From The Wall Street Journal Market Watch: "Suggested retail price for an Identigene DNA Paternity Test Collection Kit is $29.99. The Walgreens.com price is the same, plus shipping. The laboratory and processing fee for the personal test is $119. The laboratory and processing fee for test results for legal proceedings is $319."
The story is online here. Some quotes: Last week, in a decision that underscores the tense relationship between science and law, a divided Kentucky Supreme Court told Rhoades that he could not press his paternity claim, no matter what evidence of fatherhood he might have, because J.N.R. was, and remains, a married woman. When it comes to defining fatherhood in the Bluegrass State, where Ricketts and her husband now live, the marital "I do" mean a lot more than DNA.
The report continues, But unlike the past, such allegations these days are often backed by science, introducing certainty where none before existed. As of a result, the prohibition on third-party challenges to paternity has begun to weaken. By 2000, at least 33 states had adopted rules that allowed challenges by fathers with genetic proof of their paternity, usually restricting such efforts to the first two years of a child's life. The advent of DNA testing has tread a similarly disruptive course in other areas of law, including criminal cases where exonerations once thought impossible are becoming routine. A few states have even begun allowing ex-husbands to present DNA evidence that they were duped by cheating spouses to avoid child support obligations.
What's next? Rhoades said he plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on constitutional grounds. But he faces long odds there, given that the high court has already ruled once, in 1989, on the same issue, upholding California's explicit bar against paternity challenges like his. That decision too was divided and contentious. The biological father in that case did not get to see his daughter till she had turned 21. "Well, obviously I am not going to give up and say, 'Oh well I lost,'" Rhoades says. "I believe I have a fundamental right to be in my son's life." The trouble is: nature's law isn't the law of the land.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall as the Kentucky Supreme Court deliberated this four to three decision which we reported on yesterday here. I am unaware of another family court case creating such a split among the justices. The 47 pages reveal highly charged emotions. The Opinion of the Court by Justice Minton and joined by Justice Lambert appears to try to take the emotion out of the debate but splits hairs to reach the result. Justice Abramson’s dissent in which Justice Schroder joined is passionate and I think well reasoned. If a child carries the DNA of a man other than the husband, it is common sense that the child is not born of the marriage. The concurring Opinion by Justice Cunningham fumes about the morality of it all, interjects words like “interloper” (but declines to judge the wife’s infidelity), and I wonder how his opinion would have been written if the husband and wife were divorcing rather than reconciled. His regret over the abolition of the tort of alienation of affections leaving the “innocent victim of betrayal” without “recourse against the interloping adulterer” is telling. My first jury trial 25 years ago was an alienation of affections case and I can tell you Kentucky abolished that tort none too soon.
The legislature could deal with this result by adoption of the Uniform Parentage Act, bringing Kentucky into the mainstream of states across the country. This act has been endorsed by both the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and the American Bar Association.
In the absence of similar legislation I would not be surprised to see perfected constitutional arguments raised, perhaps yet in this case. The Kentucky Supreme Court expressly declined to rule on the due process and equal protection arguments because they were not procedurally addressed in the trial court. By the way the opinion of the court was written I wonder if Justice Minton might be a “swing vote” on this issue. Even had he not announced his resignation, unless his thinking changed, I would not have expected Chief Justice Lambert to join ranks with the dissenters because of his comment in another case that some things should just be kept secret. Maybe this case was the last straw?
Andrew Wolfson reports in today's Courier Journal Court Rejects Paternity Rights For Man In Affair, online here. I didn't see a peep about it in the Lexington Herald-Leader.
The bio-dad left the following comment yesterday, which I have edited slightly to remove certain allegations that I am unable to verify: As the REAL father, I'd like to say that today is a very sad day for everyone who believes truth and honesty hold value. It was through deception, a lengthy extra-marital affair, that my son was conceived and now Kentucky's highest court believes such deception should not end. I long ago accepted that having a 1 1/2 year affair with Julia Ricketts was wrong but this decision absconds her from any responsibility. I believe this ruling if not overturned will have a detrimental effect upon the rights of biological fathers in Kentucky. Essentially, my rights as a biological father have been terminated without a day in court. This puts absolute power in the hands of mothers.
