Court Opinion

ID: 9667585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:50:05.389508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:39.151378
License: Public Domain

GRANT, Justice,
concurring.
I have found no Texas cases in which the constitutionality of Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 25.05 has been challenged on the basis that it allows an imprisonment for debt. The cases cited by the majority are all civil contempt proceedings, except for the case of Dixon v. State, 2 Tex. 481 (1847). Dixon was jailed for failure to pay a fine for a gambling offense, not for failure to pay child support.
The Texas Supreme Court has stated that the only remedy for enforcing an order for child support is a civil contempt proceeding. Burger v. Burger, 156 Tex. 584, 298 S.W.2d 119 (1957); Ex parte Davis, 101 Tex. 607, 111 S.W. 394 (1908). In the present case, although there is court-ordered child support, this is not an *720enforcement of that order but is a criminal nonsupport charge against Lyons. The charge is not based on the amount of the child support order.
One of the reasons advanced as to why court-ordered child support does not fall under the prohibition against imprisonment for debt is that it represents a disobedience of a judicial command. Ex parte Birkhead, 127 Tex. 556, 95 S.W.2d 958 (1936). Better reasoning is found in Ex parte Helms, 152 Tex. 480, 259 S.W.2d 184 (1953), in which the Supreme Court found that child support and attorney’s fees accrued in an effort to collect child support were not mere debts or money judgments within the meaning of the constitutional provision prohibiting imprisonment for debt, but were rather the enforcement of the performance of a legal duty in which the public had an interest. (Citing Eddens v. Eddens, 188 Va. 511, 50 S.E.2d 397 (1948).)
There have been numerous Texas cases holding that the payment for child support is not a debt under Tex. Const, art. I, § 18. All of these holdings have been in civil contempt cases, but the same general reasoning should have application to criminal nonsupport cases. I therefore concur in the result reached by the majority.