I agree that the justice system has been failing this man. I'm glad someone is volunteering to help.

http://www.wxyz.com/news/update-legal-help-for-detroit-man-who-was-forced-to-pay-30k-for-child-who-isnt-his

Since our story aired, an attorney has stepped forward to help Alexander fix his legal mess. It is something he couldn’t afford before.

“I feel like I have a duty to right this wrong. This is an injustice that needs to be addressed, so he can move on with his life,” said Attorney Cherika Harris.

Harris is now working on motions she hopes will fix the many things that went wrong in this case. She says she is committed to seeing this case through. She says the message people need to take home is if you are fighting a child support case you need a good attorney.

SNIP

interesting perspective

I saw past stories not surprisingly since it's gotten some national attention

Basically, this judge appears to think it's his owned damned fault for not taking it seriously enough if I'm reading it correctly.

And any decent person knows it. There is such thing as prosecutorial discretion. It was a big thing a few months back.

No, they are doubling down on this poor guy, who is obviously not smart, to make an example of him.

This guy will spend the rest of his life in and out of jail because of this. Great victory you got there.

in withdrawing the arrest warrant.

And you know that. He is unemployable. And some day this case will come up on a progress call, he won't be there, and a warrant will issue, he will get picked up and spend a lot of time in jail.

And you know that.

And you think this stupid guy has it coming.

As if a guy with a 80 iq can navigate a court system.


But jobsworths like you want to nail the ignorent yet innocent to the tree of woe.

You are broken. And nobody can fix you, I think.

I don't think this guy "had it coming," but I think he's responsible for his own choices.

I think he has shit representation, however. I'd be suing the mother.

You know why he had terrible counsel? Bevause he had to represent himself.
An unemployable ex con with no money can't exactly hire a lawyer.

Yet the state will represent this woman who lied about him being a father for free. And they have guns.

Just stop.

attorney...I'm saying that it is the pro bono attorney who is doing a crap job.

Mr. Alexander first became aware of the issue in 1991, he claims. I don't believe him. I think he was aware before that, in the late 80s, and I think that at the time, he probably thought it was no big deal, as welfare was generally not inclined to go after fathers for state given child support. That changed in the 90s.

Now...you'll note that without a lawyer, Mr. Alexander managed to find his ex, get a DNA test, and furnish it to the court when this matter became pressing to him. That undercuts the idea that this guy is helpless. Had he thought the matter pressing in 1991....he might have saved himself a great deal of trouble.

edit: n/m, paternal testing has been accurate since the 80s. My bad, I thought it wasn't until the late 2000s that it became possible.

I completely agree with you.

[div class="excerpt"; background-color:#CCCCCC;"]
But how did Alexander get entangled in a paternity case?

Alexander's ex had a baby and didn't know who was the child's father. She reportedly needed state assistance, so the case worker demanded that she name a father for the child.

Alexander, who only went up to the eighth grade education-wise, decided to help his ex so that she could receive state assistance.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/notthefather.asp

Snopes is basing that info on a newsone.com article written by Ruth Manuel-Logan. She offers nothing as a source for this claim: Alexander, who only went up to the eighth grade education-wise, decided to help his ex so that she could receive state assistance.

http://newsone.com/3086167/carnell-alexander-detroit/


Irresponsible reporting at best.

They aren't trying to hide the fact that it is only reported from one source. They also state that they can't verify it because it is from a court proceedings that is not part of the public record. I don't think that is irresponsible reporting, I think it is thorough.

Ruth Manuel-Logan was irresponsible to make such a claim without citation. Did Carnell give her this information?

The way the article is written, it sounds like she talked to his ex (the child's mother) but it really wasn't clear to me where she got that info.

Financially.

The money's not denied to the kid if the father's a deadbeat. But the state comes after the father to man up and to pay for what he started if he has anything like the ability to do so. That bar's set relatively low, because if the guy stuck around to help raise the kid and made minimum wage he'd still be contributing something for 18 years, even if the kid and his mother did get a lot of government assistance.

