Family Law

Interesting Decision re. Federal Prosecution for Non-Payment of Child Support

By Alexander Rhoads

In an interesting (in a lawyerly kind of way) decision, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the federal conviction of a father who failed to pay child support.  The Court found that the federal statute in question, the "Child Support Recovery Act," 18
U.S.C. § 228(a)(1) (2000), requires that the "government must prove that the defendant knew his child resided in another state."  In this particulate case, it was alleged that the custodial parent moved the child from state to state and that the defendant/payor did not know where his child lived.  Although the government argued that the the statute's requirement that the child reside in a different state than the payor was merely jurisdictional, the Court found otherwise and held that knowledge of the out-of-state residency requirement was a substantive element of the statute required for conviction.

How the Court arrived at this conclusion is itself very interesting, particularly the concurring opinion's use of an exchange between two Senators discussing the legislative history of an unrelated statute.

Decision:  U.S. v. Fields.

Full post as published by Iowa Divorce and Family Law on September 22, 2007 (boomark / email).