Two county prosecutor's in Indiana are now in trouble with the law for allegedly violating the very laws they swore to obey and uphold. Unlike ordinary citizens and residents, those in law enforcement are required to affirm or swear that they will obey and uphold the laws. This places a special burden or higher standard upon them to obey the laws. Many of them don't and this past week two have been in the news for, what appears to be, having been caught at it.
County Prosecutor practicing without a license.
First, I'll start with the most egregious. Newton County Prosecuting Attorney J. Edward Barce has had a Complaint for Disciplinary Action filed against him by the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission on 13 “factual allegations,” according to the commission’s Executive Secretary Donald Lundberg. Apparently Barce has been acting as the Newton County Prosecuting Attorney without having a law license in good standing in the state of Indiana.
Indiana Code 3-8-1-19 requires that “a candidate for the office of prosecuting attorney must be admitted to the practice of law in the state before the election, as provided in Article 7, Section 16 of the Constitution of the State of Indiana.” An attorney who's been placed on inactive status may not use his or her Indiana law license to practice law. Indiana Code 33-43-2-1 makes it a crime for “a person [to] profess to be a practicing attorney, conduct the trial of a case in a court in Indiana or engage in the business of a practicing lawyer without first having been admitted as an attorney by the supreme court.” However, Barce's law license was placed on inactive status on August 5, 2005 and was not reinstated until February 23, 2009 therefore leaving him without admission to the practice of law during that time.
While not being admitted to lawfully practice law in Indiana Barce's office filed more than 1,000 criminal felony and misdemeanor cases in the Newton Circuit and Superior Courts and disposed of more than 1,000 cases that had been pending in the courts. The fact that Barce’s law license was inactive was brought to light on February 19, in a Lake County courtroom where he was serving as a special prosecutor. Gary defense lawyer Carl Jones who was defending Jerome Taylor, accused of trafficking with an inmate, questioned Barce's license status.
Superior Court Judge Dan Molter said he was unaware of the license issue with Barce before reading about the allegations in a Lake County newspaper. The defendants in the cases prosecuted by Barce's office while he was practicing without an active license in good standing should now be able to challenge their convictions.
Marion County deputy prosecutor arrested on multiple offenses
WISH-TV in Indianapolis reported the following yesterday. Gillian Deprez, a Marion County Deputy Prosecutor, is facing several charges after Metro police officers arrested her for drunk driving early Saturday morning. Investigators say a breath test showed her blood alcohol level at .15.
According to police Deprez hit a car on 61st Street between Winthrop and Guilford then drove away. When an officer pulled her over and gave her a sobriety test she failed all three parts.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Indiana Prosecutors' in Legal Trouble
Saturday, July 11, 2009
A Bill to Modify Indiana Adoption and Paternity Law
Many of you reading this are pro se, also known as self-represented, litigants in family law courts. In reality most divorce cases now involve at least one party being self-represented. Today I am addressing a specific circumstance in paternity cases. This specific circumstance applies to few of you but it is worth reading for all as it shows just how complicated the web of family law is and why you must fully research the laws.
The first thing to note is, that based upon the decision handed down by the Indiana Supreme Court on 26 June 2009, the trial judge and the Indiana Court of Appeals misinterpreted the law. The Chief Justice did not agree with the majority of the court either.
The case, captioned as In re Adoption of Unborn Child of B.W., involved a child born out-of-wedlock being placed for adoption over the objection of the putative father. It was heard by the Honorable Chris D. Monroe, Judge of the Bartholomew Superior Court.
The question presented was whether the appellant biological father's consent to the adoption of his child was irrevocably implied when he failed to file a motion to contest in the adoption court but did take concurrent steps to establish paternity and preserve and assert his parental rights in another court. The Superior Court Judge, Monroe, found that the father's consent was irrevocably given when he failed to file a motion to contest the adoption in the adoption court.
This week I analyzed the opinion of the Supreme Court and the relevant laws. I have written an amendment to the laws that directly pertain to this case and sent it personally to each of our Indiana legislators. The following text will explain the problem and what I see as a viable solution.
Justice Boehm in concurring with the majority stated, “I hope the General Assembly will consider requiring that a putative father wishing to contest an adoption or declare paternity must file in the court in which an adoption action is pending or otherwise assure consolidation of these two proceedings to reduce the opportunity for delay and confusion, while still preserving all rights of the putative father.”
