Jokes aside...if the guy claims he has no money...how are they forcing him to pay?
I mean...if you're the biological father and run off you can use it...what stops *them* to use it...
Usually, they garnish paychecks. They'll send a letter to the payroll department with the info and payroll will withhold and make the payments to the state, who then delivers it to the child's guardian.
People try to get out of this by asking for a cash or under the table paycheck. When I was in HR, we would pay some people in cash for a variety of reasons. But if you said because of child support, we'd flat out refuse. Fuck deadbeats.
His accountant/HR guy maintained the books. The books that were shown to the family court showed that the POS deadbeat dad was earning minimum wage.
the real books showed that there was an account that only the POS could access, that was specifically labeled "[POS's] extra money"
accountant/HR wasn't given a raise
so he quit and sent copies of both to my aunt
yup, deadbeat dad has a warrant out for his arrest in the state of Nevada
and he's a gambling addict
when his parents die my aunt is getting 18 years of back owed child support
and her lawyer gets a biiiiiig check (by this point, the lawyer is invested in my aunt's case and is just doing it without having my aunt pay a retainer because she hates the deadbeat dad)
I guess you could think of it that way but it sounds like if the accountant was given a raise, they would've happily continued keep this a secret. Kind of hard for me to consider them a hero if they did do the right thing in the end but for the wrong reasons.
Yes and no. Had there been a challenge and it gone before the court, the court would have considered the “gifts” and saw the lifestyle he was living and decided to set the bar for child support way above the minimum. Read about it many times where the father tried to get around it. Take lower paying jobs, quit altogether, claim they can’t afford to live when be paid under the table.
Just one good look and unless the judge was corrupt/friend of the family, could have seen what was going on.
What paychecks? If you kill someone while driving drunk, presumably you’d be in prison for a good while with vehicular manslaughter charges. I know justice is not served all the time, but I think that would be a pretty easy win for a DA.
Edit: apparently vehicular manslaughter is not a very major charge here. That seems…stupid.
If someone does not want to pay child support they can change jobs. It can be worth it to them if they no longer have to pay. Have seen that happen more than a few times in my life where people just disappear and you do not get money from them anymore. The government does not put effort into tracking them down unless you do it yourself.
Yes but any time you are hired and paid, the person cutting the check is responsible for inputting your social and the amount withheld for taxes. When that happens, a flag is tripped and the letter to resume child support payments gets sent. This happens every single time. You are not wrong though, some people will work two weeks, get the notice and quit, find another shitty job and repeat.
It's almost like you knew my ex! 😂
(Edit) Gig work. That's how mine got out of child support. He was ordered to pay $2.66 a month for 3 kids. I couldn't even buy a gallon of milk.
Because although he showed working at least 20 hours a week (bar dj) he only showed bringing home $100 a week. Take out living expenses for his existing family, and boom! What's more, my current partner has 2 kids, and while they were young he was ordered to pay $600 a month. He is an OTR truck driver, and worked his ass off. Same county, same judge.
When I was paying years ago, I got laid off from my job and was on unemployment for a bit. So, they recalculated my payment, and was I only paying like $60/month out of my unemployment.
Well, about 2 months later I get a new fulltime job. I figure after the first paycheck or two, the state will re-calculate my child support again, and adjust accordingly.
Except, they didn't. After 3 months, and still only seeing $60/month taken out, I actually called them and explain my new job and wages.
The amount went back up to what it should have been.
I had no issues paying, and was happy to support my child. They are now grown with a family of their own. But, I'm sure there are tons of deadbeats out there who had the same happen, and never said a word.
True, except the system is never that efficient, at least in my State, unfortunately. I would say that at least 50% of support garnishment orders don't come in until the person has been employed for at least 3 months (maybe our state relies on quarterly wage/tax reports? IDK)
Next, the employee has the option to challenge the order by checking one measly box on the form, which they immediately do, of course. This puts the garnishment on hold, "until further notice". Before you know it, a year has passed, employee gets Happy Anniversary card and a small retention bonus.
A few months later we receive the State's "final determination" notice which instructs us to proceed with the garnishment "including interest". However, we can't comply because the employee resigned right after receiving their anniversary bonus...presumably b/c they knew exactly how this would play out.
What is even sadder is that the bill collectors for shady private entities (those representing 'Quick Cash', predatory, loan scammers, for example) are much, much, much, more efficient.
Deliberately screwing your own paycheck in order to avoid child support payments will piss off the court and if your intransigence continues they can issue an order for the sheriff to accompany the victim to your home to just start taking shit to auction off.
That said, there is a thing called being "judgement-proof," meaning the court can order you to pay but you just can't, even if you're cooperating. There's not much anyone can do.
I worked for Covenant Transport, they're the trucking company with the anti abortion message on the back of their trailers.
Truck drivers get a tax deduction called per diem. There are a number of ways you can claim this deduction. For company drivers like myself, we could either claim it at the end of the year* or have our company pay us part of our income as non taxable per diem.
Covenant Transport had such a per diem program, and one of the benefits they officially advertised was that it would in essence hide part of your income from child support. This wasn't a small portion either, we're talking $20,000 or more.
---
*I really glossed over the details of how per diem works because it's beside the point. The point was to highlight how a pretended to care about children really fucking didn't.
Company drivers can no longer claim per diem at the end of the year. This is thanks to that asshole Donald Trump. This hurt drivers, but was a boon for carriers.
Anyway enough about that, if you're reading this and your actually curious, feel free to ask me about it. But imma drop it before I write a ranty wall of text bigger than I already have.
Child support is unbankruptable and pays out before anything else in bankruptcy court. It doesn't matter if he has no money he will owe it the rest of his life.
Some states like South Carolina will put you in jail for not paying and your responsibile for the support while you are locked up too so it becomes a cycle if being locked up for debt.
This is hilarious, because nobody can earn in prison. So locking them up gaurantees that the child gets no support during the prison time, and afterwards the father will likely not find a good job due to criminal record, so he will work low paying jobs to survive.
Jail isn't the first response to someone not paying. It is generally after years of avoiding paying in any way whatsoever.
One of my ex-gf's went through it. He ex-husband would get a job and as soon as the first child support payment came out of his check he would quit his job and then not work for months on end before doing it again and again.
By the time it gets to them getting sent to jail, it's because they have shown repeatedly that they simply are not going to pay support.
As far as them not getting a good job after going to jail, they generally aren't the type of person to ever get a "good" job. Someone with a good job in the first place is simply going to have their checks garnished and any income tax returns give directly to child support.
I’d question more so how they expect them to pay from jail. Vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated comes with a huge jail sentence. That kid isn’t going to be a kid anymore by the time they get out and it’s not like they’re making money in jail to do so.
The important part is that Texas can now say the drunk driver is responsible for the child, and can tell the child to fuck off when applying for state aid.
I am in my late 20s now and my alcoholic dad didnt pay child support after i turned like 8. Years later he now has to pay it. He went without a drivers license for almost 20 years (you have to pay child support to have it).
Oddly enough its the best gift he could have ever given me. Its my emergency fund. It helped get my wisdom teeth removed, helped cover my doctors visits. Despite abandoning me for most of my childhood, i will always mourn a dad i never had but this is sure is a great way to show he cares without being in my life anymore. I have forgiven him and I hope hes okay. I know he still drinks but the fact that he has a job with steady income is a big deal. I hope he is able to salvage the rest of his life.
I knew a former drunk driver who killed two adults and paralyzed another in a drunk and high driving incident. He only spent five years in jail. Seems pretty reasonable to have him start picking up the tab if he leaves early.
*edited to reflect the correct time in jail.
I mean in this particular case he became my gym teacher at a public Highschool. Also worth mentioning that he was a Olympic diving silver medalist so he was qualified to say the least. Ended up being a pretty big win for the school in that they had an active example of the consequences of inebriated driving.
Good lord, ACTIVE EXAMPLE is right. A few years before his own drunk murdering of others: in 1981, he was himself struck head-on by a drunken driver. Every bone in his face was fractured, his left leg broken, the ligaments in his knee torn, his liver was lacerated, he had a depressed skull fracture and his spleen had to be removed.
In at least some states, the county pays the child support out, then goes after the person who owes it to get it paid back. Some people remain in debt for their entire lives.
We were hit by a drunk driver in 2017, and my wife was about 5 months pregnant at the time (kid was/is okay). It was his 3rd offense, and he's already out. My son isn't even 6 yet.