The alternative is to just say that somebody has a right to procreate but no responsibility for the kid. All rights and no responsibilities is precisely the "tragedy of the commons" setup, and usually leads to a lot of abuse and irresponsibility. Like it or not.

Which is where, if I recall correctly, I started following the conversation back in the early-mid '70s, shortly before it was decided that the guy couldn't live with a woman and kid who were being largely supported by the state because then the state would be supporting the entire family.

fact bullshit. And I can also tell you that it was his responsibility to change his legal address.....that was a good serve.

He didn't have the resources to fight shat was bullshit to begin with.

the nature and complexity of their lives and sexual arrangements.

Second--it doesn't take much money...or much smarts, to answer a summons, even from jail.

When you get a parking ticket, you notice how there's a box to check and a means for dispute? Yep.

from your last known address either by filing out the forms and sending them in, or having a family member do it, or asking at the prison library, prison services, or one of the clergy staff.

inmate change of address.....

http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/28/540.25

It just seems that there are going to be some cases where the father is not known. I don't like the idea of deadbeats procreating at the expense of the taxpayer but I like even less the idea that there are kids whose needs are not being met because the father's name is not on a piece of paper.

(Which is totally irrelevant to this case anyway because they apparently do know who the father is. Why she didn't put the actual name of the father down is not really explained from what I've read.)

Simple DNA test ought to be able to end the discussion.

Is our father, and he never supported us? Seems you don't need to be biologically related with this clown.

some of the money sent to Robertson, to get the system off his back

I have heard of other stories where men get stuck with child support payments on kids that are not theirs. It is unfair to force any man to pay for children he did not father. If he adopts them or chooses to do it, that is cool.
I also believe if a woman commits proven fraud in these paternity cases, she should be held criminally liable. But the mandated paternity tests would solve that problem.

to initiate a dispute.

Is it really upon the man to prove he is NOT the father or should it be on the woman and the state to prove that he is? Seems to be if you are going to presume he is until proven otherwise, there should be NO time limit on contesting. It is bullshit to be guilty until proven innocent, but even more to be restricted in the time frame you have to fight it.

support from the proper parties. So the state places that burden on putative fathers. As for contesting...there's a time limit because that's how the law works....your claims are not in perpetuity.

of being the father, then I am not the proper party. It may be the law, but I find the application fundamentally flawed.

biological parent, or the constructive parent. That's why it's important to answer your summons....if you are accused, fight it.

and the judge, prosecutor, etc. could have easily verified it. However, you are telling me that no one has any burden to prove that he WAS the father, not even something as simple as checking a jail record. Apparently our legal system is more interested in process than the truth. I am not sure I am okay with that.

Silliness and stupidness. This case is 25 years old. There is no child here to support any longer. This is bullshit. The judge should be ashamed.

and the time to dispute that passed two decades ago.

Neither the prosecution nor the judge have to anything but follow the law. And they did.

I am a scientist. I have dedicated my life to making decisions based upon truth and evidence. Apparently our court system makes their decisions based upon process and protocol even when the truth is readily available in their own record system. I get the feeling you think this is okay. Perhaps you are indoctrinated in the same system. This is not justice. This is not truth. Defending it because "it is how the law works" is no defense. It simply magnifies the fact that the system is broken.

You do not get default judgments against you if you answer a summons.

dad had it. Think he didn't know about it? I seriously doubt he didn't know of the summons. And if he knows....then he's served.

Rule 4 or whatever the rules are in their jurisdiction about service of process. You can tel which people think the legal system is sitting there waiting to serve them, as opposed to it having rules that apply to them too. What a clever argument as a means of ignoring being served! Just come up with something and it will work and if it does not, the system must be corrupt. Because it applied its rules to them too.

Outstanding warrants for one. Not actually receiving the summons for another.

check out the court rules.

Outstanding warrants is not a legal defense to ignoring a summons.

Oh, gee, you don't want to be arrested for that for which there is a warrant out for you, so it's unfair to expect you to answer civil summons. Yeah right, that's the way it should be.

