The child support lobby and industry evidently got this judge off the bench because he ruled against jailing a man for failing to pay child support for a child that wasn’t his.  Surprisingly, many states still have crazy laws on the books that force non-fathers to pay child support for children that aren’t theirs.

The state Legislature addressed Texas’s baby-mama drama this session when, on May 12, Governor Rick Perry signed a bill that immediately relieves men determined not to be the biological father of a child from being required to pay child support. The bill passed unanimously through both the House and Senate.

Previously, as we reported in a 2008 cover story on the subject, state law determined that a man was legally the father of any child born to his wife — and men only had four years to challenge their paternity. But with the advent of DNA testing, science outran the law. And during the years of science leading the charge, Judge David Hanschen erred on the side of DNA testing to the chagrin of others in law enforcement including the Texas attorney general.

“I ruled against the law, and the law was just wrong,” Hanschen tells Unfair Park. Legally, he could have sentenced a man to jail for not financially supporting a child he did not biologically father. “That’s just crazy,” Hanschen says.

“What I said for years is that the truth doesn’t have a statute of limitations,” he says. “The courts are charged with finding out what the truth is.”

Last year, Hanschen was not re-elected to his post in family district court. He attributes his loss to being chastised, especially in this Dallas Morning News editorial, for the way he handled these cases.

“I believe in many respects it cost me the election because of what The Morning News did,” Hanschen says. He was regarded by many as an outlaw judge, even though today most of his actions would be considered neatly in step with the law.

The new child support law does not absolve men from making late child support payments. Regardless of biological testing results, a man is bound to the terms of the previous arrangement until the day he is determined not to be the biological father.

“I think this was a big stride forward,” Hanschen says. “The truth no longer has a statute of limitations.”

via Months After Hanschen Was Chased Off Bench, New Child Support Law Says: He Was Right – Dallas News – Unfair Park.

I wonder what happens to him if he doesn’t have the money?  If he was employed before the arrest, he certainly isn’t now.  How will he pay this?  More evidence of a system gone terribly wrong.

A Klamath Falls man is being held in the Klamath County Jail on $317,577 bail in connection to back child support he owes.

Stephen Paul Cudo, 46, was arrested for contempt of court early Tuesday morning. The Klamath County District Attorney’s office said he owes more than $31,000 in back child support, exactly 10 percent the value of his bail.

State regulations prohibit the release of how long Cudo has allegedly failed to pay child support or how much he was expected to contribute per month. Staff in the district attorney’s office said his bail is structured so that if he posts a 10 percent bond for release, it will fulfill the amount of money he owes.

via Man held for unpaid child support – Herald and News: News.

These people will never stop, and they will never “get it”.  People lose jobs, people get injured, people go through many trials, yet child support orders are very difficult to modify.  This is a draconian proposal, and this DA is some kind of nut.

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — DeKalb County is putting the brakes on parents who fail to pay child support by revoking and denying vehicle tags.

District Attorney Robert James and Tax Commissioner Claudia Lawson have partnered to crackdown on non-custodial parents who live in DeKalb County and have egregiously failed to pay child support for more than 60 days.

“If you are not willing to support your child, you don’t deserve the privilege of driving on the roads in Georgia, or any other place,” said James. “If you can put gas in your car at the pump, you can send $100 or $200 to your child to put food on the table.”

A letter of intent from the District Attorney’s Office will be mailed to a target list of 63 parents who have failed to pay child support or are delinquent 60 days or more. These letters will notify them of their delinquent child support payment status and pending tag revocation/tag denial. Parents are given 20 days to contact the District Attorney’s UIFSA Division before the tag is officially denied or revoked by the Tax Commissioner’s Office.

via DeKalb County: ‘No Child Support, No Tag’ – Atlanta News Story – WGCL Atlanta.

This article highlights how truly insane family policies are in Britain.  Things really aren’t  that much better here in the States.  The willingness of social agencies and the courts to intrude into the relationship of fathers and their children is truly disturbing.  One wonders just how far it can go before people fight back with violence.

A group of Fathers Rights campaigners took their message to the courts on Friday.