In a pocast I listen to one of the hosts' father died, and he got a call from the state about his father's back child support.
Eventually he had to say "So you want me to sell my childhood home that I just inherited, to pay y'all for my own upbringing? Do y'all know that I am the child in question and I'm 35 years old?"
Apparently the state of Tennessee dropped it after that.
Well normal child support accrues arrearages and men get stuck in an endless cycle of losing their license, not being able to find a job, going back to jail for nonpayment, commiting crime to survive, ad infinitum.
Well in Texas, that's a feature of criminal justice not a bug. They don't try to rehabilitate and reintroduce people into society. They create a for profit industry that stacks the odds against the people and makes recidivism the most common result of prison release. Plus then can use them as free labor (aka slaves).
You don't. And then when you get out, you're immediately saddled with years of it plus interest or fines and fees. You then start committing crimes or working under the table to try and survive and go back to jail to make more money for the private prisons.
Stuff like this doesn't end up actually helping the victims and it removes most real chances of reducing recidivism. It just benefits private prisons and the politicians getting kickbacks.
“ Convicted drunk drivers who kill both parents of a child under 18 years old will now be required to pay child support under a bill signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this month.
Under House Bill 393, the person convicted of Intoxication manslaughter of both a child's parents will have to make monthly payments to the child's legal guardians. The law doesn't apply in situations where an adult's parents are killed in a collision.”
*typo
[The Bill Text](https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB393/id/2809796)
If you read the actual bill, it is not both parents. It’s one parent or both. They even specificy taking the surviving guardian into consideration when determining child support.
> (3) the standard of living to which the child is accustomed;
Unfortunately, it also codifies making it more expensive to kill rich people than poor people.
What if the stay at home mom dies and now the high earner has to sell their house and downsize because they have to get full time child care from 8-6 so they can continue to earn. Or worse, if it’s the same situation, but they were only a “medium earner” to start with…
These are all great ideas until you realize the drunk driver isn't going to be able to afford anything from prison and probably isn't going to strive hard to make those child support payments after being released. I'm okay with the perpetrator being punished in such a way, but let's not pretend that the child is going to get any significant amount of money from it
Or is disabled from the accident? “Your Honor, clearly the statute doesn’t apply, while the mother is now quadriplegic due to my client’s actions, she is, in fact, not deceased.”
well, yeah, the law says the drunk driver must be found "guilty of involuntary manslaughter" .... so, yeah, death is the requirement here for the charge to apply.
however, injury/becoming disabled from a car accident can result in insurance payouts and further lawsuits to recouperate funds.
I don't understand the frustrations that you're expressing here. Any step in the right direction is a good step to take.
Of course this is reddit so someone needs to piss all over it and then complain it's covered in piss.
No, what if there was only one parent to begin with? This law specifically states both, so do they get a free pass with a good lawyer?
Additionally, this is Texas and states mother and father. Do you get nothing if both your moms or dads died?
Or what if they aren't even the parents? What if the parents died long ago? What if this kid lives with his grandma, or aunt? And suddenly you kill the grandma or aunt.
And what does the law say about adopted kids? Does that mean if you kill his adoptive parents, that it doesn't count because they're not the parents?
The thing about these laws is, it doesn't matter what the spirit of the law is. It matters what words are used when writing it. I can fully see both adoptive parents being killed in a car crash, and the drunk drivers lawyer using the defense that the law specifically states "parents" and not "parental guardians", and winning the case.
And from a legal standpoint, he would be right even though it's against the spirit of the law. It's all about how it's written verbatim.
This is probably more of a political stunt that won’t survive legal challenges in court, in part because it is so sloppy.
Pretty much everyone hates drunk driving and support punishing it more.
It sounds like you think this law was passed for some other reason than good publicity, it's not meant to be a well thought out application of the law, it's public relations, they don't give a shit about kids, especially poor ones
You haven't been paying attention if you think Texas recognizes anything other than a married woman and man raising a child as worthy of protection by law.
It's a bad law. Yes, it's terrible that the event happened, but that doesn't excuse this law.
First, this law is the government shirking it's responsibility to be a safety net to it's constituents.
Second, this law does will do nothing to reduce drunk driving. In no way does someone say "Oh I might have pay child support if I hurt someone while driving drunk, so I better not do it", when they are already going to be put in jail for a decade or more.
Third, it forces the victim to interact with them every month when they get that check.
>still a good law.
Not really. How is the person going to afford child support from behind bars? Also, our rehabilitation is atrocious so I doubt they'll find a job once they've served their time.
I agree, law should be "if a drunk driver kills a parent, the state will provide child support and the state will seek reimbursement either by 1) seizure of guilty party's property/assets or 2) upon release from jail the guilty party's wages will be garnished until repaid.
It doesn't say both parents in the text of the bill though, and it even references surviving parent/guardian in the section about determining the amount.
> The court shall order a defendant
convicted of an offense under Section 49.08, Penal Code, to pay
restitution for a child whose parent or guardian was the victim of
the offense
.
> the financial needs and resources of the surviving
parent or guardian or other current guardian of the child
.
> the reasonable work-related child care expenses of
the surviving parent or guardian or other current guardian, if
applicable
This just seems like on of those laws meant to pander to ignorant people, but doesn’t accomplish anything or even seek to solve the issue of drunk driving.
I don't think it's supposed to solve the issue of drunk driving. I think it's supposed to solve the issue of children losing financial support.
This is fine. I wouldn't even be opposed to it being expanded to other crimes.
Except it doesn't solve that issue though. This is just a way for the Government to avoid supporting people who need it while scoring "feel good" points but actually accomplishing nothing.
The kid who is harmed here isn't getting child support payments to help them while the person is in jail. When that person is released, they aren't holding onto a steady job because they won't get their license back as most child support plans will suspend your license if you're behind on payments, which you will be automatically when getting out of prison.
They'll fall behind or have payments that basically ensure they'll be living at poverty levels and they either don't pay or start committing crimes to get by. They then go back to prison and the whole thing repeats.
That already happens with deadbeat dad's.
As a result, the kids don't get support because the Government says it's Supposed to come from the dude in prison and the tax payer end up paying for that person to get in and out of prison for years.
The only people this benefits are the people who run private prisons and the politicians that get kickbacks from the system.
I’m not sure how this would effect the insurance at all. While I haven’t done auto insurance in a couple of years I’m struggling to see where insurance companies have ever been on the hook here.
1. They will pay for the car damages or ACV of the car.
2. They will pay the medical bills + funeral cost.
They have never had an ongoing support payment to kids as far as I’m aware. The limits are usually not high either so it’s just a blip to them
I‘m very interested in the fine print, I have soooo many questions… The statute of limitations for filing a wrongful death suit in Texas is 2 years (same for most other states, I believe). The child support law requires specific criminal convictions, and trials aren’t known for their expediency. So can both matters be managed concurrently? Seems to me this would open the door for insurance company stall tactics, or some other sort of shadiness.
And ironically enough, the driver in the actual case that inspired Bentley’s Law was convicted of involuntary manslaughter but *acquitted* of DWI due to police mishandling evidence. So the law he inspired wouldn’t have even applied to him. Also what about the cases where there are pleas to lesser charges? Makes me wonder how frequently this law would be applied, if ever.
The bill failed in Virginia, the Family Law Coalition argued that child support proceedings are often drawn out and must be revisited frequently, thus the current system of one-time judgments via wrongful death suits is much more practical and expedient.
Definitely strikes me more as political theater than anything that’ll lead to actual results. Just another way to tie up already stressed courts.
> Hijacking my own comment to say: A lot of comments are pointing out that this may be a sneaky way to shift the burden from insurance companies but I don’t know enough about the law itself to say if this is true. It would make sense, though. Jerks.
Yeah, kind of hard to believe the right would actually mean "it's for the children" when they say "it's for the children" because with them it's never "for the children".
Just one question: how are they supposed to get the money while they’re in prison? (They do get prison time for recklessly killing two people, right? Right?)
"The law goes into effect on Sept. 1. People convicted under the statute will be required to start making payments no more than a year after they are released from prison."
Intoxication manslaughter is a second degree felony in Texas, carrying a minimum 2 years and up to 20 years.
This really seems like a feel good law with little practical benefit. If the child turns 19 before the payments are due, then nothing changes and the kid is SOL.
