KY Family Judge Gormley Disciplined Again
December 31, 2009
Back on November 11th, I posted a piece here about Kentucky family court judge Tamra Gormley. Judge Gormley had been suspended from the bench for 45 days due to her blatant denial of rights to a couple of litigants in family court. She denied one father, from whom she'd just taken custody of his children, the right to put on any evidence on his own behalf. At the time, I speculated that those two cases were just the tip of the iceberg about Judge Gormley. My experience in Texas has been that, when a judge is disciplined, the reasons given are just a small part of the total.
This article lets us see some of the rest of the iceberg in Judge Gormley's case (WLKY, 12/28/09). This time, in a 5-1 ruling, the state's Judicial Conduct Commission reprimanded her for issuing a blanket order back in May that no employee of Toyota Motor Manufacturing could have a child support order modified until the end of the year. She made the order effective in all three counties over which she has jurisdiction even though it was only requested in one county. She rescinded the order in July.
Now, why a judge would issue such an order is beyond me. Even if Toyota hadn't planned to lay anyone off in May, it just doesn't make sense to issue such an order. Almost anything can happen in individual cases and a judge has to consider each one on its merits. In custody modification cases, he/she has to take testimony and other evidence, weigh it and make a decision about whether or not to change the order. To issue a blanket order with no evidence on individual motions to modify, many of which had not even been filed back in May, borders on the pathological. It is just very strange.
Apparently the Judicial Conduce Commission thought so too. I wouldn't be surprised if they're setting Judge Gormley up to be removed permanently from the bench. Back in November she looked like a judge who thought she was above the law. She looked like a judge with a very low regard for the rights of litigants. Nothing in this most recent disciplinary ruling changes my mind about that.Â
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She Swings, He Grabs; He Said/She Said; He Goes to Jail; She Doesn’t
December 31, 2009
Mike Kelly, head coach of the Canadian Football League's Winnipeg Blue Bombers found himself out of a job recently, following an apparent altercation with his ex-girlfriend.  Read about it here (Winnipeg Sun, 12/18/09). Â
Police were called to his home in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania on December 17th. There they found Andrea Peterson who claimed to have been attacked by Kelly as she moved some things out of his house. For his part, Kelly said she had begun punching him during an argument and he grabbed her to fend off the blows. Police said Peterson had a slight red mark on her neck, a cut on her lip and a bruised knuckle. Kelly had slight swelling to his face.
In short, what the police found was a "he said/she said" situation with physical evidence corroborating both stories. So what did they do? They arrested the man, of course. Kelly is charged with a misdemeanor. Peterson has not been charged with anything.
In this case, neither Kelly nor Peterson was seriously hurt, but both showed signs of having been struck or grabbed. And,
Under Pennsylvania domestic violence laws, police are required to make an arrest if there is evidence of assault of any type, no matter how minor.
So, under Pennsylvania law, the police were required to arrest Kelly. But they were required to arrest Peterson too, right? After all, there was "evidence of assault."
Only two people know what actually happened before the police arrived, but the evidence they had required them to arrest both people. But they only arrested the man. So if, as appears likely, Peterson hit Kelly, she gets a free pass for her DV.
To me, this is a classic case in which no arrest should have been made. The injuries were extremely slight and the couple had broken up, so there's little chance of a repeat performance. But like all mandatory arrest laws, they don't leave the police any discretion about when to make an arrest. The officers should have been able to leave well enough alone.
As to Kelly's job, the Bombers' management claims his firing had nothing to do with the alleged altercation with Peterson. Right. It just happened to occur on the same day they got word of the arrest. They just happened to convene "an emergency meeting" that same day and announced his firing. And I've got a good deal for you on a bridge in Brooklyn.Â
Such are the reach and effects of DV laws.
