Paternity and the Broken US System

S

SimpleMinded

Vault Fossil
So I saw this on the news when I went to get coffee at work this morning, couldn't get over it. It might be old but it's still damned interesting.

Apparently, this guy is not the father of a woman's child, and she has stated he isn't, but yet he is still forced to pay over 10,000 dollars in child support because he didn't contest paternity in time.

An article on it can be seen here: http://educationwonk.blogspot.com/

Some choice quotes:

Francisco Rodriguez owes more than $10,000 in back child support payments in a paternity case involving a 15-year-old girl who, according to DNA results and the girl's mother, is not his daughter.
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He now has DNA results that show the 15-year-old girl wasn't fathered by him. He even has an affidavit from the girl's mother -- a former girlfriend from 1990 -- saying he's "not the father" and asking that Rodriguez no longer be required to pay child support.

Yet the state of Florida is continuing to push him to pay $305 a month to support the girl, as well as the more than $10,000 already owed. He spent a night in jail because of his delinquent payments.

Why is he in such a bind?

He missed the deadline to legally contest paternity. That's because, he says, the paperwork didn't reach him until after the deadline had passed.
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"It's hard when your daughter needs sneakers and you have to pay $305 or your husband goes to jail," said Rodriguez's wife, Michele. "It's just unfair."
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I guess it's just throwing sticks on an already raging fire but still, its interesting. I'm not really sure if there's much discussion on the issue but everyone can throw in a "YEA! The US court system sucks!"
 
Is this a case of the adoptive father having custodial obligations over an adopted daughter?

Further more, if this guy is acting as a Dad he might be held to the obligations of being a father.

As for debtors prison for those who don't pay alimony- technically they are being thrown in jail usually for contempt of court.
 
From what I read on it, the man dated the woman for four months about 17 years ago. He's now married to another women with children of his own.

He now must pay child support to the woman he dated for four months because the court ruled that the baby was his, even though it has been proven since that it is not.

He can not turn over the case however, as he did not receive notice of the child support until after the date to contest the ruling.
 
SimpleMinded said:
So I saw this on the news when I went to get coffee at work this morning, couldn't get over it. It might be old but it's still damned interesting.

Apparently, this guy is not the father of a woman's child, and she has stated he isn't, but yet he is still forced to pay over 10,000 dollars in child support because he didn't contest paternity in time.

An article on it can be seen here: http://educationwonk.blogspot.com/

Some choice quotes:

Francisco Rodriguez owes more than $10,000 in back child support payments in a paternity case involving a 15-year-old girl who, according to DNA results and the girl's mother, is not his daughter.
Click to expand...

He now has DNA results that show the 15-year-old girl wasn't fathered by him. He even has an affidavit from the girl's mother -- a former girlfriend from 1990 -- saying he's "not the father" and asking that Rodriguez no longer be required to pay child support.

Yet the state of Florida is continuing to push him to pay $305 a month to support the girl, as well as the more than $10,000 already owed. He spent a night in jail because of his delinquent payments.

Why is he in such a bind?

He missed the deadline to legally contest paternity. That's because, he says, the paperwork didn't reach him until after the deadline had passed.
Click to expand...

"It's hard when your daughter needs sneakers and you have to pay $305 or your husband goes to jail," said Rodriguez's wife, Michele. "It's just unfair."
Click to expand...

I guess it's just throwing sticks on an already raging fire but still, its interesting. I'm not really sure if there's much discussion on the issue but everyone can throw in a "YEA! The US court system sucks!"
Click to expand...

The U.S. sucks overall, now-a-days. We stray from the constitution way too often now, but the major problem is that the polled population SUPPORTS half the shit that's passed. Let's take the Patriot Act for example. The populace eats that shit up, why? Because it's called the Patriot Act. Everyone says they know what it is, but when asked to go into detail about, no one knows a damn thing. It's the Anti-Freedom Act, where the government is allowed to read our emails or listen in to our phone conversations for terrorist acts. Now, this sounds all fine and dandy. Zero-Tolerance to make sure we live in Zero-Fear. Well, if they catch you doing other illegal things(Pirating music for example), they can use their "Patriot" Act to say they could legally search you, therefore the case will hold up in court. What the fuck happened to the 4th amendment?
As of now, this isn't used as a wide-spread legal tool to convict people with crimes. The normal American will likely never hear of a case where the "Patriot" Act was used, but what about a decade down the road from now?
The legal system is fucked. While we are still an democracy, the majority of the population isn't really helping out. They'll eat up the pretty words that the government drops on them to make them feel secure and spend all their time reading about Paris Hilton rather than reading the documents that compose our nation. It's so bad now, that when you ask people why we celebrate Independence Day, people know that it's to celebrate our independence. Ask them who we declared our independence from, and you have a decent chance of not even getting an answer.
 