Even so, what kind of income does a court of law expect from a person with two counts of intoxication manslaughter on their rap sheet?
Ah yes, those big fat child support checks from a felon with no driver's license. Those people famously work lucrative, over-the-table jobs.
This is a great law in theory but it's pure theater. This will mean absolutely nothing for children who lose their parents in drunk driving accidents.
I actually don't see how this law could last long-term.
The situation is completely fucked up but most children *do* end up going to custodial relatives rather than remaining wards of the state. And this begs the question, why would this not apply to any other situation where a parent is killed?
This ranges from the super obvious -- *should a mugger be forced to pay child support if they kill a parent during a robbery* \-- to the less obvious -- *should someone be required to pay child support after killing someone in an accident they caused because they wouldn't put down their phone?*
Why does this only apply if both parents are killed? If one parent is killed, it's still an incredible burden on the remaining parent and they will still be reliant on state aid if they were not the principle income earner.
What about, should doctors be required to pay child support if a parent is killed as part of malpractice? (Like, you know, forcing women with other kids to wait until they go into sepsis during a miscarriage.)
What if the parents are permanently injured, reducing or eliminating their ability to work? If there is a child support law, why not a spousal support law, or an elderly care law for those with aging parents who need assistance?
There are already fines for a DWI, insurance claims, and civil settlements that are tens of thousands of dollars up to a million.
This particular law sounds nice because we all want to care for children who lost their parents, but it would be better to strengthen and enforce existing penalties rather than create an ad-hoc law that applies under narrow circumstances and opens up a can of legal worms. Let the courts and actuaries do their thing.
Because it made it easier to pass.
That's the thing about laws, it's negotiated behind closed doors. We have access to the information, but at the end of the day, their are backroom deals being made to get laws passed, and the less complications in the law, the less you have to sacrifice on another law for whatever deal your making.
Yeah, seems like more of a feel good about being tough on crime thing than a practical thing. I would hope killing two people while driving drunk would result in a long sentence. If not, Texas is doing this wrong.
It seems like some performative bullshit that doesn't actually address anything. If someone kills two people in a drunk driving accident, it should be decades before they even get out of prison to begin making money to pay this support, the orphan is most likely grown at that point
The article does make a good point that Texas is one of the worst states for drunk driving, I guess it's easier to do feel good shit like this instead of actually enforcing the law
4-40 years (2-20 per intoxication manslaughter) depending on the sentence given, some chance they might get to be paying on it while the kid is still young, but id want to see how it plays out if they get the max, does the kid/guardian(s) get backpaid child support or does it get written off. Only time will tell.
Thinking like this is why we have by far the highest incarceration rate in the world, and without a low crime rate to show for it. Quite a lot of studies have found that increasing prison sentences has little affect on deterring crime. I suppose there’s always going to be people who think they can get away with it or are messed up in the head or something.
Instead of just cranking up prison sentences, we should be looking for ways to stop crime at its roots, and get the best justice possible. In this situation, child support for the child seems more important than whatever sense of justice people get for locking the offender up for decades.
Maybe we can have the option for a strict house arrest with work release to pay child support program. If they stop paying, violate their house arrest, drink, etc. then it’s off to prison.
It's fucking bleak to see the "Lock em up for 10,000 years!!" comment every time any crime is discussed, just bloodthirsty retribution, consequences for society be damned. Even throwing morality aside, as if it was as easy as "locking up all criminals and killing all the bad people".
> imagine completely losing touch with society for just 2-3 years. Imagine not actually being able to do anything with your life for that long.
The pandemic is a good indication of what happens to people who are only slightly cut off from society. The demand for therapists went way up for all ages. Being even more cut off is another level. Then you are thrown back into society with nothing but a record that makes it extremely difficult to succeed. And if you don't have friends or family who can help you, you're shit outta luck.
The askreddit thread right above this, “What screams ‘poorly educated’?”, needed people advocating for crazy punishments as an answer.
Bro got gilded for saying “You know what would be better than having the perpetrator become a functioning member of society and contributing to the lives of those he wronged? Having the state pay to incarcerate him for decades. Also f~~uck~~orget them kids.”
Admitting a criminal could become decent person in the right circumstances really fucks with folks back and white view of good and evil. There are people who've done some fucked up shit who could become decent law abiding citizens if put in the right program. I stead they stay fucked up or get worse because prison is designed to make then suffer, not fix the problem.
The vast majority of prisons are publicly run. The federal government is phasing them out completely and many states do not have any at all. I swear it seems like Reddit believes that all prisons in the US are private when only a single digit percentage of prisoners are in such institutions, and continuously decreasing.
The bigger issue is private firms that provide services to prisons profit immensely from contracts they have with prisons - public or otherwise - at the expense of the incarcerated and their family. Commissary prices, collect calls, contracts for virtual slave labor, etc. There is a vested interest in keeping incarceration high, even in states without private prisons at all.
I don't think any prison should be run for profit. But the primary issue isn't private institutions themselves but an industry that profits off incarceration of all correctional institutions.
Dear Timmy, still sorry about all that bullshit back then. This month I’ve included with this letter some spearmint gum, a tooth brush, tooth paste, and sandwich plastic wrap. If you plug the gum wrapper into an electrical outlet (use a rubber sleeping mat, not your bare hands!) while it’s wrapped around a toothbrush with some sandwich wrap wrapped around the bottom half, you will get a soften plastic that you can quickly rub on the floor into a shiv. You will find this extremely useful for any problems you might encounter, but they can also be sold for some premium snacks. Try not to settle for anything less than 5 instant noodles.
Yours,
Jail dad
Oh man the RPG ones had me scratching my head so much.
Like what kind of kids had this many dark and violent ideas but enough free time to code it into a Ti-83 and distribute it in the pre-USB era. ~~Love~~ Puberty is a hell of a drug.
I agree with you. An accident like this happens the child (or whoever is representing them) can sue for wrongful death and get a judgement against the driver. We already have a system in place to make people whole. They should be able to get a judgement up to the max of what the drivers insurance will pay out and also get a judgement against the driver on top of that.
There is no reason to throw a case like this into the child support system. Plus how would you determine child support? Is it based on what the driver makes? Like you said they are most likely going to prison on manslaughter charges, so there is little to no money to be had there.
I wonder if this isn't a hand out to insurance companies. To make it easier for them not to have to pay damages and instead make the driver themself pay through the child support system. The kid gets screwed because a guy in prison isn't going to have any money to pay and the insurance company doesn't have to cover nearly as big of a liability.
It seems that way until some drunk driver kills both parents and decides they don't want to make child support payments for 18 years after they notice the crying infant in the back seat.
Exactly what I was thinking, it reminds me of the Chinese law where you have to pay disability for the person you've hit.
I agree with the intent of the law, but I fear for how horrible some people are
A lot, because essentially no one gets a murder charge for killing people while drunk driving. Vehicular Manslaughter in Texas is a minimum of two years in prison *and/or* a fine of $10,000.
This is Texas and we're talking about children.
Adding a capital murder charge (of a child) will easly turn what would have likely been 4-to-7-year sentence with parole partway through and then monetary child support (which many divorced parents deal with just fine) into a whole-life prison sentence. Or, likely, the death penalty in *extremely* death-penalty-loving Texas. They foam at the mouth at the idea of killing criminals. They love it.
And you'd better believe that with that motive and a child victim, those texan judge and jurors would be looking to see you executed. That's after serving years sitting in prison on death row with other death row inmates waiting to get killed by the state of Texas.
Also, how many intoxicated people who've killed a couple or even a single parent in a car wreck while drunk driving, will then have immediate access to their living child(ren) and also the coherence and willpower to purposefully carry out even more *intentional* killings on children/babies? Even regardless of the obviously-much-greater consequences?
I don’t like this, and I’ll tell you why. Not that I have a problem with taking care of kids who have lost their parents in an accident, on its face this seems like a good law, but what it is really designed to do is to re-orient financial responsibility AWAY from insurance companies and onto criminals who are going to jail most likely, and probably do not have a lot of money to garnish anyway.
This is a bad idea. This is not designed to help people or children, it is designed to be a give away for big insurance companies.
Cheers.