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Girl Sues UK’s Child Support Agency: ‘You’ve Bankrupted My Dad’
December 31, 2009
Sometimes it just seems to get nuttier and nuttier out there.Â
Case in point: Great Britain's Child Support Agency is threatening to jail a father and sell his house to satisfy his child support debt. The only trouble is that the girl who's the subject of the support order lives with him. So what the CSA wants to do is jail her custodial parent and put her on the street. All of which is in her interest according to the CSA. In fact, both father and daughter say that paying the amount will bankrupt him, which would of course severely affect her. And the money would go to her mother with whom she no longer lives. Meanwhile the mother has never paid a shilling in child support. So the girl is suing CSA.
Did you follow all that? If any of it makes sense to you, be sure to let me know. Read about it here (Daily Mail, 12/30/09).
It seems that 13-year-old Emma Chapelhow is fed up. Her parents, David Chapelhow and Janette Plummer divorced at some point, with Emma going to live with Janette. David paid child support, but the CSA, unilaterally and apparently without giving David the opportunity to contest the ruling, decided to radically increase the amount based on "lifestyle being inconsistent with income." In the U.S. we call that 'imputed income.' In other words, the state decides that a parent is hiding income because he/she seems to be living a more lavish lifestyle than the income reported would support.
Maybe the CSA based its decision on Emma's pony, Pringle. Who knows? But however it arrived at its conclusion, at some point it presented David with a bill for £43,000 which he says he can't begin to pay. So he started fighting the ruling which has further depleted his resources. Currently, he and Emma live in a caravan (travel trailer) so they can rent their house to make ends meet.
And the CSA which seems dead set on bankrupting Emma's custodial father, hasn't so much as peeped about child support from Janette.
All of that has raised the ire of 13-year-old Emma, who's filed suit against the CSA. Two years ago, a court ruled that Emma was mature enough to "instruct her solicitor," which means she could decide what parent she wanted to live with. She chose her father whom she calls a 'hero.'Â
He's joined her suit against the CSA, which is legally obligated to "have regard to the welfare of any child likely to be affected by their decisions." Emma, David and their legal representation apparently believe that tossing the dad in prison and selling his assets to pay a debt that may or may not be legitimate to a mother who no longer has custody and who does not herself pay to support her daughter, violates the CSA's duty of 'regard.' Fancy that.
Just in case the CSA hadn't behaved enough like a Mafia enforcer, it sent the bailiffs out to seize Pringle under the nose of the distraught Emma. Apparently it was just a bluff, but terrorizing a 13-year-old whose best interests you're supposed to be protecting makes sense, doesn't it? In any case, seizing an asset that seems to be the child's to satisfy a parent's support obligation to that child is surely a first.
Thanks to Roy for the heads-up.
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States do a Lot of Compulsory Medical Testing of Newborns; Why Not Compulsory Paternity Testing?
December 30, 2009
This article has nothing to do with paternity fraud - except that it does (Houston Chronicle, 12/23/09).
I've argued before for mandatory DNA testing at birth of all newborns and the men who are identified as their fathers. The only serious objection to that that I can see is that it will cost the state money to do it. Of course hospitals can be authorized to simply tack on the testing fee to the overall cost so that parents will end up footing the bill. The only tests states would be stuck paying would be for births to indigent parents.
But aside from those points, let's all understand that the State of Texas, and doubtless many others, do plenty of mandatory testing of newborns. They do that in order to determine whether a child has certain medical conditions. The linked-to article is about the fact that Texas has been retaining for years the blood samples used to do the testing. The plaintiffs sued the state claiming that policy violated their right to privacy. The state agency that retains the samples and the plaintiffs have agreed for the state to destroy the blood samples.Â
But the fact remains that the State of Texas mandates testing of newborns for a variety of possible maladies, and no one is complaining about the cost.Â
So why not paternity testing?
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Washington Post: Ungrateful Young Feminists to Blame for Clinton’s Loss to Obama
December 30, 2009
This is a telling piece (Washington Post, 12/27/09). For some reason Anne Kornblut takes us back to the Democratic presidential primary elections of 2008 to rail against the perfidy of young women for failing to vote for Hilary Clinton in sufficient numbers. Kornblut's vehicle for her rant is former VP candidate and congresswoman, Geraldine Ferraro.
According to Kornblut, on election night in some undisclosed state, Ferraro's adult daughter called her and "confessed" to having voted for Obama instead of Clinton.