The adoption action was filed by the mother in the Superior Court. The father then filed a paternity action in the Circuit Court pursuant to the local rules. The father's position on appeal was that the form proscribed by Indiana Code § 31-19-4-5 states that the father's consent will be irrevocable implied if he fails to file a motion to contest the adoption; or a paternity action under IC 31-14 within 30 days of receiving the notice. It appears that the trial court found that in failing to file a “Motion to Contest” that he failed to do one of those two option and, thus, failed to properly contest the adoption. However, it appears that the Supreme Court saw “or” as making one of those two options a qualifier to contesting the adoption rather than a disqualifier. I also believe it was that same intent of the Legislature in 1997 when the statute was adopted that the father could file a petition for paternity in a Superior or Circuit Court or a motion in the court hearing the adoption petition since the word “and” requiring both actions was not used.
In this cause, brought before the Supreme Court, there seems to have been a failure in the mechanism to get these matters heard in the same court. As Justice Boehm wrote, he would like to see a mechanism in place to ensure that the cases are consolidated. I find two ways of doing this. One is to require that the Clerk of the Courts search for pending cases and notify the courts of concurrent cases and then the court hearing the adoption petition could consolidate sua sponte. The other could be to require that a paternity action be filed in the same court as a pending adoption proceeding. The second option seems to be the easiest as a putative father would already have notice of the court in which the adoption proceeding has been initiated.
The Superior Court entered an order finding that the father had failed to file in the Superior Court a timely motion to contest the adoption as required by Indiana Code § 31-19-10-1(b) and, based solely on this ground, it found the father's consent therefore irrevocably implied under Indiana Code § 31-19-9-12(1). Again, Indiana Code § 31-19-10-1(b) reads, “A person contesting an adoption must file a motion to contest the adoption with the court not later than thirty (30) days after service of notice of the pending adoption.”
It is understandable that a court reading only Indiana Code § 31-19-10-1 would assume consent to the adoption had been granted by the father not filing a motion in objection in that court. However, Indiana Code § 31-19-4-5 provides an alternative to objecting to the adoption, which is the filing of a paternity action.
A slight modification to Indiana Code § 31-19-10-1 would alert the court to the methods in which a father could preserve his rights under Indiana Code § 31-19-4-5. Indiana Code § 31-19-10-1(b) could then read, “A person contesting an adoption must file a motion to contest the adoption or file an action to establish paternity with the court hearing the adoption action not later than thirty (30) days after service of notice of the pending adoption as proscribed by Indiana Code § 31-19-4-5.
Indiana Code 31-14 et seq would need only slight modification to require the filing of a paternity action to be “filed with the same court in which an adoption proceeding is currently pending involving the same parents.” Considering the high probability of pro se litigants in this area it would be prudent that the court initiate the consolidation of the cases sua sponte.
A link to the proposed amendment is provided here. This bill would provide for uniform hearing of paternity proceedings involving the putative father following a petition for adoption filed by the mother. Additionally, it brings congruence to statutes involving adoption and paternity.
Please contact your local representative and ask that he or she support legislation to harmonize Indiana's paternity and adoption statutes based upon the case In re Adoption of Unborn Child of B.W.
Stuart Showalter, LLC
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Store Loyalty Cards and Child Custody
I was recently meeting with a client when I noticed that he had a Kroger's Plus Card. I cautioned him that he should not be using that card when he is buying the snack foods for his children as he is currently involved in a custody battle. I am a very health conscious consumer so I have little need to follow the advice I have given to others but it reminded me that there are many people out there who are using the cards without knowledge of how this information will be used against them.
Store loyalty cards are used by nearly all shoppers in today's world of precision tracking of consumers spending habits. This allows retailers to learn what consumers purchasing habits are and to market directly to them. In exchange for this valuable information the retailers offer a bit of a discount to those consumers who use these cards to track their purchases.
This information is also valuable to others besides the retailer who issues the card. Not only is this information often sold to those who data-mine and create profiles but those who may be nearest to you would like to have it. Regardless of what privacy you may think you have others can readily access information about your purchasing habits.