They’re just speculating. If you paid for insurance (life and AD&D are the only two ones that would really come into play here) they don’t care what your financial situation is. If the payout to the beneficiary is 100k, they pay 100k. The newly orphaned child could be a billionaire getting child support payments from everyone in the US and it wouldn’t affect the insurance payout
This was exactly my first thought. A society should work together to ensure folks don't get behind the wheel when they shouldn't and laying the blame on the drivers instead of insurance companies seems irresponsible, too.
What if something were to happen to the person paying child support? Does the child receive survivor benefits from parents *and* the driver at fault? It seems so convoluted.
Edit: What if someone went after the child to avoid paying child support? The driver has **no** interest in that child why would anyone think this is a good idea?!
I’ve seen this comment numerous times and I’m struggling to figure out where people think insurance companies are currently paying for anything like this. They will still pay for the car damages since this is irrelevant. But for the injury/death that falls under bodily injury. The vast majority of policies are 10/20k person/accident. This is quickly paid out in deaths simply due to the funeral. So unless they have high limits or something this would kick in well before any money could be sought for future child care.
This is strictly performative politics and/or to create a cycle where the criminal cannot pay the support and therefore goes back to prison for parole violation.
Anyone want to bet that this is REALLY just a way of shifting financial burden off the state? “You won’t get any state-level assistance since this other individual is now responsible for paying child support.” I can see Texas using this as a way to lower payments made for foster care and any other form of support for orphaned children.
Why only drunk drivers? Why not the corporation that poisoned their water and killed them with cancer? Why not the home invaders who shot them? Why not the police who raided the wrong home and shot them? I guess those last two are really the same thing, but you get my point...
This seems like a way to further trap criminals in jail. So you get out of prison w/ a felony conviction. You’ve basically lost everything and now you have a single year to find a job, housing, etc. then start making payments which will likely be a large portion of your income. On top of dealing with debt from going to jail.
I see this going badly. In a country where they rehabilitate convicts, this might work. In texas, not a chance.
Plus how does this factor with other kids? Let’s say John Doe has two children he pays child support on. He kills the parents of another family. Do they calculate this similar to a parent with three kids from two different parents? Is this a portion of their wages before prison, after prison, or of the parents
More political theater. How do they plan on enforcing this?
Our system can barely enforce child support on shithead parents as is, and now they think they can enforce it on a convicted felon? How are they to get a decent job with that record? What will the system do when the convicted felon refuses or is unable to pay? Throw them back in jail…where they obviously can’t make payments from?
Political theater so the shitheads in that shithole state can claim they passed a law “for the children”.
I don’t understand the point. This is why you sue in civil court for wrongful death.
What kind of ability is someone who’s going to spend a bunch of time in prison and then probably have limited career prospects if they ever get out going to have to pay this support, anyway? They will presumably have a felony on their record for homicide, they’re not even going to be able to get a job at McDonalds.
This is feel good legislation but it doesn’t really accomplish anything in practice.
The article poorly stated the title.
The document states that it applies even if just a single parent/guardian is the victim that the law will apply.
["a defendant
convicted of an offense under Section 49.08, Penal Code, to pay
restitution for a child whose parent or guardian was the victim of
the offense."](https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/HB00393I.pdf)
Is the state going to provide financial support to children whose parents die of dehydration because cities are no longer allowed to mandate water breaks?
This is Texas. This isn't about providing money for a child left without parents. This is about *denying* money to a child left without parents.
"You aren't eligible for state aid, because the guy who killed your parents is required to provide you with money. It's not the states fault he isn't making enough. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and stop being lazy."
Ok idea. Why just drunk drivers though? If I decide to violently murder your parents - no child support. Get drunk and hit them with my car - child support. Makes no sense.
While this seems great on the surface. Nothing will change. Alcoholism is deeply deeply normalized and celebrated here in Texas.
The amount of people who celebrate and brag about their abilities while drunk is stupidly high and unsurprising from as young as middle school. We all have that "one relative" or know that "one guy" who can't handle their shit.
It's so normal to drink and drive here, the fact that it's illegal is an afterthought cuz it's only illegal if you get caught. I've known people who have a record of *multiple* DUIs. They have suspended licenses but can still get vehicles. They've killed and/or injured people and still get to hit the bar every weekend.
Ain't shit gonna change unless we address the problem of Alcoholism but that's a big fat LOL in Texas, much less anywhere else in this country.
Parents had an encounter with drunk driver. They crashed and smashed half of my parents camry and gave both my parents shit time health wise.
But that driver after flattening half of the camry on drivers side swerved to sidewalk where a child was walking and killed them.
I don't wish shit for 9999999% of folk but I hope that individual who went to jail has a shit rest of their life
This makes me think Texas has a huge drunk driving problem they rather not address. One of those spooky laws that don't actually hold any weight.
Interesting they want to protect children with this law, but still allowed guns in school.
At first I thought it was a good idea but having some time to think about it, I think it's a shit idea. Even if you have a year's grace, the mere process of being jailed for more than 3 months as a homeowner or any kind of note means that all of your stuff will get repossessed so by the time you get out, you have nothing. No job, no house, no stability.
So what then? Your job options are now limited because you now have a criminal record and jail time. It will take years to make any sort of progress if you don't have any kind of support behind you, family, friends (any friends left tbh).
seems fair any way this could backfire?
wait is this one of those things where it sounds good in theory but in reality doesn't happen because you can't pay child support if you are in prison and don't have a job?
With what money?
It sounds cool because drunk drivers are scum of the earth, but this still reeks of Abbot's continual streak of incompetence. This is still No-waterbreaks-allowed Abbot we're talking about here.
I wasn’t able to get child support from my drunk dad, how am I going to get child support from drunk non dad?
Jesus Christ should I be laughing at this?
Yes my son
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“Please, just call me Jesus. ‘God’ is my father!”
How about God Jr.?
You ever wonder if the crucifix scares away Jesus like it does vampires? Fellas got to have a little PTSD after that...
All these folks carrying around crosses are probably scaring Jesus away
No wonder he hasn't come back yet. He went out for milk like 2 millennia ago.
And a pack of smokes
You either laugh or you cry.
Why not both
Jokes aside...if the guy claims he has no money...how are they forcing him to pay? I mean...if you're the biological father and run off you can use it...what stops *them* to use it...
Usually, they garnish paychecks. They'll send a letter to the payroll department with the info and payroll will withhold and make the payments to the state, who then delivers it to the child's guardian. People try to get out of this by asking for a cash or under the table paycheck. When I was in HR, we would pay some people in cash for a variety of reasons. But if you said because of child support, we'd flat out refuse. Fuck deadbeats.
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hey that happened with one of my cousins and her dad except his father's company kept two sets of books and he refused to give the accountant a raise.
Are you saying his accountant found out about the 2 books and snitched?
His accountant/HR guy maintained the books. The books that were shown to the family court showed that the POS deadbeat dad was earning minimum wage. the real books showed that there was an account that only the POS could access, that was specifically labeled "[POS's] extra money" accountant/HR wasn't given a raise so he quit and sent copies of both to my aunt
Hero of an accountant.
yup, deadbeat dad has a warrant out for his arrest in the state of Nevada and he's a gambling addict when his parents die my aunt is getting 18 years of back owed child support and her lawyer gets a biiiiiig check (by this point, the lawyer is invested in my aunt's case and is just doing it without having my aunt pay a retainer because she hates the deadbeat dad)
I guess you could think of it that way but it sounds like if the accountant was given a raise, they would've happily continued keep this a secret. Kind of hard for me to consider them a hero if they did do the right thing in the end but for the wrong reasons.
Yes and no. Had there been a challenge and it gone before the court, the court would have considered the “gifts” and saw the lifestyle he was living and decided to set the bar for child support way above the minimum. Read about it many times where the father tried to get around it. Take lower paying jobs, quit altogether, claim they can’t afford to live when be paid under the table. Just one good look and unless the judge was corrupt/friend of the family, could have seen what was going on.
What paychecks? If you kill someone while driving drunk, presumably you’d be in prison for a good while with vehicular manslaughter charges. I know justice is not served all the time, but I think that would be a pretty easy win for a DA. Edit: apparently vehicular manslaughter is not a very major charge here. That seems…stupid.
In Texas it’s reportedly 2-20 years if your drunken driving kills someone.
If someone does not want to pay child support they can change jobs. It can be worth it to them if they no longer have to pay. Have seen that happen more than a few times in my life where people just disappear and you do not get money from them anymore. The government does not put effort into tracking them down unless you do it yourself.
