Court Opinion

ID: 9783663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:55:39.098029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:29.491145
License: Public Domain

CUNNINGHAM, J„
dissenting:
Even Yoda, the diminutive Star Wars guru, recognized that sometimes in life we have to fish or cut bait. “Do or do not. There is no try.”
It is an admonition which fits the deadbeat parent when all our solicitous pleadings and beseeching have led nowhere. The courtrooms of Kentucky are visited daily by custodial parents of children— usually mothers — seeking child support from noncustodial parents — usually fathers. Our County Attorneys collected a whopping 416 million dollars in 2009 and over 400 million dollars in 2010 in past due child support. This is the amount which has been collected. Sadly, it falls way short of that which is owed. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in 2010 there was still approximately 1.3 billion dollars in owed, but unpaid, child support obligations in Kentucky. The Office of Child Support Enforcement, 2010 Preliminary Report— State Box Scores, 9-10, http:// www.acf. hhs.gov/programs/cse/pubs/2011/reports/ preliminary_report_fy2010/state.html.
For every judge — district, family, circuit — it is drudge work. Typically, on the civil side, destitute mothers stand forlornly before them, sometimes working at two jobs, begging for help in feeding the mouths of their children. Standing on the other side of the courtroom are fathers, sometimes thousands of dollars behind in their obligations. This creates not only a terrible hardship on young mothers, but strains our already strapped welfare system. All of these proceedings take place under the constraints and dictates of Lewis v. Lewis, 875 S.W.2d 862 (Ky.1993), which affords the delinquent custodian basic rights, including the right to counsel before incarceration can be imposed. Sad and weary stories come to the judge from both sides of the courtroom as mothers lament want and fathers lament lack Of income. Need is always established. And there are cases peppering our dockets where fathers are acting in good faith, actually down on their luck, trying desperately to work, scraping out a mere existence for their own survival, and deprived of any means whatsoever of providing for their children. These seldom make it to the criminal stage. The trial judge must wade through this maze of entangling stories of woe and decide who is telling the truth and who is not, who is malingering and who is not, who is embellishing his or her condition and who is not and finally come to some solution. But usually there is no solution. When this civil action has run aground and options are exhausted, a weary process moves to the grand jury. There is born the felony charge of flagrant nonsupport.
What the Court does today is blend the civil process into the criminal and, in effect, mandate that the Commonwealth prove once again the ability to pay — even after a defendant has pled guilty to the felony of persistently failing “to provide support which he can reasonably provide and which he knows he has a duty to provide by virtue of a court or administrative order to a minor.... ” KRS 530.050(2). (Emphasis added.)
The Court today seems to unrealistically think of these defendants in flagrant nonsupport cases as being dressed in the rags of a Dickens’ chimney sweep struck down by the oppressive yoke of penury beyond *836his or her control. For almost everyone who reaches this stage of the criminal proceedings, it is not victimized poverty. It is irresponsibility — criminal irresponsibility. The bond information on Marshall lists nine dependents. The record is unclear as to how many of those are children brought into this world without ample thought as to their care and support. The trial court was a paragon of patience with Johnson. He failed to appear in court on the motion to revoke and then failed to appear on two subsequent show cause orders before a bench warrant finally had to be taken.
The criminal defendant for flagrant nonsupport is girded with all of the constitutional protections as one who is charged with murder. The right to vigorous counsel, opportunity to a jury trial, unanimous verdict, and all of the due process habiliments are there for the asking.
Now facing prison, the defendant always seeks one more chance. Probation is sought and — to the glee of the delinquent parent — it is granted. Conditions are imposed. Go pay your child support. Unlike the civil directive, the command is not to go and try to pay your child support — but pay. “Do or do not. There is no try.”
That’s what criminal probation is all about. A person has been convicted. The presumption of innocence is gone. And while he or she is entitled to certain due process rights at revocation hearings, the burden of proof is only preponderance of the evidence that the condition was violated. That’s all. The inability defense was waived with the guilty plea. Otherwise, we are morphing the criminal action— which is penal — back into a civil action — all to the weary chagrin of desperate mothers. The prosecutor’s recommendation in these cases always includes the condition that the defendant will pay future child support. It is not a condition that he or she will try to pay future child support.
The following sentence is the gist of this dissent. Under our decision here today, the Commonwealth loses a very vital part of its bargain — the part which relieves it from continuing to carry the burden of proving the ability to pay.
It’s not fair. It’s not fair to the Commonwealth. It’s not fair to the parent waiting for the check. Most importantly, it’s not fair to the innocent babe who is totally unable to support itself.
I disagree strongly with the majority’s position that a plea agreement does not “eviscerate the right he would otherwise have under Bearden.” This is contrary to the rule in many states. North Dakota was the pioneer in this view and it is one worth emulating. Nordahl, its seminal case, says Bearden only applies in cases where restitution is imposed by a court order and, therefore, does not apply where it is agreed to in a plea agreement.
To allow an accused to offer an agreement with a sentence limitation based on restitution being made and then allow him to take advantage of this limitation when restitution is not made is a windfall this court will not permit. Although the Supreme Court has disallowed confinement or an increase in confinement when restitution was not made, those cases are distinguishable from the case before us. Those cases dealt with restitution and increased confinement as part of the adjudged sentence, something over which the defendants had no control.
