Randy Miller is a veteran of the Iraq War. While he served overseas, he never forgot about his children at home and maintained an excellent record of paying child support for over a decade. But after returning to his small hometown in Georgia, he lost his job in July 2009 and struggled to find full-time work. Still, Randy managed to continue to support his children, making about $2,700 in payments using money from income tax refunds and odd jobs. By October 2010, however, Randy had lost his home to foreclosure and exhausted his savings; his bank account contained just 39 cents. Because he was no longer able to pay his child support, he was incarcerated from November 2010 to February 2011, after a judge held him in civil contempt of a court order to pay child support.
In Georgia, aggressive efforts to incarcerate parents who have not paid child support are often focused on the poorest of the poor, rather than on those parents of means who simply choose not to pay. Languishing in jail for weeks, months, and sometimes more than a year, parents like Randy go to jail without ever talking to an attorney. Although Georgia law prohibits the state from continuing to imprison a parent who has no ability to pay child support, incarcerated parents have no meaningful ability to demonstrate this to a court unless they have legal representation.
Georgia’s policy of denying legal counsel to indigent parents facing incarceration has resulted in cases of extraordinary injustice. For example, Frank Hatley was jailed for 19 months, without counsel, for his inability to pay child support arrears—notwithstanding conclusive DNA evidence proving that Hatley was not the father of the child in question.
This spring, the Southern Center for Human Rights, an Open Society Foundations grantee, filed Miller, et al. v. Deal, et al., a civil rights class action lawsuitthat seeks to secure lawyers for parents who have been jailed or are in danger of being jailed without counsel for being too poor to fulfill their child support obligations.
We are representing six parents who live in Georgia counties (including Cook, Emanuel, Floyd, and Walton) and who have tried to fulfill their child support obligations, but for reasons entirely out of their control, they cannot. For example, Lance Hendrix is a veteran who returned from military service to his economically depressed town and has been unable to find full-time work. Other parents, like Russell Davis, have disabilities that make it impossible for them to comply with their child support obligations, yet they have been sent to jail for falling behind in their payments. One young father, 20-year-old Joe Hunter, has been in the Walton County Jail since October 2010; months later he cannot afford to pay the $250 fee that would secure his release.
Listen to stories directly from those who've been affected in the short film above, made by the Southern Center for Human Rights.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The value of having a staff of contributing editors who really know their business was forcefully demonstrated on Oct. 2, when our office was reeling with the news that railroad stocks, which up to that point had been outperforming the market, seemed to be in free-fall. The short term looked awful in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange. At 12:30 p.m., Norfolk Southern shares were down 13.11%; CSX, down 10.01%; Kansas City Southern, down 15.23%; and Union Pacific, down 10.87%. We knew we needed to report on this immediately.
Senior Editorial Consultant Luther Miller (who has been a part of Railway Age since 1958) quickly found what he believed to be one source of the trouble: A report on the CNBC Fast Money website, attributed to an Oppenheimer market strategist, suggesting that patterns in a market-volatility chart indicated "transports are a sell. Although the Dow has come back to its highs and global markets have come back to their highs, the transports have not." He said he would "get out of the rails." It's been said that a good reporter is someone who may not know everything, but knows someone who does. So we called upon two of our contributors--Dahlman Rose & Co. analyst Jason Seidl, our man on Wall Street, and Frank Wilner, one of the railroad industry's best economists. Their eloquent commentary made sense of some very difficult concepts.
Jason Seidl saw three forces at work: "There is a general reluctance of investors to put money to work in this market. The railroads have started to break technical support levels, which have nothing to do with their fundamentals. Redemptions occurring at hedge funds that have been decimated in this market." OK, what's a "technical support level"? Wikipedia defines it as "a price level where the price tends to find support as it is going down. This means the price is more likely to 'bounce' off this level rather than break through it. However, once the price has passed this level, even by a small amount, it is likely to continue dropping until it finds another support level." But what does this number crunching really mean? Frank Wilner put it in perspective: "Chartists hold that the statistical relationship of sector stocks to the broad market and other sector stocks is relatively stable over time--much like the relationship of the planets to each other and the sun. When those relationships don't behave, chartists buy or sell to restore the so-called natural order. They ignore current events and other traditional drivers of the stock market. They are wedded solely to their own statistical tables." This is what we posted on our website, and published in our daily Rail Group News. It was picked up elsewhere.