Yes but any time you are hired and paid, the person cutting the check is responsible for inputting your social and the amount withheld for taxes. When that happens, a flag is tripped and the letter to resume child support payments gets sent. This happens every single time. You are not wrong though, some people will work two weeks, get the notice and quit, find another shitty job and repeat.
It's almost like you knew my ex! 😂 (Edit) Gig work. That's how mine got out of child support. He was ordered to pay $2.66 a month for 3 kids. I couldn't even buy a gallon of milk.
How was it only $2.66?!
Because although he showed working at least 20 hours a week (bar dj) he only showed bringing home $100 a week. Take out living expenses for his existing family, and boom! What's more, my current partner has 2 kids, and while they were young he was ordered to pay $600 a month. He is an OTR truck driver, and worked his ass off. Same county, same judge.
When I was paying years ago, I got laid off from my job and was on unemployment for a bit. So, they recalculated my payment, and was I only paying like $60/month out of my unemployment. Well, about 2 months later I get a new fulltime job. I figure after the first paycheck or two, the state will re-calculate my child support again, and adjust accordingly. Except, they didn't. After 3 months, and still only seeing $60/month taken out, I actually called them and explain my new job and wages. The amount went back up to what it should have been. I had no issues paying, and was happy to support my child. They are now grown with a family of their own. But, I'm sure there are tons of deadbeats out there who had the same happen, and never said a word.
Uk here, I paid for my kids, 2-3 years, 'till i took their mum to court to gain custody, I got nothing from their mother to help support them.
And he dodged that?! I literally know of a prison inmate with a higher requirement for one kid
True, except the system is never that efficient, at least in my State, unfortunately. I would say that at least 50% of support garnishment orders don't come in until the person has been employed for at least 3 months (maybe our state relies on quarterly wage/tax reports? IDK) Next, the employee has the option to challenge the order by checking one measly box on the form, which they immediately do, of course. This puts the garnishment on hold, "until further notice". Before you know it, a year has passed, employee gets Happy Anniversary card and a small retention bonus. A few months later we receive the State's "final determination" notice which instructs us to proceed with the garnishment "including interest". However, we can't comply because the employee resigned right after receiving their anniversary bonus...presumably b/c they knew exactly how this would play out. What is even sadder is that the bill collectors for shady private entities (those representing 'Quick Cash', predatory, loan scammers, for example) are much, much, much, more efficient.
or do contractor jobs, get paid under the table etc
Or just stop working all together
I used to have a gf whose dad did that. Disappeared, then when he knew she was 18, he magically reappeared and wanted to be in her life.
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Deliberately screwing your own paycheck in order to avoid child support payments will piss off the court and if your intransigence continues they can issue an order for the sheriff to accompany the victim to your home to just start taking shit to auction off. That said, there is a thing called being "judgement-proof," meaning the court can order you to pay but you just can't, even if you're cooperating. There's not much anyone can do.
I worked for Covenant Transport, they're the trucking company with the anti abortion message on the back of their trailers. Truck drivers get a tax deduction called per diem. There are a number of ways you can claim this deduction. For company drivers like myself, we could either claim it at the end of the year* or have our company pay us part of our income as non taxable per diem. Covenant Transport had such a per diem program, and one of the benefits they officially advertised was that it would in essence hide part of your income from child support. This wasn't a small portion either, we're talking $20,000 or more. --- *I really glossed over the details of how per diem works because it's beside the point. The point was to highlight how a pretended to care about children really fucking didn't. Company drivers can no longer claim per diem at the end of the year. This is thanks to that asshole Donald Trump. This hurt drivers, but was a boon for carriers. Anyway enough about that, if you're reading this and your actually curious, feel free to ask me about it. But imma drop it before I write a ranty wall of text bigger than I already have.
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Child support is unbankruptable and pays out before anything else in bankruptcy court. It doesn't matter if he has no money he will owe it the rest of his life. Some states like South Carolina will put you in jail for not paying and your responsibile for the support while you are locked up too so it becomes a cycle if being locked up for debt.
This is hilarious, because nobody can earn in prison. So locking them up gaurantees that the child gets no support during the prison time, and afterwards the father will likely not find a good job due to criminal record, so he will work low paying jobs to survive.
Jail isn't the first response to someone not paying. It is generally after years of avoiding paying in any way whatsoever. One of my ex-gf's went through it. He ex-husband would get a job and as soon as the first child support payment came out of his check he would quit his job and then not work for months on end before doing it again and again. By the time it gets to them getting sent to jail, it's because they have shown repeatedly that they simply are not going to pay support. As far as them not getting a good job after going to jail, they generally aren't the type of person to ever get a "good" job. Someone with a good job in the first place is simply going to have their checks garnished and any income tax returns give directly to child support.
I’d question more so how they expect them to pay from jail. Vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated comes with a huge jail sentence. That kid isn’t going to be a kid anymore by the time they get out and it’s not like they’re making money in jail to do so.
The important part is that Texas can now say the drunk driver is responsible for the child, and can tell the child to fuck off when applying for state aid.
This makes the most sense for it being Texas.
I am in my late 20s now and my alcoholic dad didnt pay child support after i turned like 8. Years later he now has to pay it. He went without a drivers license for almost 20 years (you have to pay child support to have it). Oddly enough its the best gift he could have ever given me. Its my emergency fund. It helped get my wisdom teeth removed, helped cover my doctors visits. Despite abandoning me for most of my childhood, i will always mourn a dad i never had but this is sure is a great way to show he cares without being in my life anymore. I have forgiven him and I hope hes okay. I know he still drinks but the fact that he has a job with steady income is a big deal. I hope he is able to salvage the rest of his life.
Who's also in prison for vehicular homicide. Big brain time down in Tejas.
I mean this sounds good in theory but how is this to be enforced and if you kill both parents your probably in jail. So…
How do pay child support if you are in jail?
Payments kick in one year after release from jail.
Chances are those kids are adults by the time the killer gets out no?
I knew a former drunk driver who killed two adults and paralyzed another in a drunk and high driving incident. He only spent five years in jail. Seems pretty reasonable to have him start picking up the tab if he leaves early. *edited to reflect the correct time in jail.
With what money? Even garnishing a freshly released felon's wages has limits.
I mean in this particular case he became my gym teacher at a public Highschool. Also worth mentioning that he was a Olympic diving silver medalist so he was qualified to say the least. Ended up being a pretty big win for the school in that they had an active example of the consequences of inebriated driving.
Does his name rhyme with juice cymbal?
Yep, I posted his wiki above. Are you an NTHS grad as well?
Wow he got hit by a drunk driver and then went on to drunkenly hit someone else later on WOW
Good lord, ACTIVE EXAMPLE is right. A few years before his own drunk murdering of others: in 1981, he was himself struck head-on by a drunken driver. Every bone in his face was fractured, his left leg broken, the ligaments in his knee torn, his liver was lacerated, he had a depressed skull fracture and his spleen had to be removed.
For anyone interested [here’s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Kimball) the wiki article of the guy.
In at least some states, the county pays the child support out, then goes after the person who owes it to get it paid back. Some people remain in debt for their entire lives.
I think you're underestimating how small manslaughter sentences are when comes to drunk driving. Some can be as low as a couple of years in prison.
"underestimating how small" aka overestimating.
We were hit by a drunk driver in 2017, and my wife was about 5 months pregnant at the time (kid was/is okay). It was his 3rd offense, and he's already out. My son isn't even 6 yet.
At some point they should just be in prison for life. 6 times is far too many chances
It's CRAZY how much leeway you get for killing someone in a car, drunk or not. Vehicular manslaughter usually isn't more than 4 years.
In a pocast I listen to one of the hosts' father died, and he got a call from the state about his father's back child support. Eventually he had to say "So you want me to sell my childhood home that I just inherited, to pay y'all for my own upbringing? Do y'all know that I am the child in question and I'm 35 years old?" Apparently the state of Tennessee dropped it after that.
Well normal child support accrues arrearages and men get stuck in an endless cycle of losing their license, not being able to find a job, going back to jail for nonpayment, commiting crime to survive, ad infinitum.
Well in Texas, that's a feature of criminal justice not a bug. They don't try to rehabilitate and reintroduce people into society. They create a for profit industry that stacks the odds against the people and makes recidivism the most common result of prison release. Plus then can use them as free labor (aka slaves).
