News Cut: December 4, 2012 Archive

Court to deadbeat dad: Stop having kids

Posted at 4:06 PM on December 4, 2012 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice

Corey Curtis, 44, of Racine, Wisconsin keeps having kids -- nine so far with six women. He owes $50,000 in back child support and another $40,000 in interest, the Journal Times reports.

"It's too bad the court doesn't have the authority to sterilize," Racine County Circuit Court Judge Tim Boyle said at a hearing.

That's when the prosecutor piped up that a 2001 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling found that a judge could order people not to procreate unless they keep up to date on support payments.

Then, Boyle so ordered Mr. Curtis to abstain.

The 2001 case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which had no interest in reviewing it.

It's not the first time the original Wisconsin case was used to try to prevent pregnancy. In Texas in 2008, for example, Felicia Salazar, a 20-year old mother, was sentenced to 10 years probation for not protecting her 19-month-old daughter from abuse at the hands of her father. The judge ordered her not to get pregnant during her probation.

In the original Wisconsin case, the justices concluded the order doesn't prevent a man from sowing constitutional oats...

Applying the relevant standard here, we find that the condition is not overly broad because it does not eliminate Oakley's ability to exercise his constitutional right to procreate. He can satisfy the condition of probation by making efforts to support his children as required by law. Judge Hazlewood placed no limit on the number of children Oakley could have. Instead, the requirement is that Oakley acknowledge the requirements of the law and support his present and any future children. If Oakley decides to continue his present course of conduct--intentionally refusing to pay child support--he will face eight years in prison regardless of how many children he has. Furthermore, this condition will expire at the end of his term of probation. He may then decide to have more children, but of course, if he continues to intentionally refuse to support his children, the State could charge him again under § 948.22(2). Rather, because Oakley can satisfy this condition by not intentionally refusing to support his current nine children and any future children as required by the law, we find that the condition is narrowly tailored to serve the State's compelling interest of having parents support their children. It is also narrowly tailored to serve the State's compelling interest in rehabilitating Oakley through probation rather than prison. The alternative to probation with conditions--incarceration for eight years--would have further victimized his children. And it is undoubtedly much broader than this conditional impingement on his procreative freedom for it would deprive him of his fundamental right to be free from physical restraint. Simply stated, Judge Hazlewood preserved much of Oakley's liberty by imposing probation with conditions rather than the more punitive option of imprisonment. See State v. Evans, 77 Wis. 2d 225, 230, 252 N.W.2d 664 (1977) ("Whether sentence 'is withheld or imposed and stayed, a convicted person's status as a probationer is a matter of grace or privilege and not a right' made possible by the legislature.")

But in a dissent, Justice Ann Bradley claimed finances as a requirement of procreation creates an unequal world...

... by allowing the right to procreate to be subjected to financial qualifications, the majority imbues a fundamental liberty interest with a sliding scale of wealth. Men and women in America are free to have children, as many as they desire. They may do so without the means to support the children and may later suffer legal consequences as a result of the inability to provide support. However, the right to have a child has never been rationed on the basis of wealth.

(3 Comments)

In matters of guilt and innocence, getting it right is time well spent

Posted at 1:08 PM on December 4, 2012 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice

In the aftermath of the killing of a popular police officer, it's only human nature to want someone to pay, and pay quickly. Sometimes, real life doesn't work that way and there are good reasons it doesn't.

Ryan Larson was released from jail today after prosecutors said they don't have enough evidence to charge him in the shooting death of Cold Spring police officer Tom Decker last week.

If ever there was a compelling reason for news organizations to abide by their occasional policy of not naming suspects until a person is actually charged with a crime, this case may be it. But they didn't and, already, social media is following a sadly predictable path.

"They better get him. They can't let him get away with this," one reader of WCCO's Jason DeRusha commented on his Facebook page.

"He might want to fear for his life," another said.

"That's just not right!!" said a third.

Releasing Larson doesn't mean he didn't do it. It doesn't mean he did do it. It means the justice system works.

What happens when it doesn't?

Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee think they know. The two served 25 years in prison for the 1977 murder of an Iowa police officer. The Iowa Supreme Court freed the pair in 2003 after it found prosecutors concealed reports about another man seen near the crime scene with a shotgun, and two key witnesses recanted their testimony. They said cops pressured them into implicating Harrington and McGee.

The two are seeking compensation now.

A year ago in Georgia, seven of the nine non-police witnesses recanted their original testimony that Troy Davis killed a police officer. A group of experts, including one from Minnesota, testified that the evidence presented in the case may have led to the wrong man being charged.

Georgia executed him anyway.

"We're in the business of making sure that we convict guilty people and, at the same time, exonerate innocent folks," Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Assistant Superintendent Drew Evans tells the Star Tribune.

We live in a TV-crime-drama world. Over the course of an hour, we expect crimes to be solved. But real life is more complicated and sometimes it takes time to make sure that justice is done.

And sometimes we just have to accept that it's time well spent.

(7 Comments)