The U.S. Supreme Court recently considered the issue of whether indigent parents facing incarceration for failure to pay child support have the right to an attorney.

While the majority of states already do provide attorneys for "deadbeat parents," the case under consideration has the potential to change the way child support delinquency is dealt with. The decision could also potentially impact other areas of law family law.

The case giving rise to the question under consideration comes out of South Carolina. According to sources, a man from that state had fallen behind on child support payments and was placed in civil contempt of court and put in jail for up to a year at a time. The man claimed that because he was too poor to pay what he owed, his incarceration was punishment rather than coercion, which is the intended rationale behind civil contempt.

The man claimed that, if he had an attorney to represent him, he would not have been able to convince the judge not to throw him in jail, given his circumstances.

While it is well established under the Sixth Amendment that indigent criminal defendants have the right to an attorney, that rule does not apply to civil defendants. The man's attorney argued, though, that anyone facing loss of liberty through incarceration is entitled to a lawyer. When asked whether that rule would be applied to spousal support cases as well, the man's attorney affirmed.

Counsel for the woman seeking child support payments, however, said that the rule was so broad that it would also apply to "tens of thousands" of immigration and extradition cases, that it would require reworking the rules in a large number of states, and could potentially affect thousands of cases, and that such a rule could cause states to cease pursuing deadbeat parents because of the costs involved.

The federal government, who also was represented in the oral argument, said that a middle ground should be taken, and that "a meaningful opportunity to establish present inability to pay" is sufficient protection in child support cases.

The high court has not yet issued a ruling in the case. When it does, it could have a significant effect on the way child support is handled with indigent defendants.

Source: New York Times, "Justices Grapple With Issue of Right to Lawyers in Child Support Cases," Adam Liptak, 23 Mar 2011.