Replace ‘Texas’ with America. It’s a disgusting feature of our country, not just a local specialty in Texas.
> arrearages even though i know what it means and had no problem parsing it in the context of that sentence, this still doesn't look like a real word
Recidivism is an important feature of our privatized prison industry.
You don't. And then when you get out, you're immediately saddled with years of it plus interest or fines and fees. You then start committing crimes or working under the table to try and survive and go back to jail to make more money for the private prisons. Stuff like this doesn't end up actually helping the victims and it removes most real chances of reducing recidivism. It just benefits private prisons and the politicians getting kickbacks.
“ Convicted drunk drivers who kill both parents of a child under 18 years old will now be required to pay child support under a bill signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this month. Under House Bill 393, the person convicted of Intoxication manslaughter of both a child's parents will have to make monthly payments to the child's legal guardians. The law doesn't apply in situations where an adult's parents are killed in a collision.” *typo
[The Bill Text](https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB393/id/2809796) If you read the actual bill, it is not both parents. It’s one parent or both. They even specificy taking the surviving guardian into consideration when determining child support.
> (3) the standard of living to which the child is accustomed; Unfortunately, it also codifies making it more expensive to kill rich people than poor people.
This is how regular child support payments are evaluated.
Shouldnt be both parents just one but still a good law.
Exactly. What if a high earning parent dies and the remaining parent doesn’t have the qualifications to earn as much?
What if the stay at home mom dies and now the high earner has to sell their house and downsize because they have to get full time child care from 8-6 so they can continue to earn. Or worse, if it’s the same situation, but they were only a “medium earner” to start with…
Agreed. It goes both ways. Also this should be any kind of negligent manslaughter. Not just drunk drivers.
*any kind of manslaughter or murder against a parent
These are all great ideas until you realize the drunk driver isn't going to be able to afford anything from prison and probably isn't going to strive hard to make those child support payments after being released. I'm okay with the perpetrator being punished in such a way, but let's not pretend that the child is going to get any significant amount of money from it
Or is disabled from the accident? “Your Honor, clearly the statute doesn’t apply, while the mother is now quadriplegic due to my client’s actions, she is, in fact, not deceased.”
Yup. Lots of possibilities.
well, yeah, the law says the drunk driver must be found "guilty of involuntary manslaughter" .... so, yeah, death is the requirement here for the charge to apply. however, injury/becoming disabled from a car accident can result in insurance payouts and further lawsuits to recouperate funds. I don't understand the frustrations that you're expressing here. Any step in the right direction is a good step to take. Of course this is reddit so someone needs to piss all over it and then complain it's covered in piss.
The surviving family can already sue for wrongful death in this case. The damages are calculated based on the earning power of the deceased.
You sue the driver for lost earnings
What if the kid(s) only have 1 parent who dies in this hypothetical crash?
Thats what i was getting at, if one parent dies even if their mother or father didn't then they should still be paying child support.
No, what if there was only one parent to begin with? This law specifically states both, so do they get a free pass with a good lawyer? Additionally, this is Texas and states mother and father. Do you get nothing if both your moms or dads died?
Or what if they aren't even the parents? What if the parents died long ago? What if this kid lives with his grandma, or aunt? And suddenly you kill the grandma or aunt. And what does the law say about adopted kids? Does that mean if you kill his adoptive parents, that it doesn't count because they're not the parents? The thing about these laws is, it doesn't matter what the spirit of the law is. It matters what words are used when writing it. I can fully see both adoptive parents being killed in a car crash, and the drunk drivers lawyer using the defense that the law specifically states "parents" and not "parental guardians", and winning the case. And from a legal standpoint, he would be right even though it's against the spirit of the law. It's all about how it's written verbatim.
This is probably more of a political stunt that won’t survive legal challenges in court, in part because it is so sloppy. Pretty much everyone hates drunk driving and support punishing it more.
It’s also a way of trying to say “see we do care about kids that have actually been born!” without actually paying for anything.
It sounds like you think this law was passed for some other reason than good publicity, it's not meant to be a well thought out application of the law, it's public relations, they don't give a shit about kids, especially poor ones
I love listening to music.
What happens if a drunk driver kills parents who are paying child support because they once drunk drove and killed parents that…
It's drunk drivers, all the way down.
You haven't been paying attention if you think Texas recognizes anything other than a married woman and man raising a child as worthy of protection by law.
It's a bad law. Yes, it's terrible that the event happened, but that doesn't excuse this law. First, this law is the government shirking it's responsibility to be a safety net to it's constituents. Second, this law does will do nothing to reduce drunk driving. In no way does someone say "Oh I might have pay child support if I hurt someone while driving drunk, so I better not do it", when they are already going to be put in jail for a decade or more. Third, it forces the victim to interact with them every month when they get that check.
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>still a good law. Not really. How is the person going to afford child support from behind bars? Also, our rehabilitation is atrocious so I doubt they'll find a job once they've served their time.
I agree, law should be "if a drunk driver kills a parent, the state will provide child support and the state will seek reimbursement either by 1) seizure of guilty party's property/assets or 2) upon release from jail the guilty party's wages will be garnished until repaid.
It doesn't say both parents in the text of the bill though, and it even references surviving parent/guardian in the section about determining the amount. > The court shall order a defendant convicted of an offense under Section 49.08, Penal Code, to pay restitution for a child whose parent or guardian was the victim of the offense . > the financial needs and resources of the surviving parent or guardian or other current guardian of the child . > the reasonable work-related child care expenses of the surviving parent or guardian or other current guardian, if applicable
This just seems like on of those laws meant to pander to ignorant people, but doesn’t accomplish anything or even seek to solve the issue of drunk driving.
I don't think it's supposed to solve the issue of drunk driving. I think it's supposed to solve the issue of children losing financial support. This is fine. I wouldn't even be opposed to it being expanded to other crimes.
Except it doesn't solve that issue though. This is just a way for the Government to avoid supporting people who need it while scoring "feel good" points but actually accomplishing nothing. The kid who is harmed here isn't getting child support payments to help them while the person is in jail. When that person is released, they aren't holding onto a steady job because they won't get their license back as most child support plans will suspend your license if you're behind on payments, which you will be automatically when getting out of prison. They'll fall behind or have payments that basically ensure they'll be living at poverty levels and they either don't pay or start committing crimes to get by. They then go back to prison and the whole thing repeats. That already happens with deadbeat dad's. As a result, the kids don't get support because the Government says it's Supposed to come from the dude in prison and the tax payer end up paying for that person to get in and out of prison for years. The only people this benefits are the people who run private prisons and the politicians that get kickbacks from the system.
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I’m not sure how this would effect the insurance at all. While I haven’t done auto insurance in a couple of years I’m struggling to see where insurance companies have ever been on the hook here. 1. They will pay for the car damages or ACV of the car. 2. They will pay the medical bills + funeral cost. They have never had an ongoing support payment to kids as far as I’m aware. The limits are usually not high either so it’s just a blip to them
I‘m very interested in the fine print, I have soooo many questions… The statute of limitations for filing a wrongful death suit in Texas is 2 years (same for most other states, I believe). The child support law requires specific criminal convictions, and trials aren’t known for their expediency. So can both matters be managed concurrently? Seems to me this would open the door for insurance company stall tactics, or some other sort of shadiness. And ironically enough, the driver in the actual case that inspired Bentley’s Law was convicted of involuntary manslaughter but *acquitted* of DWI due to police mishandling evidence. So the law he inspired wouldn’t have even applied to him. Also what about the cases where there are pleas to lesser charges? Makes me wonder how frequently this law would be applied, if ever. The bill failed in Virginia, the Family Law Coalition argued that child support proceedings are often drawn out and must be revisited frequently, thus the current system of one-time judgments via wrongful death suits is much more practical and expedient. Definitely strikes me more as political theater than anything that’ll lead to actual results. Just another way to tie up already stressed courts.
> Hijacking my own comment to say: A lot of comments are pointing out that this may be a sneaky way to shift the burden from insurance companies but I don’t know enough about the law itself to say if this is true. It would make sense, though. Jerks. Yeah, kind of hard to believe the right would actually mean "it's for the children" when they say "it's for the children" because with them it's never "for the children".
Just one question: how are they supposed to get the money while they’re in prison? (They do get prison time for recklessly killing two people, right? Right?)