Ferraro was livid, and distraught. What more did Hillary Clinton have to do to prove herself? How could anyone -- least of all Ferraro's own daughter -- fail to grasp the historic significance of electing a woman president, in probably the only chance the country would have to do so for years to come? Ferraro hung up enraged, not so much at her daughter but at the world. Clinton was being unfairly cast aside, and, along with her, the dreams of a generation and a movement.
To Kornblut, the contrast between the attitudes and votes of Ferraro and her daughter reflect a "generational divide" among feminist women, with the older generation valuing a woman in the White House per se, while the younger looked for more. This article makes the latter point in the words of a Wellesley College student (Washington Post, 1/11/08).
Carreon Aguilar, a senior, said: "If I'm supposed to vote for Hillary just because I'm a woman, that's kind of sexist."
Tellingly, Kornblut makes the claim, but produces no data to support it. Was there a generational split between self-identified feminists? If so, did it make any difference in the outcome of the Democratic primary? Surely the results of those primary elections have been analyzed and those questions answered, but Kornblut doesn't let us in on the secret.
But beyond those most obvious points are others, perhaps less obvious, but no less important. First, the notion that feminists want a woman, any woman, to hold office, is plainly false. Sarah Palin alone contradicts that assertion, but there are plenty of others. Feminists who reject Palin are prone to saying that she's not qualified for the job of president, and I agree. But there are a good number of female governors and senators who are fully as qualified as, say, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton in 1992. So would a Kay Bailey Hutchison or an Olympia Snowe grab a lot of feminist votes? Based on voting patterns in their states, the answer is a resounding "no."
So it's not qualifications that keep women from voting women into office, which they could easily do if they wanted to. I don't mean to disturb the world views of people like Ferraro, but it looks suspiciously like women tend to agree with Wellesley senior, Carreon Aguilar. They don't vote their sex, they vote their values, and if their politics coincide better with the male candidate's, that's who they'll vote for.
But if that were all that's going on, you'd think the ranks of officeholders would be a lot closer to a 50/50 split between men and women than they are. I mean, why would men have such a radically better hold on women's politics than women do?Â
I think Kornblut answers that question even though I doubt she knows it. Writing of Hilary Clinton and her supposed lack of appeal to younger feminists, Kornblut mentions that "she hadn't gotten there on her own."Â
Ah, comes the dawn.Â
The undeniable fact about the junior senator from the State of New York was that, intelligent and educated as she is, she had never run for public office before being elected U.S. senator. How many people in modern times have managed that feat? The only reason she was able to do so was that she was Bill Clinton's wife. Didn't it look to voters, male and female alike, that, for her to accede to the presidency would have been more of a coronation than an election? Among Clinton's very weighty personal baggage was one marked 'privilege;' she had the fatal air of entitlement, unearned and undeserved.
But that still doesn't answer the most obvious question of all. Women (well, white women) have had the vote in this country for over 80 years.  By now, they vote in greater numbers than do men. But in all that time, they've never come close to consistently voting women into office.  Likewise, in party primaries, they've never consistently voted women to be candidates for office. In short, women have never been the kind of sexists that Geraldine Ferraro demands that they be. The question is, "what gives?"
Again, I think the answer lies in Kornblut's words "she hadn't gotten there on her own." Of course Kornblut was referring to Hilary Clinton, but I believe the same can be said of other women. In the same way that people saw Clinton as trading on privilege, perhaps they generalize about women who run for office.  I think that men and women both see what the Geraldine Ferraros of the world never will - that as long as women are treated as privileged creatures, people (particularly voters) will perceive them as such.  As long as women are exempted from the military draft and combat duty, as long as they pretend that the democratic process constitutes some sort of "glass ceiling," as long as they claim to be discriminated against across the board in wages when the law, common sense and statistics say otherwise, as long as they are privileged in family law, domestic violence law, education, sentencing for crime, and on and on, women can't demand to be seen as equally deserving of public office.Â
If I'm right, the great irony is that the very ones demanding ever-greater privileges for women are the same ones who cry 'foul' when the votes are counted. The Anne Kornbluts and Geraldine Ferraros of the world should be advised: you can't have it both ways. Feminists have claimed the mantle of equality while arguing for privilege. Many elites have been fooled, but it seems the people, women included, have not.  Â
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‘Helicopter Parents:’ Who Are They Afraid Of? Article Suggests an Answer
December 30, 2009
There's not a lot to this article until you get to the last sentence (Arizona Republic, 12/22/09). That got my attention.
