SACRAMENTO, CA -- Even though DNA evidence has been used to free falsely convicted murderers, California Governor Gray Davis, in vetoing AB 2240 today, has decided that men will still have to pay child support for children whom DNA tests have proven are not theirs.

Many counties fail miserably at ensuring that only men who fathered a child are required to pay that child's support. In Los Angeles County in 2000, for example, almost 80% of the paternity judgments were assigned by default, meaning that men were mandated to pay as much as 18 years of child support without ever having their day in court.

Many of the men assigned default paternity judgments were never properly served summonses to appear in court. Many of these men never knew they were "dads" until their wages began to be garnished, and have never even met the children they are required to support.

This aggressive pursuit of assigning paternity at any cost has ensnared thousands of innocent men mistakenly identified as having fathered children who do not belong to them.

The prevalence of paternity fraud has reached startling proportions. According to the American Association of Blood Banks, almost 30% of the men tested for paternity are not biologically related to the children they allegedly fathered.

The Paternity Justice Act AB2240 was designed to rectify these injustices by relieving men from having to pay child support for children who are not theirs.

Dianna Thompson, executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, testified in favor of AB2240. She says: "To make a man pay child support for a child that DNA testing has proven is not his is an outrage. Davis' veto of AB2240 hurts innocent men and their families."