Opinion ID: 2996075
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: constitutionality of the dppa

Text: The DPPA, formerly called the Child Support Recovery Act (“CSRA”),1 punishes the willful nonpayment of past 1 For the purpose of this appeal there is no meaningful difference between the earlier CSRA and later DPPA, and for simplicity’s (continued...) 4 No. 02-2080 due child support obligations owing to children who live in a different state than their noncustodial parent. See 18 U.S.C. § 228(a). Nearly all states criminalize the willful failure to pay child support and most utilize the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (“URESA”) to extradite interstate deadbeat parents and process interstate child support enforcement orders. Recognizing that such interstate extradition and enforcement provided a cumbersome, slow, and tedious method of collecting child support obligations from deadbeat parents, Congress passed the DPPA. The sole purpose of the legislation is to assist states in recovering past due child support payments beyond their borders. Klinzing attacks the constitutionality of the DPPA on both equal protection and Commerce Clause grounds. In particular, he argues that the DPPA denies equal protection by irrationally criminalizing the willful nonpayment of child support by parents who live in a different state than their children, and that it exceeds the scope of Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause to “regulate commerce among the several States.” U.S. CONST. art. I, (...continued) sake we will refer to the statute only as the DPPA. Congress enacted the Child Support Recovery Act in 1992 to strengthen state enforcement of child support orders and improve chances of collecting billions of dollars in unpaid child support from interstate delinquent parents. 138 CONG. REC. at H7326 (daily ed. Aug. 4, 1992). In 1998 Congress revised the CSRA, 18 U.S.C. § 228, by creating two offense levels for willful failure to pay court ordered child support obligations based on the amount owed and length of time the debt remained unpaid. At that time Congress also made it a crime to travel in interstate commerce with intent to evade substantial past due child support obligations. The revised statute also received a new name, the Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act. Pub. L. No. 105-187, § 2, 112 Stat. 618 (June 24, 1998), codified at 18 U.S.C. § 228 (1999). No. 02-2080 5 § 8. We review these constitutional challenges to a federal statute de novo. United States v. Wilson, 159 F.3d 280, 285 (7th Cir. 1998); United States v. Lewitzke, 176 F.3d 1022, 1025 (7th Cir. 1999).
Five years ago this court joined nine federal circuit courts in affirming the constitutionality of the DPPA as a valid exercise of federal commerce power. See United States v. Black, 125 F.3d 454 (7th Cir. 1997); United States v. Williams, 121 F.3d 615 (11th Cir. 1997); United States v. Crawford, 115 F.3d 1397 (8th Cir. 1997); United States v. Bailey, 115 F.3d 1222 (5th Cir. 1997); United States v. Johnson, 114 F.3d 476 (4th Cir. 1997); United States v. Parker, 108 F.3d 28 (3d Cir. 1997); United States v. Bongiorno, 106 F.3d 1027 (1st Cir. 1997); United States v. Hampshire, 95 F.3d 999 (10th Cir. 1996); United States v. Mussari, 95 F.3d 787 (9th Cir. 1996); United States v. Sage, 92 F.3d 101 (2d Cir. 1996). Since then several circuits have reconsidered the issue in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000) (concluding that the civil remedy provision of the Violence Against Women Act exceeded Congress’ Commerce Clause authority because it regulated noneconomic, wholly intrastate activity that did not substantially affect interstate commerce), and in every case the court reaffirmed the constitutionality of the DPPA. See United States v. Monts, 311 F.3d 993 (10th Cir. 2002); United States v. King, 276 F.3d 109 (2d Cir. 2002); United States v. Lewko, 269 F.3d 64 (1st Cir. 2001); United States v. Faasse, 265 F.3d 475 (6th Cir. 2001) (en banc). Against the heavy weight of this authority and without advancing a new argument on his behalf, Klinzing still claims that the DPPA is unconstitutional. Because we agree with our analysis in Black that an interstate child support obligation is a “thing” in commerce 6 No. 02-2080 and thus properly regulated by Congress, and because we are not otherwise persuaded to part ways from our ten sister circuits on this issue, we hold today that the DPPA is a constitutional exercise of the federal commerce power. The Supreme Court in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), delineated three broad areas that Congress may regulate using its commerce power: (1) the channels of interstate commerce, (2) the instrumentalities of, or persons or things in, interstate commerce, and (3) activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Id. at 558. In Black we held that a parent’s intentional failure to pay child support debts created a “conscious impediment to interstate commerce” that was properly regulated by Congress under the second prong of Lopez. Black, 125 F.3d at 460. Since a child support obligation is an economic debt and the DPPA only reaches those debts which are owed by parents living out of state, we decided that a past due child support payment constituted a “thing” in interstate commerce. Id. We noted too that Congress has power not only to regulate active interstate commerce, but to protect against and punish willful interference with interstate commerce. Id. (analogizing the DPPA to the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, which criminalizes acts of extortion, robbery, or physical violence that interfere with interstate commerce). We therefore concluded that the DPPA fit cleanly “within the strictures of Congress’ Commerce Clause power.” Id. at 461. Klinzing acknowledges our decision in Black but insists we were wrong to find an unpaid, overdue child support payment a “thing” in interstate commerce. First, Klinzing characterizes