It's about "helicopter parents," the ones who incessantly hover around their children, always present either in person, by cell phone, by email or some way. It hasn't always been that way. Indeed, the compulsively present parent is a pretty recent phenomenon. I know my mother couldn't have been happier to have my brothers and me out of the house, which we were most of the time.
The article linked to describes a book published in the 1990s as coining the term "helicopter parent," and not in a favorable sense. The term appeared in the section entitled "ineffective parenting styles."
But if helicopter parents have come into being only recently, the question arises "why?" It's not as if people just started being parents in the last 20 or so years. And it's certainly not true that life in the affluent parts of the United States is somehow more dangerous than in other places or at other times. Indeed, by any stretch of the imagination, this country's children, particularly those of the middle class, are comparatively safe.
So why the compulsive hovering? I'd answer that in two ways. First, we're going through some fairly radical changes in family life, begun by women's greater participation in the workplace. That's taken mothers away from children more than ever before. In fact, it blurrily mirrors the changes to family life wrought by the coming of industrial capitalism.  Then, the concentration of labor in one place outside the home meant that fathers were, for the first time in human history, routinely separated from their children.
To a lesser degree, that's what's going on now with mothers; they're working outside the home as never before and we haven't yet compensated for that by encouraging and allowing fathers to take up the slack.   Those two factors have combined to make people nervous about who's going to care for the children. Back in the 1980s, the answer "daycare" was met with delusional stories of child sexual abuse in daycare centers.
So we're understandably unsettled about the direction of family life in our society, and that means, among other things, that some parents overreact by hovering.
But here's the last paragraph of the article:
Even now, thanks to things like texting and Twitter, helicopter parenting shows no signs of going away. Adults are more protective, and children are more sheltered. We're not saying it's bad or good, but the way things are now, Child Protective Services would have been all over Andy Taylor's case for letting little Opie run around town.
Just so. Since actual threats to children are fairly few and far between, what explains parental overprotection? Well, maybe there's a threat we haven't thought about, but helicopter parents have. While we were thinking about child abductors, sexual perverts and murderers, maybe helicopter parents had a far more realistic threat in mind - the state. I can see it now: Opie runs off to go fishing in the nearby river and falls in. Now, on television that might merit him a lecture by Andy about being careful around water, but in the real world today, it might get Andy a few days in jail for "child endangerment," and Opie a few months in foster care.
Stated another way, maybe helicopter parents are protecting themselves and their children, not from the few child rapists and murderers running around out there, but from "Child Protective Services" run amok. I wonder if anyone's ever asked them.
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Law Fathers & Families Helped Create Leads to Victory for High-Profile Military Parent
December 28, 2009
Because of problems in the family court system, when a divorced or never-married military parent deploys overseas, they often face the possibility of losing their custodial arrangement and their relationship with their children.
Fathers & Families and its legislative representative Michael Robinson have been at the forefront of this issue, successfully working to pass military parent legislation in dozens of states. The first success on this issue occurred in 2005 in California with the passage of SB 1082.
SB 1082 addressed the way parents who serve are often taken advantage of in custody and family law matters while they are deployed, and helped resolve the child support nightmare many mobilized reservists face. 
Fathers & Families organized a campaign in support of the bill, and the Senate Judiciary Committee Analysis of SB 1082 made specific note of your calls and letters. We've also had some success with federal legislation on this issue--to learn more, click here.
Lt. Col. Vanessa Benson is a part of these efforts and recently informed us that she had scored a victory in her highly-publicized custody battle. Benson had lost custody of her son following her deployment to Afghanistan, and was featured by CBS in its recent piece Military Parents Fight for Custody at Home. Originally CBS reported:
After returning home from Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Vanessa Benson is in what she calls, the fight of her life... She and her ex-husband are battling over custody of their 14-year-old son John.
