrote:
Judge is a retard. He should be removed and disbarred. He is a perfect
example of stupid and incompetent lawyer, who was unable to survive with his
own practice as a lawyer, so he bribed and kissed ass around to be a public
employee - nominated judge.

How in the world can you make that determination from one small news
article?


How can he (and for that reason you people) suggest, that a civil case for
owing money is offense to go to jail for?

Obviously the judge had more facts than we have. I agree one shouldn't
go to jail simply for owing a debt. Maybe there's a lot more to the
case. Maybe the dude threatened the judge that his ex will lie cold in
the grave before she gets a penny. Maybe the judge got burned and is
exacting his revenge on all dads everywhere. Both are possible. The
likely scenario is that he has more facts than we do and simply couldn't
see any other actions that would have an effect on the dude.


How can you people compare this civil matter to robbing bank - a federal
criminal offense?

Because the principles are the same, even though the methods to achieve
the end result differ. In both cases, an individual takes a large sum of
money that, by one definition or another, is not theirs.

"Werebat" wrote in message
news:5Ordg.8748$Ce1.5417@dukeread01...


Ray Gordon wrote:
What a f%cking nut-bar. This is nothing short of abuse of position -
for which this judge should be thrown from the bench in disgrace, and
be barred from practicing law for good.

A dad finally comes clean, but the judge feels the need to "teach him
a lesson". I wonder if the judge gave any consideration to the precise
lesson that has been taught to this man????

Lord knows, the judge has certainly sent a clear message - don't get
married, and don't have children or the system will treat you with
more distain than a murderer.

To me, the message came across as "purposefully ignore a court order and
fail to meet your obligations for a decade and end up in jail". And I
hardly see how being thrown in jail for six months equates to "more
distain [sic] than a murderer". I think the judge was more than fair.

Do you think if a bank robber offered to give the money back to the bank
the judge would just say "ok, you can go now. Thanks for returning the
money"?


The difference here is that society has an interest in people having
children, and unless you want to restrict childbearing only to the
wealthy,
then you'll have to deal with people of lesser means having them. Note
that
if the parents were married, the government would not be able to
intervene
even if he were financially irresponsible. A man who does not earn a
lot of
money is now risking prison time simply because he couldn't keep up his
child support payments.

How is it in the best interest of the child to have his father destroyed
like that? How is it in society's best interest to have men's survival
instincts (our strongest) override our reproductive instinct (our second
strongest) by pitting them against each other?

A more analogous situation would be if the man owed back taxes. Unless
he
was sitting on a large pile of cash and thumbing his nose at the system,
the
IRS would usually just get the money, close the file, and move on.
Interest
and penalties were more appropriate than prison time here.

Have to say I agree with Ray here. The guy shouldn't have gotten off
scott-free, but jail time? Seems like this judge was a bit
prison-happy. Almost like he had someone or group of ones to impress.

He does; all other men. Easily traced back to his own emotional (sexual)
insecurities. He gets relief from such insecurities by demonstrating to
others that he is the "bigger, better" man. This satisfies his need to be
the number one stud, thus making all other men inferior to him and being the
most desirable mate to women. Quite common behavior in the animal kingdom.


The normal interest accrued on the money owed should have been
punishment enough, and was probably assessed anyway.

- Ron ^*^

"Random Stranger" wrote in message
. com...
Ray Gordon wrote:

The difference here is that society has an interest in people having
children, and unless you want to restrict childbearing only to the
wealthy,
then you'll have to deal with people of lesser means having them. Note
that
if the parents were married, the government would not be able to
intervene
even if he were financially irresponsible. A man who does not earn a
lot of
money is now risking prison time simply because he couldn't keep up his
child support payments.

You must have read a different article than I did. The article posted in
this newsgroup said nothing about his inability to pay, only about his
unwillingness. Actually, there wasn't any proof he was unwilling either,
just the word of the judge. I think, though, you're making assumptions
to fit your argument.

How is it in the best interest of the child to have his father destroyed
like that?

Perhaps he'll think twice or three times before witholding support for
the next 8-10 years. In that regard the child may be way better off.

Of course. Everyone knows that a child is always better off without the
father.

Without the jail time the guy may go another 10 years without paying
support, directly affecting the child.

No it doesn't.


After the jail term he will (presumably) be more motivated to keep up
support payments, and the childs best interest will be served.

I'm not saying jail was absolutely the best thing here. From the facts
presented in the article, however, it seemed quite justified.

Debtor's prison is always justified. At least that's what the U.S.
Constitution says, right?

For all we
know, this judge has dealt with this guy a dozen times over the years
and simply ran out of ways to incent him to pay.

Without more facts, we're all just pushing agendas around. I for one am
going to assume the judge knew way more about the situation than we do.

"Random Stranger" wrote in message
. com...
dizum wrote:
Judge is a retard. He should be removed and disbarred. He is a perfect
example of stupid and incompetent lawyer, who was unable to survive with
his
own practice as a lawyer, so he bribed and kissed ass around to be a
public
employee - nominated judge.

How in the world can you make that determination from one small news
article?
****Because I have extensive knowledge about how stupid lawyers becomes
judges.

How can he (and for that reason you people) suggest, that a civil case
for
owing money is offense to go to jail for?

Obviously the judge had more facts than we have. I agree one shouldn't
go to jail simply for owing a debt. Maybe there's a lot more to the
case. Maybe the dude threatened the judge that his ex will lie cold in
the grave before she gets a penny. Maybe the judge got burned and is
exacting his revenge on all dads everywhere. Both are possible. The
likely scenario is that he has more facts than we do and simply couldn't
see any other actions that would have an effect on the dude.

****Maybe, maybe, maybe.......You are contradicting yourself, if you read
your reply to my first paragraph.

How can you people compare this civil matter to robbing bank - a federal
criminal offense?

Because the principles are the same, even though the methods to achieve
the end result differ. In both cases, an individual takes a large sum of
money that, by one definition or another, is not theirs.

****Do not be simplistic. Principles are not the same. Check the criminal
law. Do not get offended.