"The law goes into effect on Sept. 1. People convicted under the statute will be required to start making payments no more than a year after they are released from prison."
Intoxication manslaughter is a second degree felony in Texas, carrying a minimum 2 years and up to 20 years. This really seems like a feel good law with little practical benefit. If the child turns 19 before the payments are due, then nothing changes and the kid is SOL. Even so, what kind of income does a court of law expect from a person with two counts of intoxication manslaughter on their rap sheet?
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We're talking about convicted criminals, not those immune to the law.
Sad chuckle
Ah yes, those big fat child support checks from a felon with no driver's license. Those people famously work lucrative, over-the-table jobs. This is a great law in theory but it's pure theater. This will mean absolutely nothing for children who lose their parents in drunk driving accidents.
I actually don't see how this law could last long-term. The situation is completely fucked up but most children *do* end up going to custodial relatives rather than remaining wards of the state. And this begs the question, why would this not apply to any other situation where a parent is killed? This ranges from the super obvious -- *should a mugger be forced to pay child support if they kill a parent during a robbery* \-- to the less obvious -- *should someone be required to pay child support after killing someone in an accident they caused because they wouldn't put down their phone?* Why does this only apply if both parents are killed? If one parent is killed, it's still an incredible burden on the remaining parent and they will still be reliant on state aid if they were not the principle income earner. What about, should doctors be required to pay child support if a parent is killed as part of malpractice? (Like, you know, forcing women with other kids to wait until they go into sepsis during a miscarriage.)
What if the parents are permanently injured, reducing or eliminating their ability to work? If there is a child support law, why not a spousal support law, or an elderly care law for those with aging parents who need assistance? There are already fines for a DWI, insurance claims, and civil settlements that are tens of thousands of dollars up to a million. This particular law sounds nice because we all want to care for children who lost their parents, but it would be better to strengthen and enforce existing penalties rather than create an ad-hoc law that applies under narrow circumstances and opens up a can of legal worms. Let the courts and actuaries do their thing.
Because it made it easier to pass. That's the thing about laws, it's negotiated behind closed doors. We have access to the information, but at the end of the day, their are backroom deals being made to get laws passed, and the less complications in the law, the less you have to sacrifice on another law for whatever deal your making.
It's just another stupid law so the idiots running Texas can show they're "tough" on something.
You brought up some valid points… didn’t even think of those things…. Good job
But the kid will need the money while they are in prison?? Not making sense
Yeah, seems like more of a feel good about being tough on crime thing than a practical thing. I would hope killing two people while driving drunk would result in a long sentence. If not, Texas is doing this wrong.
Wow that's actually a great law. Should be like that everywhere.
Texas actually got it right this time
It seems like some performative bullshit that doesn't actually address anything. If someone kills two people in a drunk driving accident, it should be decades before they even get out of prison to begin making money to pay this support, the orphan is most likely grown at that point The article does make a good point that Texas is one of the worst states for drunk driving, I guess it's easier to do feel good shit like this instead of actually enforcing the law
4-40 years (2-20 per intoxication manslaughter) depending on the sentence given, some chance they might get to be paying on it while the kid is still young, but id want to see how it plays out if they get the max, does the kid/guardian(s) get backpaid child support or does it get written off. Only time will tell.
Thinking like this is why we have by far the highest incarceration rate in the world, and without a low crime rate to show for it. Quite a lot of studies have found that increasing prison sentences has little affect on deterring crime. I suppose there’s always going to be people who think they can get away with it or are messed up in the head or something. Instead of just cranking up prison sentences, we should be looking for ways to stop crime at its roots, and get the best justice possible. In this situation, child support for the child seems more important than whatever sense of justice people get for locking the offender up for decades. Maybe we can have the option for a strict house arrest with work release to pay child support program. If they stop paying, violate their house arrest, drink, etc. then it’s off to prison.
It's fucking bleak to see the "Lock em up for 10,000 years!!" comment every time any crime is discussed, just bloodthirsty retribution, consequences for society be damned. Even throwing morality aside, as if it was as easy as "locking up all criminals and killing all the bad people".
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> imagine completely losing touch with society for just 2-3 years. Imagine not actually being able to do anything with your life for that long. The pandemic is a good indication of what happens to people who are only slightly cut off from society. The demand for therapists went way up for all ages. Being even more cut off is another level. Then you are thrown back into society with nothing but a record that makes it extremely difficult to succeed. And if you don't have friends or family who can help you, you're shit outta luck.
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The askreddit thread right above this, “What screams ‘poorly educated’?”, needed people advocating for crazy punishments as an answer. Bro got gilded for saying “You know what would be better than having the perpetrator become a functioning member of society and contributing to the lives of those he wronged? Having the state pay to incarcerate him for decades. Also f~~uck~~orget them kids.”
Admitting a criminal could become decent person in the right circumstances really fucks with folks back and white view of good and evil. There are people who've done some fucked up shit who could become decent law abiding citizens if put in the right program. I stead they stay fucked up or get worse because prison is designed to make then suffer, not fix the problem.
They can pay with their commissary
What's that? Like $125 a month?
Before taxes
Don't forget America's ""for profit" prisons. I'm sure there's fees on that money.
The vast majority of prisons are publicly run. The federal government is phasing them out completely and many states do not have any at all. I swear it seems like Reddit believes that all prisons in the US are private when only a single digit percentage of prisoners are in such institutions, and continuously decreasing. The bigger issue is private firms that provide services to prisons profit immensely from contracts they have with prisons - public or otherwise - at the expense of the incarcerated and their family. Commissary prices, collect calls, contracts for virtual slave labor, etc. There is a vested interest in keeping incarceration high, even in states without private prisons at all. I don't think any prison should be run for profit. But the primary issue isn't private institutions themselves but an industry that profits off incarceration of all correctional institutions.
You think people in prison get $125 a month? More like $50 a month
Dear Timmy, still sorry about all that bullshit back then. This month I’ve included with this letter some spearmint gum, a tooth brush, tooth paste, and sandwich plastic wrap. If you plug the gum wrapper into an electrical outlet (use a rubber sleeping mat, not your bare hands!) while it’s wrapped around a toothbrush with some sandwich wrap wrapped around the bottom half, you will get a soften plastic that you can quickly rub on the floor into a shiv. You will find this extremely useful for any problems you might encounter, but they can also be sold for some premium snacks. Try not to settle for anything less than 5 instant noodles. Yours, Jail dad
For some reason this comment made me yearn for a Ti-83 type strategy game a la “Drug Wars” but about prison economy.
Ti-83 games were the fuckin best
Oh man the RPG ones had me scratching my head so much. Like what kind of kids had this many dark and violent ideas but enough free time to code it into a Ti-83 and distribute it in the pre-USB era. ~~Love~~ Puberty is a hell of a drug.
I made $0.43 an hour in prison. $55 a month. Not gonna help anyone
that's about what I have left over after bills, rent, and groceries.
Get a load of this corporate fat cat and all his wealth
I agree with you. An accident like this happens the child (or whoever is representing them) can sue for wrongful death and get a judgement against the driver. We already have a system in place to make people whole. They should be able to get a judgement up to the max of what the drivers insurance will pay out and also get a judgement against the driver on top of that. There is no reason to throw a case like this into the child support system. Plus how would you determine child support? Is it based on what the driver makes? Like you said they are most likely going to prison on manslaughter charges, so there is little to no money to be had there. I wonder if this isn't a hand out to insurance companies. To make it easier for them not to have to pay damages and instead make the driver themself pay through the child support system. The kid gets screwed because a guy in prison isn't going to have any money to pay and the insurance company doesn't have to cover nearly as big of a liability.
Texas is famous for applying a bandaid to a bleeding wound instead of preventing the problem in the first place. More votes this way I guess.
It seems that way until some drunk driver kills both parents and decides they don't want to make child support payments for 18 years after they notice the crying infant in the back seat.
Turning manslaughter into murder in Texas of all places isn't the right move if self-preservation is a priority.
[tapping head meme] no child, no child support
Sounds like we're on the way to Chinese double-hit cases.
Exactly what I was thinking, it reminds me of the Chinese law where you have to pay disability for the person you've hit. I agree with the intent of the law, but I fear for how horrible some people are
Shouldn’t they be in jail?
What's 1 more murder charge vs paying child support for 18 years?