 

Three Cornish dads dressed in the now well-known trademark garb of superheroes adopted by the ‘F4J’ movement.

‘New Fathers for Justice’ is a breakaway movement from the original founded by Matt O’Connor, which has changed direction from superhero protests.

Lee pledged: “The main protest today is in Truro, but the Eden Project and Jamaica Inn could also be targeted in the future.

“There has been talk of a putting a superhero parrot on the roof of Jamaica Inn for some time. Expect the unexpected.”

The protestors called on the Truro Magistrates Courts where many family cases are heard and also at the St Austell offices of a court bureaucracy.

‘Cafcass’ are a nationwide network of family court officials who job is to dictate how much time a parent sees their child for.

If parents break up and a mother will not allow a father to see his children, he has to go to law, and will be forced to prove to a Cafcass officer that he is a fit parent.

This most commonly involves the officer ‘observing’ the child and father together for approximately an hour, and taking notes.

The officer then writes a report which recommends how much time the father should spend with their child.

It is a system lifted directly from criminal trials, in which probation officers observe criminals and recommend the right punishment.

But all parents applying to the courts to see their children must be scrutinised by Cafcass.

Criminals only face probation officers if they are convicted.

Another key difference between the family and the criminal courts is that the family courts are held in secret.

There are no juries, no press are allowed in, and the burden of proof is reversed.

Protestor Lee said the system was “wholly wrong” and his group planned to cause “whatever disruption necessary”.

The campaigners say opening the courts to the public and forcing them to give children equal time with parents would end their “injustice”,

They claim such a reform would ultimately see an end to a multi-billion pound bureaucracy of officials and lawyers that has grown up around marital breakdown.

One of the protestors has been made subject to a punitive gagging order by the Cornish family courts.

He spoke out but asked to be named only as ‘Paul’ because of the order, which denies him free speech.

The 28 year old said: “My ex-wife has made my life a living hell by constantly disrupting my arranged time with my son.

“He’s three, and such a lovely little lad. I love spending time with him when I am allowed, but it’s deeply wrong that I should have to fight the system in order to do the right thing.

“I feel I’m fighting a losing battle but I’m not giving up. I just don’t see why fathers should not get equality after family breakdown?”

A long-anticipated review by the coalition Government into family law rejected the demands of fathers rights groups out of hand last month.

The review was announced a year ago as soon as David Cameron and Nick Clegg gained power.

The Government appointed Treasury Official David Norgrove to conduct the review

He in turn appointed as high profile divorce lawyer as his assistant: fathers rights groups have called the resultant report, published on April 1st, “farcical”.

Lee said: “The family court system remains a pantomime. It exists purely to provide enrichment for lawyers and experts behind closed doors.

“Nothing less than an automatic presumption of equal contact with the children when the

parents split as a starting point will do.

“This will give both parents equal parity of rights to see the children. We just want dads to have equal status … same as Mum.”

via GIVE US EQUAL RIGHTS! | Cornwall Community News.

A FATHERS’ rights protestor is due to publicly burn her census form in Andover to highlight, what she sees as, a failure by the Government to recognise families in the recent review of the family courts.

To highlight her action, 39-year-old Nadine O’Connor, who lives in Andover, says she will ignite the form in full view of cabinet minister Sir George Young’s office.

Nadine, the campaign manager for the Fathers 4 Justice organisation, met Sir George at the House of Commons in March, but says the burning of the form is a fitting protest.

She said: “It is a barely- known fact this government does not recognise the right in law for parents to see their children.

“If the government doesn’t recognise me and the parents I represent, it doesn’t recognise us as a citizen so I won’t be counted.

“I am willing to go to court and face the maximum fine over this year’s Census in order to raise awareness of the fundamental basic human rights to be a parent and to have a family life.”

The campaigners say that, before the election, Sir George and the Conservative Party’s position on the Census was that it was ‘increasingly invasive and intrusive… [and] will erode public support, cost more and result in a less accurate survey’.

via Father’s Rights protestor to burn census form next weekend (From Andover Advertiser).