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Good lawyer's summary of today's US Supreme Court ruling holding that a man who was jailed for contempt of court for failure to pay child support should have been given a lawyer or better information

DougDante

June 21, 2011

69 upvotes

http://jeannehannah.typepad.com/blog_jeanne_hannah_traver/2011/06/go-directly-to-jail-do-not-collect-200.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=244813&utm_campaign=0

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Title	Good lawyer's summary of today's US Supreme Court ruling holding that a man who was jailed for contempt of court for failure to pay child support should have been given a lawyer or better information
Author	DougDante
Upvotes	69
Comments	28
Date	June 21, 2011 2:54 AM UTC (15 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/i4wkq/good_lawyers_summary_of_todays_us_supreme_court/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/good-lawyers-summary-of-todays-us-supreme-court.1038375 https://theredarchive.com/post/1038375

Comments

[–]rockymountainoysters 6 points7 points8 points 15 years ago (16 children) | Copy Link

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[–]DougDante[S] 2 points3 points4 points 15 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

No, but one is mentioned here:

"A related statute is the Anti-Peonage Act (42 U.S.C.A. § 1994). Peonage is defined as compulsory service based upon the indebtedness of the peon to the master. The courts have held that neither the Thirteenth Amendment nor the Anti-Peonage Act prevents a convicted person from being required to work on public streets as part of his sentence (Loeb v. Jennings, 67 S.E. 101 (Ga. 1910), aff'd, 219 U.S. 582, 31 S. Ct. 469, 55 L. Ed. 345 [1911]). In addition, neither of these laws prevents the government from garnishing wages or using the court's CONTEMPT power to collect overdue taxes or CHILD SUPPORT (Beltran v. Cohen, 303 F. Supp. 889 [N.D. Cal. 1969]; Knight v. Knight, 996 F.2d 1225 [9th Cir. 1993])."

I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but it seems to me like there's no way the thirteenth amendment will be applied to child support, unless the circumstances are remarkable in some way.

[–]Demonspawn 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Thank you for the source. As for the ruling.. holy shit:

From Knight v Knight:

Knight challenges R.C.W. 26.18.050 on the grounds that it constitutes involuntary servitude prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment, and violates the Anti-Peonage Statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1994. R.C.W. 26.18.050(4) specifies that an obligor will not be held in contempt if he lacks the means to comply with the support order and has exercised due diligence trying to comply. Contempt proceedings for voluntary failure to comply with court orders are a proper exercise of state power. See Hicks v. Feiock, 485 U.S. 624, 638 (1987). The contempt statute does not violate the Thirteenth Amendment or the Anti-Peonage Act.

The ruling basically states: we can enslave you as long as we don't punish you if you do everything you can to comply with the enslavement (the courts contempt power)

It never answers the question if such orders of child support are Constitutional in the first place (which they, obviously, are not... the only Supreme Court approved restrictions to the 13th are enforcing civic duties.. conscription, taxes, jury service, and the like).

Also from your "read more":

This case addressed the Thirteenth Amendment as well as a federal criminal statute (18 U.S.C.A. § 1584) that forbids involuntary servitude. At issue in the case were two mentally challenged men in poor health who had been kept laboring on a farm. The men worked seven days a week, 17 hours a day, initially for $15 per week and then for no pay at all. Their employers used various forms of physical and psychological threats and force to keep the men on the farm. The Court held that "involuntary servitude" requires more than mere psychological coercion; it also requires physical or legal coercion. But, the Court noted, the Thirteenth Amendment was designed not only to abolish slavery of African Americans, but also to prevent other forms of compulsory labor akin to that slavery.

Does that not sound like our system of child support?

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