This can be accessed with a subpoena or warrant and used against you in court proceedings. In a well-publicized "trip-and-fall" case in California, a man shopping at a Southern California grocery store sued after falling in one of the aisles. It was reported (although the store has since denied it) that the store threatened to use his shopping history, which included large amounts of alcohol, against him in the proceedings. More important to those who may be in a child custody proceeding are what grocery items you may be purchasing for your children.
Chicken nuggets, fruit leather, potato chips, hot dogs, toaster pastries, soda and prepackaged lunches are considered by nutritionists to be among the worst foods for children. When a court is considering “the best interest of the child” an effective litigator could make the argument that a parent, whose record of food purchases show these items, may not be acting in the best interest of the child. In the near future, it's going to be become very difficult to assert that it wasn't you who bought those or that pregnancy test kit, those cigarettes, or that Playboy magazine.
Personally, when I go grocery shopping I never use credit cards, it's cash only for me. I use a loyalty card but there is also a way that I ensure my purchasing information is not being tracked. The easiest way to do this is through the use of an alias and an alternate address. Most rewards cards are available instantly and do not require name and address verification although special offers may be sent to the mailing address.
It is not difficult to get an alternate address if the card must be sent through the mail. Simply find an empty house nearby with a 'for rent' sign out front and a mailbox. Check every few days until the card arrives. In the meantime don't purchase what are considered to be “bad” items when using your card. What few pennies you save may not be worth losing your children over.
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Parents who would like to achieve the best outcome for their children in a contested child custody case should visit my website and contact my scheduler to make an appointment to meet with me. Attorneys may request a free consultation to learn how I can maximize their advocacy for their clients.
Connect with me for the latest Indiana child custody related policy considerations, findings, court rulings and discussions. 
Saturday, July 4, 2009
The Sperned Woman Who Cried Domestic Violence
Can you recall hearing the Aesop's story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf? The moral of that story is to not cry out in fear when there is no danger for when there actually is we won't come to your rescue having been conditioned by your false alarms. Just as movies get redone to appeal to a contemporary audience and setting so should Aesop's fable about “crying wolf”.
I propose that we need an update to the long standing moralistic tale by Aesop. This one could be The Spurned Woman Who Cried Domestic Violence. The radical feminist crowd, who wants fatherhood to be the equivalent of an ATM, seeks to portray domestic violence [DV] as a gender specific issue where women are always the victims of brutal attacks by men. Reality tells us that is far from the truth but society has been so inundated with this agenda that women actually see making false allegations of DV as doing nothing wrong. Although it clearly goes against the radical feminist agenda and their propaganda, the truth is men are the victims in ¼ of intimate partner homicides[1].
Let's first look at how this agenda has manifested itself in the relationship of two parents who went their separate ways earlier this year. The parties appeared on the Judge Judy show broadcast 30 April 2009. There the father had sued the mother for damages to his apartment caused by her during a 3:00am invasion when she kicked in his door, catching him in bed with another woman.
During the week following that encounter she filed for a protective order and two days later took their child to see the father. Judge Judy berated this young woman for obtaining a protective order against her ex-fiance' as retaliation for him breaking off the engagement for another woman. Although Judge Judy confirmed that the mother had made a false allegation of physical abuse the mother continued the charade proclaiming that Judge Judy is “crazy”. She protested Judge Judy's finding for the father saying, “I don't know what I did wrong” “I did everything right”.
The hearing can be seen here. You'll need to scroll down a bit on the page to “Judge Judy confronts a 'battered woman'”
This so-called victim who claims to have done nothing wrong in her false DV allegation vendetta is backed-up by the establishment. Lydia Watts, executive director of the Victim Rights Law Center, says there is no epidemic of women fabricating tales of domestic violence– “I have heard thousands of victims’ stories and barely ever doubted one.” It is that blind allegiance to the radical feminist agenda that is so dangerous for children. These man-haters would rather see a child placed with a violent, abusive or neglectful woman than any man.
Civil libertarians should be alarmed by domestic violence laws. A criminal act - domestic violence - is relabeled a civil offense, thereby stripping the defendant of all the protections available to criminal defendants. The “defendant” is summarily “convicted” and then pays a fearsome price: instant eviction, loss of access to and control of his assets, and enforced separation from his children. Imagine applying this concept to driving offenses. Take reckless driving for example. Currently this criminal offense is triable by jury. Imagine taking the route of DV proceedings for use in traffic violations. A cop goes to a judge and says he witnessed you driving recklessly nine years ago. The judge issues an immediate order suspending your license and impounding your car.