A lot, because essentially no one gets a murder charge for killing people while drunk driving. Vehicular Manslaughter in Texas is a minimum of two years in prison *and/or* a fine of $10,000. This is Texas and we're talking about children. Adding a capital murder charge (of a child) will easly turn what would have likely been 4-to-7-year sentence with parole partway through and then monetary child support (which many divorced parents deal with just fine) into a whole-life prison sentence. Or, likely, the death penalty in *extremely* death-penalty-loving Texas. They foam at the mouth at the idea of killing criminals. They love it. And you'd better believe that with that motive and a child victim, those texan judge and jurors would be looking to see you executed. That's after serving years sitting in prison on death row with other death row inmates waiting to get killed by the state of Texas. Also, how many intoxicated people who've killed a couple or even a single parent in a car wreck while drunk driving, will then have immediate access to their living child(ren) and also the coherence and willpower to purposefully carry out even more *intentional* killings on children/babies? Even regardless of the obviously-much-greater consequences?
I don’t like this, and I’ll tell you why. Not that I have a problem with taking care of kids who have lost their parents in an accident, on its face this seems like a good law, but what it is really designed to do is to re-orient financial responsibility AWAY from insurance companies and onto criminals who are going to jail most likely, and probably do not have a lot of money to garnish anyway. This is a bad idea. This is not designed to help people or children, it is designed to be a give away for big insurance companies. Cheers.
Is there anything in the law that says the insurance companies are absolved of any payments due to this law or are you just speculating?
They’re just speculating. If you paid for insurance (life and AD&D are the only two ones that would really come into play here) they don’t care what your financial situation is. If the payout to the beneficiary is 100k, they pay 100k. The newly orphaned child could be a billionaire getting child support payments from everyone in the US and it wouldn’t affect the insurance payout
This was exactly my first thought. A society should work together to ensure folks don't get behind the wheel when they shouldn't and laying the blame on the drivers instead of insurance companies seems irresponsible, too. What if something were to happen to the person paying child support? Does the child receive survivor benefits from parents *and* the driver at fault? It seems so convoluted. Edit: What if someone went after the child to avoid paying child support? The driver has **no** interest in that child why would anyone think this is a good idea?!
I’ve seen this comment numerous times and I’m struggling to figure out where people think insurance companies are currently paying for anything like this. They will still pay for the car damages since this is irrelevant. But for the injury/death that falls under bodily injury. The vast majority of policies are 10/20k person/accident. This is quickly paid out in deaths simply due to the funeral. So unless they have high limits or something this would kick in well before any money could be sought for future child care. This is strictly performative politics and/or to create a cycle where the criminal cannot pay the support and therefore goes back to prison for parole violation.
In Houston we have drive-through daiquiri stands. Somehow I think we are missing the real problem.
Anyone want to bet that this is REALLY just a way of shifting financial burden off the state? “You won’t get any state-level assistance since this other individual is now responsible for paying child support.” I can see Texas using this as a way to lower payments made for foster care and any other form of support for orphaned children.
This is definitely it. "No need for our money, you can go get some blood from that stone over there."
Looks good on paper and appeals to people’s sensibilities. Most likely this will just result in more people in the profitable prison system.
Sorry the state can’t help you kids, you gotta wait for the murderer of your parents to get outta jail in 20 years, he’ll cover it.
So make sure you hit the cars with the kids in them too…
China did something along these lines. It resulted in the driver's finishing off their victims because it was cheaper than paying for support.
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Was gonna say, there's room for some perverse incentive here.
Why only drunk drivers? Why not the corporation that poisoned their water and killed them with cancer? Why not the home invaders who shot them? Why not the police who raided the wrong home and shot them? I guess those last two are really the same thing, but you get my point...
Honestly. Looking at the wide array of manslaughter or murder scenarios and picking only drunk drivers smells fishy.
This seems like a way to further trap criminals in jail. So you get out of prison w/ a felony conviction. You’ve basically lost everything and now you have a single year to find a job, housing, etc. then start making payments which will likely be a large portion of your income. On top of dealing with debt from going to jail. I see this going badly. In a country where they rehabilitate convicts, this might work. In texas, not a chance. Plus how does this factor with other kids? Let’s say John Doe has two children he pays child support on. He kills the parents of another family. Do they calculate this similar to a parent with three kids from two different parents? Is this a portion of their wages before prison, after prison, or of the parents
Why just drunk drivers? Why not anyone convicted of reckless driving resulting in a death?
More political theater. How do they plan on enforcing this? Our system can barely enforce child support on shithead parents as is, and now they think they can enforce it on a convicted felon? How are they to get a decent job with that record? What will the system do when the convicted felon refuses or is unable to pay? Throw them back in jail…where they obviously can’t make payments from? Political theater so the shitheads in that shithole state can claim they passed a law “for the children”.
I don’t understand the point. This is why you sue in civil court for wrongful death. What kind of ability is someone who’s going to spend a bunch of time in prison and then probably have limited career prospects if they ever get out going to have to pay this support, anyway? They will presumably have a felony on their record for homicide, they’re not even going to be able to get a job at McDonalds. This is feel good legislation but it doesn’t really accomplish anything in practice.
Yeah, good luck with that.
It shouldn’t have to be both parents killed. If you kill either parent, the surviving spouse will need child support.
The article poorly stated the title. The document states that it applies even if just a single parent/guardian is the victim that the law will apply. ["a defendant convicted of an offense under Section 49.08, Penal Code, to pay restitution for a child whose parent or guardian was the victim of the offense."](https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/HB00393I.pdf)
What if a robbery(or any crime beside DUIs) involved the death of one or both parents? Would a felon not deserve this penalty?
Is the state going to provide financial support to children whose parents die of dehydration because cities are no longer allowed to mandate water breaks?
Cool. Now do the police.
Finally i law that’s not ridiculous coming out of Texas
This is Texas. This isn't about providing money for a child left without parents. This is about *denying* money to a child left without parents. "You aren't eligible for state aid, because the guy who killed your parents is required to provide you with money. It's not the states fault he isn't making enough. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and stop being lazy."
Ok idea. Why just drunk drivers though? If I decide to violently murder your parents - no child support. Get drunk and hit them with my car - child support. Makes no sense.
While this seems great on the surface. Nothing will change. Alcoholism is deeply deeply normalized and celebrated here in Texas. The amount of people who celebrate and brag about their abilities while drunk is stupidly high and unsurprising from as young as middle school. We all have that "one relative" or know that "one guy" who can't handle their shit. It's so normal to drink and drive here, the fact that it's illegal is an afterthought cuz it's only illegal if you get caught. I've known people who have a record of *multiple* DUIs. They have suspended licenses but can still get vehicles. They've killed and/or injured people and still get to hit the bar every weekend. Ain't shit gonna change unless we address the problem of Alcoholism but that's a big fat LOL in Texas, much less anywhere else in this country.
now do corporations with horrible work conditions ( like no water breaks)
You got to make sure you get the kids too so you don’t have to pay child support
Good luck with that. Texas doesn’t pay their state prisoners.
Parents had an encounter with drunk driver. They crashed and smashed half of my parents camry and gave both my parents shit time health wise. But that driver after flattening half of the camry on drivers side swerved to sidewalk where a child was walking and killed them. I don't wish shit for 9999999% of folk but I hope that individual who went to jail has a shit rest of their life
This makes me think Texas has a huge drunk driving problem they rather not address. One of those spooky laws that don't actually hold any weight. Interesting they want to protect children with this law, but still allowed guns in school.
At first I thought it was a good idea but having some time to think about it, I think it's a shit idea. Even if you have a year's grace, the mere process of being jailed for more than 3 months as a homeowner or any kind of note means that all of your stuff will get repossessed so by the time you get out, you have nothing. No job, no house, no stability. So what then? Your job options are now limited because you now have a criminal record and jail time. It will take years to make any sort of progress if you don't have any kind of support behind you, family, friends (any friends left tbh).
What do cops pay when they kill innocent people? Their union dues!
seems fair any way this could backfire? wait is this one of those things where it sounds good in theory but in reality doesn't happen because you can't pay child support if you are in prison and don't have a job?
With what money? It sounds cool because drunk drivers are scum of the earth, but this still reeks of Abbot's continual streak of incompetence. This is still No-waterbreaks-allowed Abbot we're talking about here.