The process server lied to get paid.

court.

Here--it's pretty simple. You have "x" amount of time to present the truth in court.

Once you are out of "x" time, your options are more limited.

It's pretty simple.

The fact that the prosecutor's office could have saved the taxpayer's tens of thousands of dollars in both court costs and child support (to the real father) by conducting a simple 30 minute database search, but failed to do so is a real problem. Add to that the server who lied and stated the defendant would not sign, and we have all the signs of systemic corruption. Then you get to add to it the fact that this idiot judge continues to cost the taxpayer's dollars 25 years later and file claims against a person who cannot and will not pay, even though everyone knows the man is innocent, costing more $$ in the process, the judgment just perpetuates the stupidity.

The Attorney General's Office should be notified for waste, fraud, and abuse.

Oh yeah. Justice Scalia:

toward individuals who find themselves in unjust legal situations as a consequence of not having access to the resources (experience, financial, freedom of movement) to do things "properly" in the first place:

That's just too damn bad that you're stuck paying $30,000 (or with your life) for something you didn't do because you didn't have the resources to make due process work for you. I'm really appalled that I am encountering this attitude on DU - a legal attitude I expect to find only in opinions or dissents by Scalia, Thomas, and Alito - or people who think they walk on water.

(Note: I can see acknowledging that the decision was consistent with the law. Unfortunately, that may well be where the law is. What really bothers me is the condescending and blaming attitude you are taking toward the man who did not have the resources to make the system work for him - and, implicitly, that it is an appropriate system.)

But if someone defaults, they get a judgment. Even then, there are means to undo the default if there was a mistake. This guy just wanted it to go away without his participation in the legal system.

Two and a half decades is long enough for him to have mad the motion even the judge told him to.

It was in their OWN database. As a taxpayer, we should all be outraged for several things

1) The real father is a deadbeat dad. The taxpayer picked up the tab for this child with no paternal contribution because our legal system cared so little to find the absolute truth, they hid behind obscure laws that have not kept up with science.

2) We paid for the arrest, trail, and judgment against an innocent man. When you add up everyone's time, labor, and billable hours, the taxpayer just paid tens of thousands of dollars for this nonsense. A simple records search would have taken 30 minutes and it could have been determined that the listed father could not possibly be the father.

The state attorney's general office should be called in for waste, fraud, and abuse against the judge, the prosecutor, and the server. What a waste of time and money, and 25 years later, they are still pursuing it.

The law is an ass.

You expect the judge to do a party's work for them? Which party's work should they do, so as to seem neutral and all?

The judge deals with what it before them. They are not omnipotent or required to research a party's facts. How do they know who is in jail? Do you think states don't have separate branches of government too?

Someone did some research, just not very well. An when you are fucking with people's lives, you damned well better MAKE TIME to get the facts right. We are not talking about screwing up a haircut here.

Now that it can be done by DNA test, it's not that hard to prove/disprove.

The child apparently has a right to support from someone, individually, and it apparently doesn't matter who so long as it's a guy.

contest. But the nature of the law is that one does not leave matters open in perpetuity.

Sorry, "two years is plenty of time" is ridiculous. If the guy isn't the father, he isn't the father.

If a bill collector showed up at our door and said that because someone falsified a legal document 20 years ago, making you responsible for $30,000 in debt, you would cheerfully just write a check, because you know deep down, you should have challenged it 18 years ago?

on the misery of these men.

How would you set up a system to compel men to take these mandated tests?

and the men must go get tested?

man raises a child he believes to be his own. loves the child. then paternity test shows him to NOT be the father.
does he have any right to this child? visitation, etc?
different men would react differently, and many would take a walk. but a decent would fight for their right to father that child.

People who think it will go away if they ignore it are being stupid.

People in prison get moved to court for hearings all the time.

And he could have moved to set aside the judgment. The judge even told him too.

He could have moved to set aside the judgment?
How was he supposed to know that?
He doesn't have legal education.