Fortunately, Judge Judy recognized what nearly every family law judge in the United States has been unwilling to admit: that not all allegations made in Petitions for an Order of Protection are true. Judge Judy recognizes that these false allegations are used as a method of retaliation or for leverage in gaining child custody. She also notes the damage that false allegations do to those who truly do suffer actual abuse.
A critical examination of false DV allegations and perpetrators needs to be made. One feminist, Wendy McElroy, has called upon women to stop making false allegations of rape or DV so that the gains made by women in those areas are not taken away. Yet, the false allegations continue at an alarming rate. McElroy cites a study conducted by Eugene Kanin of Purdue University, that indicates the true rate of false rape reporting may rise to the 40 percent level. Based upon DNA evidence The Innocence Project has gained the release of many men who have been falsely convicted of rape or murder. False allegations are a reality.
Another reality is that women commit more acts of DV than men do. The CDC reports that in non reciprocal DV situations women are the abuser in 70% of the cases.[2] A University of Florida study recently found women are more likely than men to "stalk, attack and abuse" their partners.[3]
The CDC reports that there are four types of Intimate Partner Violence [IPV]
which are:
• Physical abuse - when a person hurts or tries to hurt a partner by hitting, kicking, burning, or other physical force.
• Sexual abuse - forcing a partner to take part in a sex act when the partner does not consent.
• Threats of physical or sexual abuse - the use of words, gestures, weapons, or other means to communicate the intent to cause harm.
• Emotional abuse - threatening a partner or his or her possessions or loved ones, or harming a partner’s sense of self-worth. Examples are stalking, name calling, intimidation, or not letting a partner see friends and family.
For years I covered my face or head as my wife beat on me. I tried to be quick enough to dodge what was thrown at me. I explained the marks as being “from construction jobs”. I was repeatedly told that my son would be killed if I didn't do what she said. She did this once while pointing a gun at him. The police told me there was nothing I could do. That I would have to get a protective order from the courts but they won't do it because I am a man.
The cops were correct. After I was divorced I was stalked by a female acquaintance. I was inundated by e-mails where she claimed to be my wife or said she was going to make me impregnate her. I day I clearly told her that she was not going to be my wife or the mother of a child with me. That night she went into the St Vincent's Stress Center. Upon her release she filed a Petition for an Order of Protection against me.
During the next two and a half years before we went to court she broke into my house twice, my neighbor chased her off, the police told her to leave me alone, she moved into the house on the other side of the one next to me, followed me nearly daily and came into a friends house and stole money from my wallet. Yet, Judge Detamore, who has long been known as being corrupt, would not issue a restraining order to keep her away from me.
However, at our hearing before Judge Kincaid [Boone County's only legitimate judge] she admitted that the rape allegation she made against me was false. That she had followed me. That she moved to live much closer to me. In the civil suit I filed against her for harassment her attorney begged me not to take this before a jury. I just wanted to be left alone so I settled with her for reimbursement for some of my attorney fees and an apology letter for the false allegations.
There can be no doubt that false allegations do exist and that there is a policy by judges, prosecutors and police to ignore violent acts committed by women against men. I have experienced it, repeatedly. Although radical feminists use spurious official sounding studies or simply repeat unsubstantiated claims about the non-existence of false allegations by women and that DV only affects men you have now seen the cited evidence and witnessed one of these so-called DV victims in action. These clearly contradict those myths.
Domestic Violence is real, but is not a gender issue. DV needs to be addressed in a gender neutral manner. Only then can real remedies to DV be implemented. Until this happens women's cries of abuse will continue to be nothing more than the sound of a car alarm going off; something we endure, without concern, while waiting for it to shut up.
Footnotes
1 - Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Homicide trends in the
United States [online]. [cited 2006 Aug 28]. Available from URL:
www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/intimates.htm.
2 - Daniel Whitaker, PH. D. Journal of Public Health May 2007
3 - Angela Gover, University of Florida criminologist. Study of 2,500 students between August and December of 2005 found that 58% of stalkers were female.