there are lots of stories about this kind of situation around.

in one there is a paramedic in NJ paying child support for a child in like PA simply due to mistaken identity.

in washington state there are 5 guys paying child support for the same child simply due to no limits to the number of men who have to pay child support per child.

this is actually pretty tame compared to some of the actual horror stories i have seen.
 
xdarkyrex said:
honestly, the US needs a new constitution and more staunch protectors of it in the first place.
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The issue is not with the constitution, it's with the amendments and all the idiotic laws that try to dart around it.
 
PhredBean said:
xdarkyrex said:
honestly, the US needs a new constitution and more staunch protectors of it in the first place.
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The issue is not with the constitution, it's with the amendments and all the idiotic laws that try to dart around it.
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thats a given though.

its unavoidable.

it needs to be redrafted to be more specific.
 
Yeah when I get a good job and money, I'm leaving this shit hole (USA). I hate this fucking government. The republican and democratic party are tools for the rich and wicked. When it comes down to it, it doesnt matter what side you pick because its the same shit. Just different ways to look at it.
 
The more I learn about the US of A the worse it seems...
And how the hell do five guys end up paying child support for the same child? that's just ridiculous. Lucky kid though, maybe now he can afford college. :lol:
 
Don't generalize. That's Florida child support law, not national policy, I think, lol.

Generalizing the United States as one country stings me like an insult. Yeah, ok, we're technically one country, but some of us on the west coast don't appreciate being lumped in with people like those damn Floridians, lol.
 
Things are just as bad on the West Coast. My uncle-in-law, who is now living in our area on the East Coast, is still having to pay child support from California, despite the fact that his youngest son is, what, 22 or 23 now, and makes more money than he does.
 
paternity issues like this, including the limits on time to appeal suits for paternity, are aimed at providing mothers and their children the benefit of spousal/parent support.

Don't forget, social welfare in the US has gone down the tubes since Clinton. The emphasis has been that parents have to take custody for their children.

While these cases may not seem fair, consider the many cases where the father skips town and disappears, moving to the other side of the country. Or where the father decides to claim its another person's kid, or where the father simply refuses to pay support for one family while he raises another.

The idea behind this is to make fathers responsible.
However, to regulate this you need a system of accountability and also something that is judicially practical.

Time limits on appeals is par the course. You get an appeal on your right to trial. THis is true even in criminal cases. NOt so many years ago a criminal on deathrow tried to get an appeal to the Supreme COurt that his attorney, an overworked public defender, had failed to get his appeal in on time. The court ruled against the criminal defendant and off to death row he went.

(Never mind the fact that public defenders are poorly paid and overworked. Seriously, a public defender in some states makes only a few hundred dollars on a capital case even if that case should take weeks if not months to defend).

Is it fair? No.
Is it fair that this guy has to pay child custody? NO
Is it efficient- yes.

Hey, the legal system is very poorly funded and there is no real social safety net for some of these families. All our money is going off to fight a war in Iraq and pay off Haliburton and KBR.
 
You raise some good points Welsh. I hadn't thought of it from the perspective of other cases where the man is in fact the father. In that situation, the woman is forced to make due without for a long time and so there must be a limit on the time of appeal.

I don't understand though why once they get a case to court, do a DNA test and we've got the hoohah on the person and that's the end of the case.

But you are right about the need for strict enforcement.
 
All the talk about enforcement makes sense, but I still don't understand why there's no way out once the ruling has come down. Especially in a case where the man isn't the father.
 
Exactly. In this day and age where technology exists to prove whether or not a person is the father, it seems strange to prevent overturning.

Here's a dated article but still, one that details the system and its foolishness: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-12-02-paternity-usat_x.htm

A 1996 federal welfare law requires a woman to name a father — no questions asked — when she applies for public assistance. A court summons can be mailed to the man's last known address. Many men don't get the notice. The result: The paychecks of 527,224 men in California, for example, are being docked under "default" judgments of paternity that can't be contested after six months.
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So is this a case of guilty until proven innocent?
 
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