Opinion ID: 1850556
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the appropriateness of multiple punishment

Text: The majority asserts that [m]ultiple punishments based on each 120-day period of nonsupport are not only appropriate, but essential, if the statute is to provide deterrence and proportionality in its operation. Majority Op. at 166. Specifically the majority notes that the charging of multiple counts in a single prosecution is essential because, [i]f a parent failing to provide child support for 120 days or more is liable to prosecution for only one offense no matter how long the period of nonsupport continues, the continuation of the failure to provide support is encouraged, not deterred. Majority Op. at 166. This argument is flawed for two reasons. First, Grayson's interpretation of the statute equally allows for egregious offenders to be more severely punished. If a single felony conviction fails to motivate a parent to pay support, the State can bring another felony charge after giving the parent 120 days to mend his or her ways. Under this interpretation of the statute, prosecutors could charge each offense at the time it occurs, rather than waiting several years before charging numerous counts. Second, a goal of this statute, and obvious public policy, is to enforce support obligations by creating pressure on those charged with support to pay up. The interpretation of the statute propounded by the defendant and this dissent furthers the goal of the statute in that it encourages prosecutors to bring charges early so that if the defendant continues to fail to pay support after the initial charge, he or she can be charged again. Bringing a charge early at the 120-day mark and putting a defendant on notice (if not in jail) after his or her first failure to pay support, is far more likely to result in payment from the defendant than if the charges are not brought until many years later. If a charge is brought early, at the very least a chance exists that the laggard defendant will learn his or her lessons and pay support. However, if prosecutor's are allowed to do what was done here and wait several years before prosecuting, defendants have little incentive during that time to pay their support. Long continual periods of incarceration do not facilitate the purpose of the statute of encouraging parents to pay their support obligations. Instead, long incarcerations are likely to disable defendants from paying support obligations by taking them away from their jobs. Under the defendant's interpretation of the statute, a nonpaying parent is incarcerated for a short period of time after his or her first failure to provide support, thus providing him or her time to reflect on the crime but not disabling him or her for a long period of time from obtaining a means to provide support. What we have in this case is the failure of the State to charge Mr. Grayson with nonsupport until seven years of nonpayment had accrued. If Mr. Grayson would have been prosecuted at the beginning of his nonpayment, at the very least he would have been alerted to the risk of nonpayment. Instead, he accumulated substantial delinquencies in payment. The changes of his paying any future support, much less any back support, while he sits in jail is just about nil. As it now stands, his conviction will not serve any of the purposes under the statute other than punishment: his ex-spouse in all likelihood will not receive payments while Mr. Grayson is serving his eight year sentence, and his children have already suffered the consequences of nonpayment for the seven years which the State had the opportunity to charge him. In conclusion, the majority's analysis offers little evidence suggesting that the legislature intended to allow multiple counts of felony nonsupport in a single prosecution. A plain reading of the statute, with its use of the term or more, indicates that the failure to pay for longer than 120 days is a continuation of one offense. This interpretation of the statute, which requires a prosecutor to bring a charge at the 120-day mark in order to charge multiple violations, furthers the goals of the statute and is fair to the victim, society and the defendant. If the legislature wishes to impose a separate penalty in a single prosecution for each continuous failure to pay support for 120 days, the legislature should expressly state this objective. For these reasons, I would reverse the decision of the court of appeals and allow only one conviction of the defendant. Accordingly, I dissent.