State v. Nordahl, 2004 ND 106, 680 N.W.2d 247, 252 (quoting United States v. Foust, 25 M.J. 647, 649 (A.C.M.R.1987)).
Along with North Dakota, several other states and jurisdictions follow this, plea agreement view. See Polk v. Common*837wealth (pre-Bearden), 622 S.W.2d 22B (Ky.App.1981); Patton v. State, 458 N.E.2d 657 (Ind.Ct.App.1984); Commonwealth v. Payne, 33 Mass.App.Ct. 553, 602 N.E.2d 594 (1992); Dickey v. State, 257 Ga.App. 190, 570 S.E.2d 634 (2002); Wright v. State, 610 So.2d 1187 (Ala.Crim.App.1992); U.S. v. Johnson, 767 F.Supp. 243 (N.D.Ala.1991); and U.S. v. Mitchell, 51 M.J. 490 (C.A.A.F.1999).
It puzzles me that the Court here today extends more judicial grace to those who shirk their responsibilities for their own children than those who are mercilessly enslaved to addiction. When a criminal defendant is probated on the condition that he will not imbibe in alcohol or use illegal drugs, the evidence is typically a dirty drug screen. The trial court is not required to make any finding other than the defendant violated the terms of probation. In fact, there is no other condition of probation where the judge has to make a finding behind the infraction. With our decision here today, we make it more difficult for the state to enforce child support laws. In doing so, we now add another dimension to flagrant nonsupport probation at the expense of needy children. Our system of criminal prosecution for flagrant nonsupport will not break down because of our decision here today. But we have added one more piece of baggage onto the trial bench. And we never take anything off.
The U.S. Supreme Court has had a chance to expand Bearden, but has not done so. In fact, our decision today goes beyond the dictates of our nation’s highest court. In Black v. Romano, 471 U.S. 606, 611, 105 S.Ct. 2254, 85 L.Ed.2d 636 (1985), it held that the trial court does not have to state explicitly why it has rejected alternatives to incarceration. Our majority states, however, that the trial court must find “whether alternative punishment might accomplish the Commonwealth’s punishment and deterrence objectives.” Oddly enough, this is not even required when the delinquent is incarcerated on the civil side for contempt.
The crime of flagrant nonsupport is unique in that either a jury or a court has — in making a finding of guilt — determined that the defendant failed to make child support payments in violation of a court order “which he could reasonably provide.” KRS 532.050(2). It is not like the burglary crime in Bearden. No finding is made at the time of the judgment of guilty and imposition of probation for a burglary crime whether the defendant has the ability to pay the restitution. In the flagrant nonsupport, that is an element of the crime. The court has already made the finding that the defendant had the means to pay the money owed. It is ludicrous to require the Commonwealth to prove by a preponderance of the evidence at a revocation hearing what it has already proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In requiring a new finding on that indebtedness, we are in essence setting aside one of the elements of the crime for which the defendant has already pled guilty.
With all due respect, I believe the majority misreads Gamble v. Commonwealth by relying on it for the proposition that child support arrearage is restitution. When one reads this Court of Appeals’ holding, it is evident that issue was sidestepped. Said the Gamble court: “Omitting the plea agreement issue and assuming the trial court was required to follow Bearden principles and inquire into the reasons for Gamble’s failure to pay, [the court] was effectively precluded from doing so in this case because Gamble refused to testify.” 293 S.W.3d 406, 412 (Ky.App. 2009) (emphasis added). That is the narrow holding of Gamble. In fact, that opinion admits that “[a]t this time, however, *838there is no published final decision from the appellate courts of this state that determines whether the Bearden principles apply to probation revocation based on failure to pay child support.” Id. at 410.
In any event, I would submit that the facts here are different from those in Gamble. In both Marshall and Johnson, the trial court revoked probation for failure to “keep current” in child support. It would appear from reading Gamble that his revocation was primarily for arrearage established at the time of the plea. (Not to belabor a point made earlier as to the irresponsible nature of the typical nonsupport felon, but the reckless Gamble — over $13,000 behind in his child support — was finally arrested skulking in an abandoned trailer.)
Surely, the requirement to make future child support is not restitution and does not fall within the Bearden purview. In fact, failure to pay future child support is the same as failure to comply with any other condition of probation.
However, our Court today tries to shoehorn the dictates of Bearden into covering future failures to pay child support as restitution. Failure to pay future child support as a condition for probation is definitely not the same as failure to pay restitution. First of all, it is not fixed at the time of the judgment of conviction. Secondly, it does not even fall within our statutory definition of restitution. KRS 532.350(l)(a) defines restitution as “any form of compensation paid by a convicted person to a victim for ... expenses suffered by a victim because of a criminal act.” (Emphasis added.) The “criminal act” for which Marshall and Johnson are convicted is past due child support, not future support not paid. The future delinquencies have not yet been adjudicated crimes.
Therefore, for the reasons stated above, I would affirm. I thereby respectfully dissent.
SCOTT and VENTERS, JJ., join.