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Make a suggestion for me to write about.
Parents who would like to achieve the best outcome for their children in a contested child custody case should visit my website and contact my scheduler to make an appointment to meet with me. Attorneys may request a free consultation to learn how I can maximize their advocacy for their clients.
Connect with me for the latest Indiana child custody related policy considerations, findings, court rulings and discussions.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Why your children need education instead of training
One thing that has been on the agenda in all political circles for quite sometime is “education”. This has been increasingly so since the passage of Public Law 107-110 known as the No Child Left Behind Act. Lawmakers throughout Indiana and the nation are dumping more money into so-called education. However, I don't believe that money is being spent solely on education. Today I am going to discuss the differences between “education” and “training” and why you should object to your tax dollars being spent to train your children in place of educating.
There are times when training is essential. I will use potty-training as an example. You could broaden your child's mind with knowledge of plumbing, bacteria, etiquette and how to operate a toilet. That may not achieve the desired result and, instead, it may be better to train your child to use the toilet properly through instruction and discipline.
When I was in school I observed as I grew older that school became not so much education as it did training. The opportunity to explore and challenge while looking for answers was gradually replaced with specific instruction and dire consequences for failure to comply. As I currently observe the public school system I see less opportunity for education and teaching now limited almost purely to training for the purpose of passing a federally mandated statistical measuring tool to satisfy an agenda developed by super-corporations.
The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that to “educate” is to generally develop the intellectual and moral powers in a person. To rear a child so as to develop the habits, manners, intellectual and physical aptitudes. However, “training” is to guide or control the mental or moral development of a child. To discipline or condition to perform or make proficient in certain skills. In their simplest forms educating is to develop the person through knowledge while training is to control the person and constrain thought to mastering a skill.
Sidney Jourard in his book Disclosing Man to Himself had this to say about education and training: “True education, as opposed to training (which is essential), is by definition subversive. Education liberates individuality; it frees and strengthens autonomy. Training constricts: it reduces variance; it diminishes freedom and lessens autonomy.”
Unfortunately, much of what is called education is only a sterile exercise of the disembodied mind. Often it does not touch the emotions or influence action. Coleridge said, "make any truth too definite and you make it too small." That is what training does. It makes truth definite. It says "do this, not that." This is quite noticeable in math teaching where students are told this is what is on the test and here is how to do it. Gone is the time when students are given a real life situation and taught how to approach solving it. Now they are trained to find the answer.
We all know that there are multiple routes to getting to the answer of a mathematics problem. Education strengthens this concept while training restricts us to one acceptable method. Students sense in an inarticulate way that there is more to it than these rules. As a result, trainee resistance hardens. Jourard tells us that “people are always looking for an absolute rule that will relieve them of the responsibility of evaluating each situation on its own unique merits, and then risking an action.” Thus people want to be told how to do something but are resistant to being told the process to do it when they perceive that there may be another way more natural to themselves.
What I see happening in the institutionalized education system is that there is a loss of focus on the transfer of learning. That is, is what is being learned and tested for being applied to produce positive results in real life scenarios. Almost like left brain-right brain concepts, it is possible for a person to get 100 percent on a test and be a total failure in actual practice.1
The principles of educating and training are related, but ultimately, their aims are different. The aim of education is broader than training. Education prepares students to be analytical thinkers and problem solvers by developing the faculties of reasoning along with the associated skills, disciplines and knowledge to accomplish that. Education should develop students’ understanding, abilities to synthesize information, and work skills within and beyond the workplace. Therefore, it often includes what might be considered generic or general topics without a specific, immediate application. Training, however, simply focuses on performing a task and mastering an immediate task such as taking a test.
Students are now leaving our high schools, colleges or trade schools as nothing more than automatons designed to fulfill a corporate need. The imaginations that once envisioned the creation of technology are being replaced by minds that focus only on using the technology to perform a task. Following the NCLBA the focus of “educators” has transferred from producing awe inspiring minds that reach for new ways to tackle the world to simply molding a brain to memorize and regurgitate facts and processes to satisfy the next artificial measure of learning.
