By Joe Lambe

McClatchy Newspapers Source

(MCT)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Once again, Missouri judges have ordered a man to pay thousands of dollars in child support for a child he didn’t father.

This time, even the child’s mother agrees the man is not the father. Yet a state agency says he is, because he was married to the woman when she gave birth.

The state wants David Salazar thrown in jail, and an appeals court on Tuesday agreed.

His lawyer, though, hopes that a higher court will rescue the Buchanan County man and others like him caught in a national issue that pits fairness for men against what is considered best for children.

Many men nationwide get trapped into paying child support because they do not contest paternity before state-set deadlines.

Several states recently have changed laws or are considering changes that would allow men to introduce DNA evidence after the deadlines have passed. A bill pending in the Missouri Senate would allow that here.

In the case decided Tuesday, David Salazar and his wife agreed that they separated 14 months before she had a baby girl by another man in November 2001.

But the couple was too poor to pay for a divorce, his attorney said. A hospital clerk ordered the mother to list Salazar as father on the birth certificate. The Missouri Division of Child Support Enforcement named Salazar the father without DNA testing.

Salazar did not attend a hearing to contest the paternity finding. A Buchanan County judge later found him guilty of not paying $278 a month in child support and sentenced him to 28 days in jail.

Salazar appealed, but lost Tuesday in a 6-5 ruling by the appeals court in Kansas City.

He could not be reached for comment.

In most states, a reputed father has a short time to contest findings that he is a parent. In Missouri and Kansas, that period is one year. Child support usually must be paid until children turn at least 18.

Laura Donaldson, assistant Buchanan County prosecutor, said judges followed a clear legal process designed to financially provide for children.

“When you fail to contest an issue,” she said, “we assume you’re not serious about contesting it.”

Even though the mother, Shannon McClure, told officials that Salazar was not the father, she could have been lying because he threatened her – there was no way of knowing, Donaldson said.

Assistant public defender Merle Turner said she would appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. Her client never finished high school, could not afford a lawyer or a divorce and could not understand or deal with the administrators, she said.

Chief Judge Victor Howard, writing for the appeals court majority, noted that Salazar did not attend paternity hearings. At trial before a judge in 2004, Salazar admitted he had not paid child support. He was not allowed to give a DNA sample at that point, because by then he was considered the father by law.

Judge Ronald Holliger wrote the dissent.

“David Salazar is now held to be the father of A.S. (the child) for all purposes and all time,” he wrote, “despite both mother and father’s statements to the contrary and without any determination of that relationship by a court of law.”

If convicted again for nonpayment, Holliger noted, Salazar could be guilty of a felony punishable by four years in prison. And by now, Salazar owes more than $13,000 in child support.

Yet only the child support division – never a judge or evidence – named him the father, Holliger noted.

The administrative order should not settle the paternity issue, Holliger contended, and its finding that Salazar must pay child support should not be enough to send him to jail for nonsupport.

Many cases of nonfathers paying child support do not become public because the files are sealed. In 2005, The Kansas City Star reported on two other men who lost such court battles.

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© 2007, The Kansas City Star.

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