Benson, in accordance with her mandated family action plan, temporarily gave the ex-husband custody before she was deployed last December with the understanding John would return home once she did. That didn't happen.
"I had gotten an e-mail from my son's father that says, 'You need to get a lawyer. I'm not sending your son back to you,'" Benson told Miller.
Benson, who serves in the 101st Airborne Division, said she hasn't seen her son in about two months and hasn't lived with him in a year. The ex-husband did not want to talk to CBS News but has argued in court documents that it's in their son's best interest to stay with him in Florida for stability. But after seven months and $12,000 in legal bills, Benson said she doesn't think it is fair that she has to fight to win back a son she left behind to serve her country.
As we noted a couple weeks ago, the case isn't black and white, since John may legitimately want to stay in Florida to finish his last 3 1/2 years of high school. Regardless, military parents shouldn't forfeit their custody arrangements and role in their children's lives simply because they're serving their country.
Last week Benson won her case, and it was partly because of the work Fathers & Families is doing. As this CBS News update explains, Benson was awarded temporary custody of her son in a hearing last week--the photo above was taken right after the judge announced her decision.
HB 435, the Florida law that has helped military parents, including Benson, was signed into law in July of 2007. Father & Families' Robinson worked extensively with Florida House Member Gayle Harrel, the bill's sponsor, as well as her legislative assistant Luke Rossknecht. The Florida statute makes it clear that if a court has issued a temporary child custody order as a result of a parent being deployed, once the deployed parent has returned the previous orders that were in effect prior to deployment must be reinstated. Section 61.13002 (2) of the Florida Statute reads:
(2) If a temporary order is issued under this section, the court shall reinstate the custody judgment or order previously in effect upon the parent's return from active military service, deployment, or temporary assignment.
Countless military parents have had their role in their children's lives safeguarded by the legislation we've helped pass. Those who serve deserve nothing less.
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Florida Man Battling Paternity Fraud; True Dad Still in the Dark
December 27, 2009
This paternity fraud case tells us a bit about Florida law that's worth knowing (Herald Tribune, 12/20/09). It also reminds us about what a duped dad needs to do to establish his non-paternity.
Christopher Martin is a tile-setter in Sarasota, Florida. Some years ago, he had a brief relationship with a woman named Dannis Barrows. He broke it off, but at some point well after the end of their romance, they had sex again. (Sound suspicious? I'd love to know just how that came about.) A few months later, Barrows informed Martin she was pregnant with his child and, given that later sexual encounter, he figured she was telling the truth.
The Florida child support agency urged him to "acknowledge paternity," and, naive and trusting, he did so. But either Barrows spilled the beans in a fit of anger or Martin just started putting two and two together isn't clear. But whatever happened, Martin started wanting a DNA test. About that time, Barrows took the child to her native Colombia and left him with relatives. So Martin was paying child support, but with no way of ascertaining whether he was actually the dad or not.
Eventually, the boy, who was now a toddler, returned to Florida and that's when Barrows screwed up - twice. The first time, she got arrested for DUI with the little boy in the car, so the police turned him over to Maritn who was listed as his father. Martin swabbed the child's cheek and his own and sent them off to a private testing lab. Sure enough, the test showed he wasn't the father. So Martin stopped paying support.
The problem is that the test wasn't admissible in court. And that's a lesson for all the dads out there who doubt their paternity. Those private tests are fine for telling you if you're the dad or not, but there are a number of reasons why a court won't accept them as evidence. How does the court know the swab of "your" cheek is even yours? What about the swab of the child's cheek? How does it know that the chain of custody has been secure? So those private tests are great for letting you know the truth about paternity, but lousy for getting anything done about it if you're not the dad.
If you're not, it's up to you to get a court to order a test, done in such a way as to make the results admissible.