I cannot and will not lay fault entirely upon the educational system. That system is producing what those who pay require it to do. It is the super-corporations that fund the campaigns of the legislators and the lobbyist for them who speak to the legislators that develop the rules for “educators”. In the end it is still up to parents, fathers in particular, to ensure that their children are educated. Education is a whole life concept that cannot be entirely learned in an institutional setting.
The Indiana Supreme Court as recently as 2007 had reaffirmed that it is the duty of a father to “educate” his children.2 That to develop the child as a whole is a fathers' responsibility. If you want for your children to receive an education, to be able to think for themselves, to be problem solvers, to be explorers and to allow their minds to reach their fullest potential then demand education for them. Demand it from those who purportedly provide it with your tax dollars and also from yourselves. If you want them to operate a machine while strictly following directions then allow them to continue to be trained.
Footnotes
1-Peter J. Fabri, MD, PhD, FACS, Associate Dean, Graduate Medical Education, University of South Florida College of Medicine
2-Lambert v. Lambert, 861 N.E.2d 1176, 1177 (Ind. 2007) citing Haase v. Roehrscheid, 6 Ind. 66, 68 (1854) (“[i]t is the duty of a father to support and educate his minor children”). Emphasis added.
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Make a suggestion for me to write about.
Parents who would like to achieve the best outcome for their children in a contested child custody case should visit my website and contact my scheduler to make an appointment to meet with me. Attorneys may request a free consultation to learn how I can maximize their advocacy for their clients.
Connect with me for the latest Indiana child custody related policy considerations, findings, court rulings and discussions.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Failure to Appear
When representing yourself in a court proceeding it is still a good idea, more accurately a great idea, to have counsel or, at a minimum, someone to watch over and assist you. I bring this to your attention today because I have a client who failed to appear for a hearing yesterday. According to my client he was to appear in court today at “I think 9:00”.
The hearing was set upon the Petition for Contempt filed by his former wife alleging he failed to pay child support. I was coaching him on what to expect the procedures to be, how to maintain his composure and what type of evidence he can use in his defense.
Last night as I was preparing some written information for him to take to court I needed to access the Petition for Contempt to see if jail time had been requested, which, if so, would have invoked additional rights. In the group of documents he sent to me as one PDF file I found the order to appear. He was to appear yesterday, not today as he had told me no less than six times.
There are specifically two reasons to ensure that you appear for hearings, especially contempt. The first is that due process requires that you have an opportunity to be heard. The time you are ordered to appear is that opportunity. If you don't avail yourself of that opportunity then you will find it to be extremely difficult to get an adverse decision set aside. Essentially the case will be heard without you and decided without your input.
The second is that you also risk a “body attachment” or “writ of attachment” being issued against you. In criminal cases a failure to appear [FTA] will always result in the issuance of a body attachment or, more likely, a bench warrant. In civil cases there are limited situations in which a body attachment will be issued. Don't use an FTA as the opportunity to find out if one will be issued.
A body attachment is similar to an arrest warrant except that a writ of attachment can only be served while court is in session and does not authorize law enforcement to enter upon a premises to perfect the attachment. Body attachments are governed by IC 34-47-4 et seq.
IC 34-47-4-2
Writ of attachment of the body of the person
Sec. 2. (a) For the purpose of procuring personal jurisdiction over a person who has allegedly violated a court order or who is otherwise in contempt of court, the court may issue a writ of attachment of the body of the person.
(b) A writ of attachment issued under subsection (a) shall:
(1) be directed to a sheriff or assisting sheriff; and
(2) fix an amount of:
(A) bail, if the order that the person has allegedly violated does not concern a child support obligation; or
(B) escrow, if the order that the person has allegedly violated concerns a child support obligation.
Interestingly my client reported to me this morning that a writ of attachment had not been issued against him. This may be explained a Marion County [Indianapolis] policy that was put in place in January 2009. That is when Marion County suspended the issuance of bench warrants for FTA's in child support cases. Marion County Court Administrator Glenn Lawrence said the warrants were suspended to allow no-shows the chance to explain why. He also said the county recently settled a case in which a defendant was denied due process.
"They might put them in jail and not bring them immediately before the court," Lawrence said. "So we felt it best to go ahead and do a blanket expungement [sic] of those outstanding - whatever they were - bench warrants." Now, the courts can only order what's called a "body attachment". "It's not really an arrest. It's a notice to bring them before the court," Lawrence said. But for now, failure to appear doesn't mean going to jail.