The following day, as we went to press, the figures were these: The market was up 2.94%, and the railroads were once again outperforming it. KCS was up 8.87%; NS, 5.60%; CSX, 7.71%, UP, 3.27%; and BNSF, 4.22%.
Now, I'm not saying that our report had anything to do with the turnaround. The fundamental strength of our railroads did. What I am reminding you is that we constantly try to get the most out of our small staff by drawing upon the strengths of Raihvay Age's experienced contributors--editors like Jason Seidl, Frank Wilner, Tony Kruglinski, Roy Blanchard, Greg Gormick, Bill Middleton, Ron Lindsey, Larry Kaufman, and Alex Binkley.
I BEG YOUR PARDON!!!
We've had an unwritten rule around the Railway Age offices since long before I arrived in July 1992: Never use absolutes, because there's always someone who can prove you wrong, I thought for sure I was correct when I said, in the September issue (p, 14), "Other than two captive coal mine-to-power plant operations in the West that operate 1970s-vintage General Electric E60s, electrification hasn't been employed by a U.S. freight railroad since 1982, when Conrail dismantled what little remained of the catenary it had inherited from the Penn Central." Wrong! David K. Johnson, President of Iowa Traction Railroad, sent the above photo with this note: "I BEG YOUR PARDON!!! Iowa Traction Railroad has been hauling freight under 600 volt DC electric wire since 1897 here in Mason City, Iowa." The Iowa Traction traces its roots to the Mason City & Clear Lake Railway, which was founded in 1896, Passenger service began on July 4th, 1897, Freight has been its only revenue source since the charter for passenger service in Mason City expired in 1936. The railroad's name was changed to Iowa Terminal Railroad in 1961 under new ownership. David Johnson acquired the operation in 1987 and renamed it Iowa Traction. web site cnbc fast money
Today, Iowa Traction operates track between Emery and Mason City, where it interchanges with Union Pacific, Motive power consists of four electric "steeplecab" locomotives built between 1917 and 1923 by Baldwin-Westinghouse and acquired secondhand between 1948 and 1968 from other interurban railroads. They're believed to be the only locomotives of their type in regular revenue freight service, not for a museum or tourist operation.
It costs more to incarcerate and prosecute - with such diminishing returns on tax supported courts-
Who can support the raising of tax? Choke the tax - choke the beast.
Creditor taxpayers are receiving poor value in their returns.
At some point the bank of the public must stop loaning money to those that are too heavily indebted to neither pay or offer any value on their investment.(government)
Every nation is defaulting continually, it's just a matter of which creditor is defaulted on, sadly it is the tax creditor that is continuasly defaulted on.
It's all a matter of perspective and perspective can change on a dime.
what? talk plain english plz. so, youre saying we sdnt pay taxes cuz the gov doesnt do much and is broke? maybe we sd put the gov in debtors prison like randy miller, but i dont see where that gets us. or maybe we sd tax the big corporations or the ppl who make over 5 mil a bit more. maybe we sdnt let them hide all their profits in tax loop holes and the cayman islands. but congress wont like that. they are all invested in those corporations.
Thank you for this report. I hope these families get the support they need and the hope and happiness they deserve. I hope the State of Georgia pays for these injustices and for their actions that ultimately are not about the children, but about their tax coffers.
The irony is that if these fathers' children receive or ever received welfare, they'll never see any child support the father pays, since most of the child support collected - including any arrearages owed - will go to reimburse the state for the welfare that the chlidren received, while forcing the mother to perform unpaid "workfare" for those benefits; in essence, forcing mothers to do workfare in exchange for their child support. Under welfare reform as low-income families know it, the economic colonization of poor families is complete.
And FYI, in my home state of South Carolina, the second most frequent reason that black men are imprisoned is nonpayment of child support. The first reason is drug-related offenses.
One more thought - the state of Georgia now spends 60% of its TANF/welfare block grant on adoption services and foster care. When mothers apply for welfare, it is common practice in the Georgia welfare system to offer to take their children and put them up for adoption, in lieu of giving the family a helping hand.