Through her family law private practice and during her tenure as a Jefferson County Family Court judge, most Louisville family law attorneys knew and loved Judge Kathleen Voor Montano. Her death at age 46 is heartbreaking.
All Jefferson County Court dockets except the Family Court Emergency Docket are cancelled on Friday, April 25, 2008 so that the judges can attend Judge Montano's funeral at 11:00 a.m. The Emergency Docket for Family Court, all divisions, will be held in Family Court 8 at 1:00 p.m. A senior judge from out of county will be covering that docket.
Judicial funerals in this state are respectful pagentries honoring judicial service with all living past and present judges, in black robes, filing in together. Following Justice McAnulty's funeral just a few months ago, we are not ready for another, especially not for a youthful jurist with such promise.
Front page news in the Courier-Journal today, Atheist father sues to keep son out of St. Xavier High School. As Sandra Ragland represents mom, I'll stay mum on this blog.
Thanks to Indiana Law Blog for spotting and posting HUSBAND POSTS ABOUT PENDING DIVORCE IN BLOG, COURT ORDERS POSTING REMOVED. Check it out.
Last night the home of Tulsa attorney spouses Jim Lang and Sharon Corbitt caught fire. Jim is dead and Sharon is hospitalized in serious condition. As many of you may know, Sharon is a past chair of the ABA Family Law Section and an AAML Fellow.
UPDATE:
Associated Press - December 19, 2007 2:25 PM ET
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - The death toll from the ice storm is up to 28 with the death of a Tulsa attorney who was critically injured in a house fire that already killed her husband. Friends of Sharon Corbitt say Corbitt has died of injuries suffered in the fire.
Corbitt's husband and fellow Tulsa attorney Jim Lang also died in the fire.
What a huge, sad loss for the family law bar.
Andrew Wolfson's story, Man who was deceived about paternity retains custody online in today's Courier-Journal reports:
The Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled that people who deceive their spouses into thinking that a child is theirs cannot later contest their right to custody -- even if DNA tests show they are not the parent.
The court unanimously upheld a lower court ruling granting primary custody to Ren Ricky Hinshaw, whose wife led him to believe he was the father of their child until they divorced and she produced genetic testing showing the child wasn't his.
What caught my eye in the article was the statement, The Supreme Court said that if Hinshaw had known that he wasn't the father when the child was born, he could have tried to adopt him. Perhaps this footnote us some insight into where the court is heading as it considers the other husband/bio dad pending case argued the same day but not yet decided.DLJ reported on the Hinshaw decision and linked to the opinion here. A long list of posts concerning this case and the companion case in the Kentucky Supreme Court can be found be clicking on the "paternity" category on the left sidebar.
By all accounts, the program of Irv Maze, Jefferson County Attorney in threatening to publicize the names of child support obligors who are six months delinquent is very successful. A long list appeared in a supplement to today's Courier Journal. 20% of the deadbeats are women, so let's lay to rest the phrase "dead beat dads." The flyer impressively listed other consequences of nonpayment including suspension of driver, professional, sporting and concealed deadly weapon licenses, impounding tax refunds and passports and imposing liens on boats, cars and houses.
By coincidence, Mary T. Wagner, assistant district attorney in Sheboygan County, WI wrote in the WashingtonPost.com a couple of weeks ago:
My standard speech is always the same. I can't make a guy be a good father. I can't make him walk the floor with a sick child, drive to soccer games, run to Walgreen's at midnight to pick up a prescription, help with homework, go to a Boy Scout potluck dinner or even smile. What I can do is squeeze him hard enough that money comes out. Or ask a judge to send him to prison.
