There’s this guy I know slightly through work. Let’s call him Joe. Rumor has it that his ex-wife has accused him of being a deadbeat dad, and that jail might well be in his future. Now, I have no idea whether this information is true, but it got me thinking. Joe recently got out of the army. What if all this happened while Joe was still in the army?
Does the civil sentence supersede the military duty, or vice versa? Or does it depend on what he’s doing in the military–like whether he’s on active duty or in the reserves? What if he’s overseas? Does it matter which branch of the military he’s in?
Or would the deadbeat dad accusation have been handled differently altogether if he was still in?
Well, you get the idea of what I’m asking. Thanks.
US military personnel don’t have their constitutional rights as you know them. They follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice. IANAJAG (I Am Not A Judge Advocate General) but they could be tried for a gazillion things and discharged for it, with their family eligible for temporary benefits (cornel) if they are discharged for it. If they were to get discharged for it they’d probably spend some time in a military detention facility first. Use the “search this title” function on that page with words like spouse abuse, child abuse, neglect, etc…
BTW, that is not to say that a servicemember couldn’t end up in a civilian jail, but if it were to happen it would be for a very short period, such as a night, after which they would be turned over to military authorities.
From my very limited experience being a military spouse, the issue of “deadbeat dad” would not have come up if he were still in the military. His child support would have come out of his pay before he ever saw a check.
Based on several years in Child Support Enforcement Collections, Joe in the military would be very unlikely to end up in jail (either civilian or military). For several reasons:
Child Suport Agencies are more interested in collecting money to support the kids than throwing ‘deadbeat dads’ in jail.
Joe has a known employer, whom you can garnish part of Joe’s wages from.
Joe is likely to be with that employer for at least a 4-year hitch; that’s a lot more stablity than most ‘deadbeat dads’.
A Judge is very unlikely to order jail time for Joe, based on the above reasons, and because of the favoritism most Judges have toward military service. They’d say “He’s off serving his country, and you want me to take him away from that and throw him in jail? No way!”
However, many Child Support Agencies dislike dealing with servicemen. First, they’re usually far away, and difficult to contact if they don’t want to respond.
Second, their pay is comparitively low (most of the benefits come from educational, job-related, & health coverage after their military service), so you can’t garnish much. Plus many of them are able to reduce it still further on paper, by claiming various ‘allowances’ are not really counted as ‘pay’.
Finally, you have to deal with them thru the military bureaucracy. Expecially the Judge Advocate General staff, which are free lawyers provided to servicemen, paid for with your tax dollars. They seem to delight in finding ways to help ‘deadbeat dads’ continue as deadbeats.
I’ve heard Child Support workers say that all JAG’s do is help deadbeat dads avoid their responsibility to support their kids, and hold witchhunts to find gays & lesbians in the service!
My Army experience with “dead beat dads” (fellow NCOs in my unit) was that the Chain-of-Command came down on them like a ton of bricks to either discharge their financial responsibilities in a timely and conscientious manner, or have that responsibility taken from them altogether and let Army Finance do it for them.
They were also often ostracized to some degree or another by fellow members of the unit.
I’m not sure how you bashing JAGs belongs. Your perception of the command climate concerning “deadbeat dads” is dead wrong. Many a servicemember has child support taken directly out of their paycheck and against their will. It is highly looked down on to have problems such as this in your personal life, and you aren’t making a trip to the JAG without your command finding out, and that’s trouble.
You seem to have a lot of misconceptions about the military. It is not easy to be discharged because you are a homosexual - they want evidence, and you telling the chaplain you love him better be damned convincing. And unless you were going out of your way to break the rules, it’s an honorable discharge anyway.
JAGs don’t hunt people down. Take a closer look at those rules - they all count for heterosexuals too. So how does someone get discharged for being homosexual if they didn’t break one of those rules? “Don’t ask don’t tell.”
Thanks for the responses so far. I wasn’t sure that the following would be pertinent, but I guess it is:
Again, I’m not too clear on the particular details of Joe’s case, but I think that the issue is not with recent child support payments, but with child support payments from about 5 years ago. Part of the issue is that Joe has no proof that he paid it.
So, our hypothetical timeline is as follows:
1996–Joe’s girlfriend gets pregnant. Joe and girlfriend marry.
1997–Joe Jr. is born.
1998–Joe and Mrs. Joe divorce. Mrs. Joe gets custody. Joe is supposed to pay child support.
1998-2001–Joe does or does not pay the child support.
2001–Joe joins army. The child support is taken out of his army check.
2005–Joe receives honorable discharge from army. Ex-Mrs. Joe brings charges against him to try to recover the child support allegedly owed from 1998-2001.
The discharge from the army happened maybe 2 months ago, and I’ve started hearing about this whole mess within the past week or so. Did Ex-Mrs. Joe wait until the discharge was finalized to bring charges? If so, why?