This week, the US Supreme Court handed down a decision in Turner v. Rogers, a case involving a non-custodial parent who was jailed for nonpayment of child support.  Failure to pay child support is a violation of a court order to pay, and is thus handled as a civil contempt of court case.  A finding of civil contempt in these cases is predicated on nonpayment when the defendant is financially capable of paying, and a defendant can always avoid jail time by either paying the amount owed, or by showing that he is incapable of paying.  Turner had been ordered to pay $51.73 per week for the support of his child and had been sentenced to jail time on several previous occasions for failure to pay.  He was not represented by counsel at the hearing where he received a 12-month sentence, which he served in its entirety.  At the hearing in question, the judge sentenced Turner without making an express finding that Turner was financially capable of paying the support owed.  On appeal, Turner argued that the US Constitution entitled him to counsel at his hearing because, although the contempt proceeding is civil in nature, the potential for incarceration triggered a Due Process Clause-based right to be represented.  Although Supreme Court cases have consistently found that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel in criminal cases does not apply to civil cases (not even civil contempt cases), there was a split in the circuits over whether a defendant has a right to counsel under the Due Process clause in civil contempt proceedings enforcing child support orders.

Here, the Court held that “where as here the custodial parent (entitled to receive the support) is unrepresented by counsel, the State need not provide counsel to the noncustodial parent (required to provide the support).”  However, the Court added the caveat that “the State must nonetheless have in place alternative procedures that assure a fundamentally fair determination of the critical incarceration-related question, whether the supporting parent is able to comply with the support order.”  Since Turner did not receive clear notice that his ability to pay – or not – was crucial in deciding whether he would be jailed, and since the court did not make an express finding that Turner was able to pay, his incarceration was found to have violated the Due Process Clause, and his case was remanded.  The dissent agreed that there should be no right to counsel in civil contempt cases for nonpayment of child support, but would not have vacated the state court judgment on the grounds that there were not sufficient procedural safeguards to protect Turner.

My colleagues who specialize in constitutional law, criminal law and sentencing will doubtless have other insights about this case.  Here, I would like to offer just a few observations from a family law perspective.