The U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing from M.T., a father from South Carolina that has been jailed more than once for failure to make child-support payments, in his request that five states discontinue locking up deadbeat dads and provide them with legal representation instead.
M.T., unable to provide approximately $50 per week for child support, believes that people of limited means have a constitutional right to an attorney at the taxpayer’s expense.
The other four states, along with South Carolina, that don’t automatically provide a lawyer are: Florida, Maine, New Hampshire and Ohio.
Michael McCormick, the executive director for the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, said, “It's a heinous situation. Jail just becomes a revolving door. We're locking up the poor. Child-support lockups are debtors’ prisons.”
But opponents feel that lawyers would be expensive and make the legal process move far too slowly.
The South Carolina Supreme Court, in it’s ruling against M.T., said that if a dad pays he can be freed. In essence, they are in control, at all times, of their own destiny.
The court said that a dad could hold the “keys to his cell because he may end the imprisonment and purge himself of the sentence at any time.”
The court reminded M.T. that failure to pay child support falls under civil contempt and not a criminal charge – and the latter allows the state to supply representation.
M.T., unemployed for many periods in the last two years, has been in jail three times for his failure to pay. Once was a yearlong sentence and another was for 90 days.
Having an attorney represent him, contends M.T., would have allowed him to broker compromises. He said, “I’d got a blessing of a deal if I had a lawyer with me.”
An attorney that met M.T. during one of his jail stints, Derek Enderlin, said, “Without a lawyer, the rest of your rights are almost meaningless. You don't know how to challenge the procedures, you don't know how to present evidence, you don't know how to show the court what's actually happened.”
Thirteen states have joined South Carolina and filed a brief that argues that the Sixth Amendment – the right to counsel in the Constitution – only applies to criminal cases. If this were to pass it would open the floodgates to all kinds of other civil proceedings where legal representation currently isn’t provided.
Any change to the system is thought to be too pricey in a time of such large budget deficits.
A family law attorney in South Carolina, and the vice president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, James McLaren, in regards to the possibility of the thousands of cases per year that would have to be heard by judges commented, “If you were to involve lawyers in that process, you would basically shut down the legal system.”
If you are having difficulty maintaining your child support responsibilities, or are seeking representation in an ongoing child support issue, contact a family law lawyer to help you today!