Which he must have done or this wouldn't be in the news.

Not having legal education is not an excuse. Anyone could say that. "I didn't know I was liable for child support" for example is not a defense.

That paperwork followed Alexander for two decades, racking up more than $69,000 in child support debt. He didn't learn of the child until 1991, when a police officer called him a “deadbeat dad” during a traffic stop.

“I knew I didn’t have a child, so I was blown back,” Alexander told the TV station. “I feel like I’m standing in front of a brick wall with nowhere to go.”

He could have learned of the child sooner, but a summons failed to reach Alexander. He was in jail for an unrelated charge when a process server stopped by his home with a summons. But the process server reported back that Alexander refused to sign it, according to WXYZ-TV.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/detroit-man-owes-30-000-child-support-debt-child-not-father-article-1.1991456


How can he refuse to be served if he's in jail? If that's the server's story, he's a liar.

is a pretty good excuse. All legal niceties and back-bending attempts to defend this judge's decision aside, we all know this ruling is ridiculous.

to pay child support.

Or do you mean a situation (like this one in the OP) where he is just an ex-boyfriend?

Where do you draw the line when it comes to calling something a "committed relationship" as it pertains to child support?

If DNA proves that a man is the father of a child born to a woman he had a one-nighter with, are you suggesting that he shouldn't have to pay child support?

In situations where there was a real relationship like boyfriend/girlfriend, yes, there should be child support. If it's a casual relationship or a hook-up, then, no, you should not be forced into paying child support because there was no relationship intent.

even if DNA proves that the male part of a hook-up is the father?

To that, I'd have to say I disagree, but thanks for the honest answer.

and there was no confirmed relationship with the man, then, no, the man should not be compelled by law to pay child support. Casual sexual encounters are a social norm. The people who engage in it, male and female, are not doing so in order to have a child.

and the man does not want to support the child, then, yes, she will incur the cost of raising the child on her own. This is a casual sexual encounter. The sex was for their mutual pleasure, not pro-creation.

consequences exclusively

It was neither's intent to create a life. If the woman wants to continue the pregnancy, she is making that decision on her own. Thus, she should shoulder the responsibility of the pregnancy.

well, hell. you are fucked. keep a damn aspirin between your knees.

this would be the repug mentality of today, of Neanderthal of the past. except i give neanderthals more credit.

you take away choice. and you seem to be obtuse to that fact. maybe even a little vindictiveness toward a woman having casual sex.

I'm not advocating that people should not engage in it. What I am saying is that if a woman wants to continue her pregnancy and raise the child from a casual sexual encounter, then the man should not be responsible for child support.

Once an unwanted pregnancy occurs, neither 'casual' sexual partner is off the hook.

If she chooses an abortion, he needs to pay at least half the cost. And that would be getting off easy, since she'd be paying not only the other monetary half, but also enduring the physical pain of the procedure.

If she chooses to have the child, he needs to pay whatever amount of CS is deemed appropriate based on his income (and whatever other factors they use to determine such things).

She again is stuck with substantially more onerous realities, but that is just biology, and both parties involved took the risk, so...

There are multiple forms of birth control and most combinations of them are indeed highly effective.

in the form of extremes.

your position is extreme and ridiculous. Just like those of misanthrope (who really lives up to the meaning of that word).

You put your penis in someone's vagina, and that someone decides to have the child that was produced from said insertion, then BOTH of you are equally on the hook for the cost of raising that child. End of story.

Don't put it in, wrap it up, what have you if you don't want that burden.

Having said that, when you are actually not the father AND the father is now KNOWN, I fail to see how any person with a remotely functioning logic circuit doesn't turn to that person and say, ok, you owe the child support now.

The whole, you had two years you should have figured it out, even from jail, is the kind of baloney you usually see in right-wing thought.
But it's even worse when we have the actual father and know who he is. It's one thing to argue from a kids-come-first perspective that even if he's not the father he still pays.

I don't agree with that but at least it has some basis in logic...but this kid's actual father is known.