There's never time for oratorical polish. I'm usually giving this speech rapid-fire to a dazed and confused custodial parent about five minutes before I walk into another preliminary hearing in Wisconsin state court, where I work, where I'll hold a deadbeat dad's feet to the fire for failing to support his kids. I'm always reminded of the limits of what I can do as a state prosecutor targeting those who choose to float away and let somebody else pick up the tab. I'm also reminded that when a father skips out on his family, it has lifelong repercussions for a lot of lives.
Once I've opened a felony nonsupport case, it's just a matter of time before the guy somehow trips the radar somewhere -- a speeding ticket, a bar fight, a domestic disturbance -- and makes the return trip to Wisconsin on a prison bus. One got snared when, after 20 years of otherwise perfectly respectable and law-abiding life in another state, he walked into a police station to report a missing wallet. Oops.
Under Wisconsin's system, if you've gone four months in a row without sending home any child support, your options change from cooling your heels in the local jail on a civil commitment to prison, where you can't buy your way out by finally paying what you owe. That's where I come in, with a full arsenal of police powers, criminal charges, arrest warrants, extraditions and, ultimately, a compelling speech at the sentencing hearing.
The case is never about whether the deadbeat dad failed to make any payments for 120 consecutive days, earning himself up to a year and a half of "maximum confinement" in prison and two additional years of "extended supervision" reporting to a probation agent. It's about how the parent who stayed with the children had to work two jobs, never caught a break and sometimes had to take government assistance, and how the kids in the middle of it all felt abandoned -- how their world fell apart when Dad left.
Sometimes it's about a 10-year-old child coming to court with Mom, smiling but nervous with anticipation, wondering if the father who's been gone for years will recognize her in the gallery as he sits on a bench up front, wearing an orange jumpsuit and chains, waiting for our dance to begin. Those scenes never end well.
And the costs echo through the years. It's alarming, even spine-chilling, how often I can pick up the file in a nonsupport case that I've charged, walk over to the other side of the office, look up the last name and find the children snared in juvenile court.
Statistics on the Web site of the federal Administration for Children and Families show that the federal and state partnership governing child support enforcement carried a caseload of 15.9 million families in fiscal 2005. Those numbers reflect the mandatory inclusion of parents who have custody and receive some kind of government benefits, and other custodial parents who voluntarily seek state help in getting their child-support orders enforced.
During that fiscal year, more than 11 million of those cases were listed as having some kind of child support arrears due -- and only a little more than half of those were listed as having payments coming in toward the arrears in child support. That's a lot of money not sent or spent on shoes, school supplies, haircuts or summer camp.
I hope that all of you who think about skipping out on your child-support obligations, to cut your losses or simplify your lives, keep in mind that I, or someone else working in a generic government office, will eventually haul you back to face the music. But if you think at all about what really matters, that should be the least of your worries.
The more remedies, the better. And, remember, it isn't just dads who are not paying court ordered child support.
ABA Journal, Law News Now reports, Divorce Fair Offers Legal Services and More, linking to an online Bloomberg article today. Some quotes from Bloomberg:
At the two-day event in Vienna, fed-up spouses can contract private detectives to spy on philandering mates, hire real estate agents to find a new homes and book vacation packages designed for the newly separated. They can even hire a DNA sampling lab to see if it will really be necessary to pay child support.
``New Beginnings'' is the world's first divorce fair, according to Anton Barz, 37, a wedding organizer who came up with the idea after realizing that half of all unions were doomed.
``Austria's divorce statistics are shocking,'' Barz said in a café near Sigmund Freud's former home in the Austrian capital. ``People get a wedding certificate more easily than a driver's license and have no idea of the consequences when they crash.''
Around 500 people are expected to attend the fair at the Vienna Marriott Hotel, where 20 vendors -- including a local law firm hunting for new clients -- will ply them with advice about how to settle their partnership problems.
Thanks to Marci Oddi of Indiana Law Blog for her eagle eyes.
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