That is clear discrimination! Include Missouri on the list of states that allow due process of law violations. The Department of Social Services shirks their responsibility to seek the truth and act on it to the benefit of all. The class action suit in Georgia supports the need for similar action in Missouri. The majority of attorneys in Missouri will not touch facts that include DNA paternity confirmation requests; as if they fear the truth! As you know, being incarcerated for back child support without satifying reasonable doubt is a clear U.S. constitutional violation. CIVIL CASES DO NOT CARRY JAIL TIME! CRIMINAL CASES CARRY JAIL TIME AND THE STIPULATION OF INNOCENCE UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT; hence DNA paternity confirmation is required in order to achieve jurisprudent satisfaction!
Click the link below or copy and paste it into your browser then sign the petition that will be sent to the United States Congress and the President of the United States by August 31, 2011.
Here's what I don't get. Our deadbeat president Obama talking about how important it is to be a father and a parent to your kids then sticking his head in the sand while injustices like this take place in every state of this country.
The real deadbeats in this country are the president and other politicians that are supposed to stand up for the rights of the poor and the needy and not use them to bump up state revenues.
The Open Society Foundations work to improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable people and to promote human rights, justice, and accountability. This blog aims to bring that work a little closer by giving our experts and grantees a platform to reflect on their issues, sharpen their thinking, and engage in a conversation on how to advance open society values around the globe.
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It costs more to incarcerate and prosecute - with such diminishing returns on tax supported courts-
Who can support the raising of tax? Choke the tax - choke the beast.
Creditor taxpayers are receiving poor value in their returns.
At some point the bank of the public must stop loaning money to those that are too heavily indebted to neither pay or offer any value on their investment.(government)
Every nation is defaulting continually, it's just a matter of which creditor is defaulted on, sadly it is the tax creditor that is continuasly defaulted on.
It's all a matter of perspective and perspective can change on a dime.
what? talk plain english plz. so, youre saying we sdnt pay taxes cuz the gov doesnt do much and is broke? maybe we sd put the gov in debtors prison like randy miller, but i dont see where that gets us. or maybe we sd tax the big corporations or the ppl who make over 5 mil a bit more. maybe we sdnt let them hide all their profits in tax loop holes and the cayman islands. but congress wont like that. they are all invested in those corporations.
Thank you for this report. I hope these families get the support they need and the hope and happiness they deserve. I hope the State of Georgia pays for these injustices and for their actions that ultimately are not about the children, but about their tax coffers.
The irony is that if these fathers' children receive or ever received welfare, they'll never see any child support the father pays, since most of the child support collected - including any arrearages owed - will go to reimburse the state for the welfare that the chlidren received, while forcing the mother to perform unpaid "workfare" for those benefits; in essence, forcing mothers to do workfare in exchange for their child support. Under welfare reform as low-income families know it, the economic colonization of poor families is complete.
And FYI, in my home state of South Carolina, the second most frequent reason that black men are imprisoned is nonpayment of child support. The first reason is drug-related offenses.
One more thought - the state of Georgia now spends 60% of its TANF/welfare block grant on adoption services and foster care. When mothers apply for welfare, it is common practice in the Georgia welfare system to offer to take their children and put them up for adoption, in lieu of giving the family a helping hand.
Message body
That is clear discrimination! Include Missouri on the list of states that allow due process of law violations. The Department of Social Services shirks their responsibility to seek the truth and act on it to the benefit of all. The class action suit in Georgia supports the need for similar action in Missouri. The majority of attorneys in Missouri will not touch facts that include DNA paternity confirmation requests; as if they fear the truth! As you know, being incarcerated for back child support without satifying reasonable doubt is a clear U.S. constitutional violation. CIVIL CASES DO NOT CARRY JAIL TIME! CRIMINAL CASES CARRY JAIL TIME AND THE STIPULATION OF INNOCENCE UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT; hence DNA paternity confirmation is required in order to achieve jurisprudent satisfaction!
Click the link below or copy and paste it into your browser then sign the petition that will be sent to the United States Congress and the President of the United States by August 31, 2011.
http://signon.org/sign/no-incarceration-for?source=c.url&r_by=212257
Here's what I don't get. Our deadbeat president Obama talking about how important it is to be a father and a parent to your kids then sticking his head in the sand while injustices like this take place in every state of this country.
The real deadbeats in this country are the president and other politicians that are supposed to stand up for the rights of the poor and the needy and not use them to bump up state revenues.