Opinion ID: 2164704
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Bowman v. Salley

Text: The Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City, in a paternity decree filed on November 15, 1967, ordered the defendant Robert Bernard Bowman to pay $5.00 per week support for his son, Bernard Bowman, born in 1961. On the same day, by another paternity decree, the court ordered the defendant to pay $5.00 weekly support for his son, Joseph Donthan Bowman, born in 1966. The respondent in this present action, Jeanette Salley, was the mother of both children. The record before us contains eight contempt petitions in both cases from 1968 until the present, charging the defendant with failure to make the support payments, although the incomplete nature of the record makes it difficult to determine what occurred following each petition. On June 7, 1979, the defendant Bowman was brought before what is known as Part 8 of the Criminal Court of Baltimore on two charges of contempt of court and one of criminal nonsupport. The two contempt cases were based upon his failure to make payments for the support of his children, Bernard Bowman and Joseph Donthan Bowman. An appearance on behalf of the plaintiff-mother in these cases, Jeanette Salley, was entered by an agent of the Division of Parole and Probation. The criminal nonsupport case was based upon the defendant's alleged failure to make support payments of $20.00 per week for his wife, Margaret Bowman, and their three children, plus $10.00 per week upon the arrearage. These payments were required by a court order of April 11, 1968. The criminal nonsupport case was also being prosecuted by the same agent of the Division of Parole and Probation. At the hearing on the three cases, Mr. Bowman was not represented by counsel, did not waive counsel, and was not advised concerning any right to have counsel. The hearing commenced by the court entering not guilty pleas in the three cases and swearing Mr. Bowman and the Parole and Probation agent as witnesses. The agent then testified that, with regard to the support orders in the two paternity decrees, Mr. Bowman's last payment was in 1974 and the total arrearages in the two cases amount to $5,715.00. The arrearage in the criminal nonsupport case was, according to the agent, $4,532.00. After the agent's testimony concerning the amount of money owed, the following took place: THE COURT: You owe $9,000 in arrears on three court orders. You want to tell me anything, sir? MR. BOWMAN: Your Honor, like I haven't worked, sometime I work and sometime I couldn't work. I have asthma and now I have black outs when I been drinking. But, you know, asthma, sometimes I work a week, two weeks. THE COURT: What kind of work do you do? MR. BOWMAN: What? THE COURT: What kind of work do you do? MR. BOWMAN: Well I was doing a little, well, carpenter helper, digging holes, whatever. THE COURT: How do you live; how do you support yourself? MR. BOWMAN: It has been hard, but I made it. I been living basically with friends now and with my father sitting back here and then like, just up to about a few months ago I went after it got, they got things, got high like they are, high, to get on Social Service because daggone I wasn't able to, daggone, to do like I been doing anymore because they aren't like, I mean, things are just daggone hard. THE COURT: How old are you, sir? MR. BOWMAN: What? THE COURT: How old are you, sir? MR. BOWMAN: I'm forty-three. THE COURT: Where do you live, you live with your parents? MR. BOWMAN: No, I live at 517 Paca Street. THE COURT: Who do you live with? MR. BOWMAN: Frank Hall. THE COURT: Who is Frank Hall, a friend? MR. BOWMAN: Yes, sir, a friend of mine. THE COURT: How long have you been living there? MR. BOWMAN: About, I guess about a year now. THE COURT: Well, how do you live? How do you feed yourself and buy clothes and things like that? MR. BOWMAN: I ain't been buying what you call no clothes. THE COURT: How do you eat, where do you get food from? MR. BOWMAN: I go to my grandmother, different places, you know, I haven't been, I mean I been eating here and staying with friends, that is how I been doing it. THE COURT: I see. MR. BOWMAN: There is my father right there, he will tell you. THE COURT: Where is your father? MR. BOWMAN: Sitting right there. A SPECTATOR: Here. THE COURT: All right. MR. BOWMAN: I just been doing. THE COURT: Okay. In the two  MR. BOWMAN: Just daggone it. I got Social Aid myself. THE COURT: All right, in the two contempt of court cases, the court finds you guilty of contempt of court. Sentence of the court is three years, Department of Correction, each case to be served consecutively. In the non-support case, the court quashed that warrant in view of the conviction in the other case. Mr. Sheriff? MR. BOWMAN: What I got to do, three years? THE COURT: Six years. MR. BOWMAN: Six years? THE COURT: He needs $1,000 in each case. (CONCLUSION OF PROCEEDINGS) On the same day as the hearing, a written order was filed, on a form of the Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City, committing Bowman to the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Correction for a total of six years, with his release conditioned upon the payment of $2,000.00. [1] Thereafter, an Assistant Public Defender was assigned by the Office of Public Defender to represent Mr. Bowman, and a timely order of appeal was filed. Bowman served seven months of his sentence, and then the trial judge offered him the right to purge with a reduced payment of $700.00. Recently he made this payment from money earned while he was incarcerated, and he was then released from imprisonment.