.... of what you REALLY want to avoid in this country. And that is getting caught up in the legal system in any way. No matter how trivial your offense, you are seriously at risk if you do.

Heartless, soulless scum that make bad cops look like saints.

continues to grow with court decisions like these.

Since it doesn't matter if the guy really is or isn't.

Like the Koch brothers.

that Brad Pitt fathered their love child and file a court proceeding, Mr.Pitt should have to fight each allegation. Even if he was out of country filming a movie for the past 12 months and could not possible be the father unless he impregnated an elephant with a two year gestation period.

This is a good law and Mr. Pitt should just plan on spending every Tuesday and Thursday at the court house. Failure to do so on his part shows laziness on his part and could result in summary judgments.

For lawyers so no wonder they like it.

I would leave the state and say screw it just on principle.

What's next - pick out a guy on the street and order him to pay child support for some random kid that he's never even heard of?

The government wants their money. They have guns. He is just a black man who gets scolded by a white judge for failure to respect her authority.

right on the courthouse steps.

The law is being blindly applied with no regard to the facts whatsoever. This would be semi-understandable if the father was not known but he is unequivocally NOT the father, could not have had a relationship to that child on account of his jail time, AND the father is known. If the process server lied to make the paperwork look legit at the time, then ethically if not legally the two-year statute of limitations for contesting fatherhood should start when the man found out about it, not from the time of the alleged "service." From reading the article in full it seems the man DID contact the court and received bad information about what to do about the summons.

If the man found out in 1991 and only now appeared in court for the first time, again I could understand this ruling. But instead we have: man finds out about backdated court summons in 1991, contacts court in 1991, gets information from the court, pursues such information to find it a dead end, goes back to court, court refuses to do a basic records search, man tries and fails to find an attorney...the man is hardly the only questionable actor here. Now the man is being pursued for child support that not only isn't his, but also for a child that has aged out of requiring support. I believe most reasonable people would conclude that the taxpayer's interest in getting that support reimbursed from this man is equitably forfeited by the taxpayer's demonstrated disinterest (demonstrated through the court system's disinterest) in assisting him with this matter once he got out of prison and tried to act upon it. If the state must be reimbursed that badly, it can go after either the actual, biological father (who is now known), the mother who falsified the welfare paperwork for fraud, or both.

Moreover, I believe the man's mistakes in initially navigating the just-us system are reasonable, given his education, the assistance (or more accurately, lack thereof) from the court, and his attempt to find a lawyer. Honestly this kind of crap is why pro bono requirements for lawyers to maintain their law license need to be increased substantially (in exchange I'd be cool with forgiving their student loans).

Were I in his situation and unable to appeal due to lack of resources, or if I lost that appeal, I would take that $30K court order in one hand, along with a post-it note politely explaining where the judge could take that order and blow my head (important: ONLY my head) off in front of the courthouse steps with the other hand. This is exactly the kind of crap (as said by someone else above) that gives mens' rights advocates ammunition to fuck with a whole lot more kids' lives than just one individual case. It's also the kind of crap that erodes the legitimacy of the just-us system in the eyes of John Q. Public...and gives the pukes more talking points in the process.

This is madness, the system is a joke and the lawyer here defending this is part of the problem. I understand that the taxes payer’s are tired of paying taxes for people that are not working, and I also agreed that some people on state assistance take advantage of the system; however making someone pay for another person’s action is wrong period. IMO this is a classic case of if it didn’t happen to me then I could care less, blaming this man because he didn’t answer a court summons? There has been no mention of prosecuting the Mother?

Everyone can see that this man has been unfairly screwed by a justice system that failed to do its job and is now victimising him. This is the point at which the governor, if it is only a state matter, or the president, should be stepping in and saying "we have a chance to stop idiotic court proceedings right now that would be unfair and costly. This man does not owe anything, he's done nothing wrong, anyone trying to persecute him should look at their conscience, and their bosses should decide if they deserve to keep their jobs. He is a free man with no debt in this matter, and no stain on his character". And that would be a popular move.