12/15/2021
A Harris County Family Court judge just declared this morning that a father who testified that his sole proprietorship trucking business grossed $110,000 last year and that he had just returned from a week-long vacation wherein he took two teenage children to Atlanta, Washington DC and New York City, that they got there by air travel and stayed in hotels, was indigent for the purposes of a hearing in which the mother of his child was asking the court to enforce it’s order to pay her child support. The same father also testified that he had recently spent some $800 for tickets to the Travis Scott concert.
This man is many thousands of dollars behind in paying child support to the single mother of his teenage son. He has already been found in contempt and sentenced to jail, but the judge suspended his sentence based on his compliance with the child support order going forward. That was two years ago, and the father has not complied at all. In fact, he is now further behind than he was when the judge sentenced him to jail in 2019.
My client works as a teacher and attends classes at night toward an advanced degree in hopes of bettering her son’s position and getting a higher-paying job in order to send her son to college. She paid me money from her savings to prosecute the father’s contemptuous acts; and now as a taxpayer (along with you and me), she is paying for her deadbeat ex-husband to hire an attorney because he chose to spend his money on leisurely activities instead of doing his share to provide for his son.
This is a perfect example of what I and other family lawyers like me have been going through with many of the judges currently seated on Harris County Family benches. The case I refer to above has been re-set three times by the court. These judges speak as though they carry big sticks, but when it comes time to use them, they will not do so. They have become public servants who will not serve our community.
Texas Child Support laws are not suggestions. They are mandated by the State Legislature for the Courts to uphold. The Texas Family Code lays out very specific penalties, including jail time and payment of attorney’s fees, for those who do not pay their child support obligations as ordered. Today, the judge’s actions were a clear signal to a father that this judge has the guy’s back, and the taxpayers are going to take care of him. The judge may as well have said “let the single mom be damned; it’s OK that she won’t be able to afford Christmas gifts for her son this year because she hasn’t received over $13,000 that the father owes her.”
Generally speaking, it has been my experience with the judges who took the bench in 2019 that they are hesitant to do what they need to do to make sure that children know both parents, that parents provide safe, stable, non-violent environments and that all parents have a financial stake in the raising of their children.
I urge you to read the results of the Houston Bar Association’s Judicial Evaluation; and vote in the primaries this Spring and the elections next November in accordance with what you are comfortable with. As an upstanding citizen, you are sadly more likely to come in contact with one of the family courts than the civil, juvenile or criminal courts, and so it is imperative that you know who you are voting for and why.