the “thing” at issue as an obligation to provide financial support to one’s children arising from a local court order entered on authority of state law. According to Klinzing, legal obligations such as these are not commerce merely because they involve an order to pay No. 02-2080 7 money. We disagree. The notion of “child support” comprises more than a moral duty to care for one’s children, and state laws recognize this by requiring noncustodial parents to pay money in satisfaction of their parental duties. When this duty takes the form of a parent in one state ordered to pay support money to a parent in another state, it is “functionally equivalent” to an interstate contract, with the payments usually traveling interstate by mail, wire, or electronic transfer. Black, 125 F.3d at 460. Klinzing’s argument that the underlying support obligation is simply a local court order authorized by state law and therefore not interstate commerce is without merit, especially given the expansive way courts have defined “commerce” when reviewing legislation enacted by Congress under the Commerce Clause. Second, Klinzing argues that the DPPA impermissibly criminalizes abstention from commerce because the nonpayment of a debt cannot be construed as commerce within reach of Congress’ regulatory authority. Klinzing suggests that if Congress can criminalize the failure of parents to pay child support under the DPPA, then Congress could criminalize the failure of business owners to open nondiscriminatory hotels under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. See Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964) (holding that Congress had authority under Commerce Clause to prohibit discrimination in motel accommodations because such discrimination constituted a willful impediment to interstate travel and commerce). In both cases, Klinzing contends, the individual is punished for impeding interstate commerce by choosing not to participate in interstate commerce at all. The problem with Klinzing’s analogy is that deadbeat parents, unlike hypothetical business owners, are not lawfully abstaining from interstate commerce. The DPPA only reaches parents whose past due child support obligations are owed in another state and punishes these deadbeat parents for 8 No. 02-2080 choosing to willfully evade their legal obligations. In other words, the DPPA punishes an affirmative choice to break the law and not a passive choice to refrain from participating in interstate commerce. We remain convinced that an interstate child support obligation is a thing in commerce which may properly be regulated by Congress using its commerce power. Despite Klinzing’s claim that the DPPA encroaches upon states’ rights to regulate domestic relations, the DPPA expressly avoids interference with the underlying child support obligations imposed by the states. The DPPA only applies criminal punishment to unlawful conduct that implicates interstate commerce: namely, the willful evasion of economic support obligations by parents who live in different states from their children. We therefore find the DPPA to be a permissible exercise of Congress’ power to legislate under the Commerce Clause.
Klinzing also challenges the constitutionality of the DPPA on equal protection grounds. Specifically, he contends that the DPPA either impermissibly burdens a deadbeat parent’s fundamental right to travel, or irrationally treats deadbeat parents who live in a different state from their children differently from deadbeat parents who live in the same state as their children. Klinzing correctly states that the right to travel is fundamental and any burden on it is subject to strict scrutiny, but he wrongly concludes that the DPPA infringes this right. In the case of deadbeat parents, any impediment to travel based on a fear of criminal prosecution under the DPPA results from the parents’ own willful failure to pay child support and not the requirements of the statute. A parent under a local court order to pay child support is entirely free to move to a different state from his or her children without prosecuNo. 02-2080 9 tion under the DPPA. It is only when the parent chooses not to abide by the court order and willfully evades his support obligations while living out of state that the DPPA makes the interstate conduct criminal. If anything impedes Klinzing’s right to travel, it is his own willful evasion of his child support obligations and not the DPPA. Klinzing also argues that the DPPA violates equal protection because it draws a distinction among deadbeat parents that is not rationally related to a legitimate government objective. According to Klinzing it is not rational to base federal criminal jurisdiction on a factor outside the parent’s control, such as where one’s children live with their custodial parent. Klinzing claims the DPPA violates equal protection when it treats deadbeat parents living in a different state from their children differently from deadbeat parents living in the same state as their children. We find no equal protection violation in this case because the DPPA’s differential treatment of intrastate and interstate deadbeat parents is rationally related to a legitimate government interest. We stated in Black that the statute passed the rational basis test because “Congress expressly recognized that collecting past due child support obligations from out-of-state deadbeat parents has outgrown state enforcement mechanisms.” Id., 125 F.3d at 458. The problem of deterring and punishing the most egregious interstate deadbeat parents has not abated in the last five years and still remains a legitimate government interest. The availability of federal criminal punishment for interstate deadbeat parents makes it less likely that parents will successfully shirk their financial responsibilities by fleeing to another state. We therefore conclude that the DPPA is rationally related to a legitimate government interest and passes constitutional muster. 10 No. 02-2080