And that's what Christopher Martin faced. He couldn't get a court to order genetic testing to contest paternity. And that's where Barrows' second mistake came in handy. She got a second DUI, again with the little boy in the car. And that concerned the police and courts enough that they were contemplating giving custody to Martin. But Martin said "No, he's not my son." And then it was the state that was demanding a test. Of course, Martin cheerfully agreed. The test was done and of course, he's not the dad, and it's now a judicially-established fact.
So is Martin free of his support obligations? Nope. He's trying to get a court order vacating the previous acknowledgement of paternity and quashing the order of child support. And here's where we learn something about Florida law.Â
Apparently in Florida a duped man can do that in two ways. He can pay all his child support up to date and, with a DNA test proving he's not the dad, he's free of any further obligation. Martin however owes $30,000 in back support which he cannot pay. The second way to quash the paternity ruling is by a court finding that it was brought about by fraud, duress or mistake of material fact.
Hmm. That wouldn't seem to be too difficult, given that a mistake of material fact seems to be the least that's occurred. Fraud too. When we think of fraud, we think of a lie, an intentional misrepresentation of a fact that's important to whatever transaction is at issue. But fraud can also be based on the failure to disclose a material fact or the concealment of a material fact. Barrows' failure to tell Martin that, while he could be the father, there was at least one other guy who's a possibility as well, surely must qualify as the concealment or failure to disclose a material fact relating to Martin's paternity or lack thereof.
As is always true in these cases, there's another guy out there somewhere who's been deprived of his child for several years. And of course there's a little boy who, during his whole life, has had no contact with his father.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Genetic testing of children and fathers should be mandatory at birth. Otherwise, fathers will continue to be denied their children, children will be denied their fathers, men will be duped into thinking they're the father of children who aren't theirs, and states will expend money and time putting out the fires started by mothers who, for whatever reason, didn't come clean about the fathers of their children.
Thanks to Henry for the heads-up.
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Florida Man Battling Paternity Fraud; True Dad Still in the Dark
December 27, 2009
This paternity fraud case tells us a bit about Florida law that's worth knowing (Herald Tribune, 12/20/09). It also reminds us about what a duped dad needs to do to establish his non-paternity.
Christopher Martin is a tile-setter in Sarasota, Florida. Some years ago, he had a brief relationship with a woman named Dannis Barrows. He broke it off, but at some point well after the end of their romance, they had sex again. (Sound suspicious? I'd love to know just how that came about.) A few months later, Barrows informed Martin she was pregnant with his child and, given that later sexual encounter, he figured she was telling the truth.
The Florida child support agency urged him to "acknowledge paternity," and, naive and trusting, he did so. But either Barrows spilled the beans in a fit of anger or Martin just started putting two and two together isn't clear. But whatever happened, Martin started wanting a DNA test. About that time, Barrows took the child to her native Colombia and left him with relatives. So Martin was paying child support, but with no way of ascertaining whether he was actually the dad or not.
Eventually, the boy, who was now a toddler, returned to Florida and that's when Barrows screwed up - twice. The first time, she got arrested for DUI with the little boy in the car, so the police turned him over to Maritn who was listed as his father. Martin swabbed the child's cheek and his own and sent them off to a private testing lab. Sure enough, the test showed he wasn't the father. So Martin stopped paying support.
The problem is that the test wasn't admissible in court. And that's a lesson for all the dads out there who doubt their paternity. Those private tests are fine for telling you if you're the dad or not, but there are a number of reasons why a court won't accept them as evidence. How does the court know the swab of "your" cheek is even yours? What about the swab of the child's cheek? How does it know that the chain of custody has been secure? So those private tests are great for letting you know the truth about paternity, but lousy for getting anything done about it if you're not the dad.
If you're not, it's up to you to get a court to order a test, done in such a way as to make the results admissible.
And that's what Christopher Martin faced. He couldn't get a court to order genetic testing to contest paternity. And that's where Barrows' second mistake came in handy. She got a second DUI, again with the little boy in the car. And that concerned the police and courts enough that they were contemplating giving custody to Martin. But Martin said "No, he's not my son." And then it was the state that was demanding a test. Of course, Martin cheerfully agreed. The test was done and of course, he's not the dad, and it's now a judicially-established fact.