The Marion County Prosecutor's Office handles 72,000 open child support payment cases in any given month.
Whenever I receive a notice from a court about a court date I go straight to the computer and put that information into my calendar. Not everyone can manage to do this though and even those who manage to don't always check their calendar. Although I am in the business of doing this I don't provide this information in hopes that you will hire me to be your personal assistant and caretaker while your case progresses.
Find a responsible person who can assist you in keeping your court dates. This will serve to at least keep decisions from being made without your input. If you are not proficient at representing yourself in court then get counsel. You can still save significant amounts of money and do a good job at presenting your case if you are properly coached. This is what I am in the business of doing and would much rather do than keep your calendar for you.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Senator Evan Bayh and Responsible Fatherhood
Senator Evan Bayh spent all last Friday at the White House with President Obama to draw attention to the importance of responsible fatherhood. He was the only member of the Senate invited to the home of the President for a series of special events focused on the vital role that engaged fathers play in molding their children into responsible, caring adults.
The Responsible Fatherhood Act, introduced by Bayh and cosponsored by then-Senator Barack Obama in the last Congress, is an extension of Bayh's work to reduce fatherlessness as Governor of Indiana. Bayh reintroduced the bill last week for Father's Day. Also to commemorate Father's Day, Senator Bayh wrote an op-ed piece, titled My Father's Day Wish, in the Richmond Palladium-Item. Please read that before continuing.
There Bayh noted that “There is an irrefutable body of evidence demonstrating that father absence is a major contributor to such troubling societal trends as increased teen pregnancy, teen violence, educational under-performance, and drug and alcohol abuse. Children who grow up without a dad are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime. They are more likely to drop out of school, more likely to commit suicide and more likely to become teenage parents.”
One provisions of this bill is to "Fund financial literacy programs and budgeting education, employment services, and mediation and conflict resolution for low-income parents." This is really gender neutral but if it is implemented appropriately it could help fathers gain more involvement with their children. The rest of the bill does contain some help for fathers although not in the way most would like: to be able to spend more time and provide more care to their children.
Many of the provisions of this bill focus on child support payments. I am a strong advocate of parental responsibility which, in some situations, may require a parent to accept the role of financial provider. However, a system that only creates sugar-daddies for single moms is doing nothing to ensure that children receive the support they are entitled to.
Although the child support payment scheme establishes support payments that far exceed actual cost [mine were set at 70% of what we spent as a family of three on everything, not just “support”] I am most disturbed by the way in which the State mandates support be provided. The State wants support provided only as money. Clearly the State must be a motivated by something other than the best interest of the children.
There should be provisions to encourage parents to provide support. A father who buys food and diapers and takes them to the mother provides support directly to the child and demonstrates the role of a father. A father can take the child to the doctor and make the payment. A father can take his child to sign-up for soccer and pay the registration fee.
These acts not only get fathers more involved with raising their children but also relieve the mother of having to run all those errands. Receipts could be acquired and sent to the Child Support Bureau along with any cash balance due. Some argue that this would create an unsurmountable logistic burden upon the State. However, personal involvement has been shown to greatly increase child support payment compliance. Actually seeing the payments being used to support the child would further increase compliance. This would relieve much of the support enforcement staff [lawyers] who could be replaced by payment processors [clerks] at a substantial cost savings to taxpayers.
More should be done to ensure that children receive this support and that fathers have the opportunity and responsibility to provide that. The Responsible Fatherhood bill appears to provide some of that. Still, this bill will help bureaucrats and others far more than it helps dads, and in some ways it will hurt fathers.
Currently I am working on legislation with a handful of Indiana legislators, both Republican and Democrat, that will ensure that parents are responsible to their children while at the same time giving them more opportunities to be parents. I have also requested a meeting with Senator Evan Bayh.
Unfortunately, most of the purported pro-father legislation that we see is not child-friendly by expanding the government role in children's lives when the primary focus should be on expanding parental roles, especially father's, in their children's lives.
As Governor, Bayh's administration held one of the first national conferences on responsible fatherhood, removed marriage penalties in government programming and used media and grants to promote responsible fatherhood. While governor, Senator Bayh also more than doubled the amount of money collected for child support payments.
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