So is Martin free of his support obligations? Nope. He's trying to get a court order vacating the previous acknowledgement of paternity and quashing the order of child support. And here's where we learn something about Florida law.Â
Apparently in Florida a duped man can do that in two ways. He can pay all his child support up to date and, with a DNA test proving he's not the dad, he's free of any further obligation. Martin however owes $30,000 in back support which he cannot pay. The second way to quash the paternity ruling is by a court finding that it was brought about by fraud, duress or mistake of material fact.
Hmm. That wouldn't seem to be too difficult, given that a mistake of material fact seems to be the least that's occurred. Fraud too. When we think of fraud, we think of a lie, an intentional misrepresentation of a fact that's important to whatever transaction is at issue. But fraud can also be based on the failure to disclose a material fact or the concealment of a material fact. Barrows' failure to tell Martin that, while he could be the father, there was at least one other guy who's a possibility as well, surely must qualify as the concealment or failure to disclose a material fact relating to Martin's paternity or lack thereof.
As is always true in these cases, there's another guy out there somewhere who's been deprived of his child for several years. And of course there's a little boy who, during his whole life, has had no contact with his father.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Genetic testing of children and fathers should be mandatory at birth. Otherwise, fathers will continue to be denied their children, children will be denied their fathers, men will be duped into thinking they're the father of children who aren't theirs, and states will expend money and time putting out the fires started by mothers who, for whatever reason, didn't come clean about the fathers of their children.
Thanks to Henry for the heads-up.
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DNA Springs Man From Prison After 30 Months Due to False Rape Claim
December 27, 2009
They learn early in the U.K.
In this case, a 15-year-old girl and her teenaged companion seem to have gone off on a drinking bender, so much so that she passed out in the middle of the street (BBC, 12/17/09). Unfortunately for him, Desmond Uttley was walking nearby and decided to help the girl. That was his mistake, but apparently one he won't make again.Â
To cover their drinking escapade, the two teenagers decided to accuse Uttley of rape, so they concocted a story of his tossing her over his shoulder, taking her to his flat and raping her. It's a bizarre story given that they apparently claimed he did all this with the girl's 14-year-old male companion present. But however odd the story and however unsupported by facts, it was enough to convict Uttley and sentence him to prison for six years for rape. He served two and a half years before "new" DNA evidence showed that, "if the girl had had sex, it was not with Uttley."
 Meanwhile, the false accuser is entitled to anonymity. She's also apparently entitled to be free of any punishment whatsoever for her false accusations and the pointless expenditure of time by police, prosecutors and at least two courts. I'm still unclear on British civil law relating to whether Uttley can sue her for her malicious accusation. Whether he can or can't, it's a certainty that he'll never get a farthing from her.Â
He also lost his marriage due to the non-incident.
 But at least Uttley is now a free man, albeit a more careful one.
Mr Uttley is looking forward to the future but admitted he would be reluctant to go to the aid of anyone in need.
He said: "If I saw someone in the middle of the street who had been beaten up, I know first aid but I don't think I would go over and help that man or woman because I'd be scared if I went to help them I'd be classed as party to that.
" I would have to walk past, whereas before I would help if I could."
In connection with seemingly every case of false rape accusations, we hear the claim made that an unintended consequence of punishing false rape accusers will be to deter real victims from reporting the crime.  If there's any actual evidence for the proposition, I haven't seen it, and, as Uttley's case and countless others suggest, police seem to err on the side of believing rape claimants rather than not.
But what Uttley said tells us that the failure to punish false allegations has unintended consequences as well.  Men like Uttley will be far less likely to play the Good Samaritan role out of concern that they'll be somehow tagged as a perpetrator of some crime. Indeed, several years ago exactly that happened in the U.K. A two-year-old girl wandered away from her mother's supervision, fell into and drowned in a small pond. A man said he saw her toddling around with no adult nearby, but refused to intervene because he feared charges of child molestation or kidnapping.Â
Tragic as that case was, who could blame him?Â
Thanks to Malcolm for the heads-up.
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