After years of so-called social reforms aimed at marginalizing divorced fathers, White House and Congressional leaders have wised up.

In recent weeks, both camps have taken tentative public steps toward easing up aggressive prosecution of non-custodial fathers who are poor after coming to a startling realization: Punishing these men for falling behind in child support obligations makes little sense. Worse, children lose a vital player in their childhood development when government agencies chase non-custodial fathers out of their children's lives.

Yet another casualty of our nation's fervent war on so-called "deadbeat dads" is the thousands of men assigned default child support judgments. In California, the state's Department of Child Support Services has a very serious problem finding men who may have fathered children, and as a result, 79 percent of the judgments it receives in L.A. County alone are assigned by default, meaning the suspected father never had his day in court.

By many standards, default judgments would be fair, if the fathers were actually served notice to appear in court. Unfortunately, the truth is this: State agencies who claim they don't know the whereabouts of an alleged father seem to have little trouble tracking him down to collect child support. Ironically, men who have not fathered children can instantly turn into "dads" once the court enters a default judgment. Once applied, that label is difficult, if not impossible, to remove as state agencies and district attorneys frequently fight such appeals, challenging anyone who fails to respond to a court summons - even one served to a last-known address, regardless of whether the individual received the notice.

In his best-selling book "Bias," Bernard Goldberg chronicles the inner workings of the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office and its efforts at obtaining paternity collections. According to Goldberg, then-District Attorney Gil Garcetti obtained default judgments of paternity after failing to notify "fathers" of court hearings. Once the court established paternity, Garcetti refused to rescind judgments against men who later proved through DNA evidence that they were not the fathers of their alleged children.

More than 11 million fathers do not live with their children. Child support collections have grown to more than $18 billion annual nationwide. As states legislators moved to aggressively pursue collection of support obligations, state officials oftentimes struggled to identify the paternity of children who do not live with their biological fathers. In doing so, thousands of innocent men were mistakenly identified as having fathered children that did not belong to them. In many cases, the men were never notified in advance of court hearings to determine paternity.

High rates of default judgments may be attributed to a variety of factors, chief among them are the state's lax efforts to track down biological fathers. In order to obtain a court order establishing paternity, state agencies can serve a person's last-know address, which proves problematic when a suspected parent moves. The stories of child support enforcement blunders have become all too familiar to the thousands of families who receive error-ridden collection notices, including: cases of mistaken identity among people with similar names; billing errors, and bills assigned to men who did not father children assigned them by court order.

Federal funding guidelines place a higher value on assigning paternity and obtaining child-support collection orders than on the truth. Although federal rules require states meet their compliance rates in assigning paternity and obtaining orders for child support, the guidelines do not require actual DNA testing. As a result, agencies find themselves comfortable with high rates of default judgments against suspected dads, men who will often battle the courts to remove judgments placed against them when DNA has proven they are excluded from being the father of the children assigned them by court order.

The real motives behind L.A. County's 79 percent default-judgment rate - and those of similar counties and states -- no doubt lies in its efforts to keep the pipeline of Federal subsidies and incentive payments flowing. The State of California has known since as early as 1998 that its automated system for tracking down dads frequently assigns payments to the wrong men. Once a problem of a few hundred men forced to pay child support for children that weren't theirs, the issue has exploded to a 79 percent default rate in L.A. County alone. Not one of these men have ever appeared in court or been verified through genetic testing to have fathered the children assigned them by court order.

States have at their disposal the power and tools to ensure accuracy in child support orders. By requiring court appearances and DNA testing, courts can ensure they know with absolute certainty who is a father before entering a finding of paternity. At the same time, courts must stand up to enforcement agencies that claim they cannot locate men who are subjects of motions to establish paternity. Courts must also hold mothers accountable when they knowingly make false statements regarding paternity to state agencies.

We must settle for nothing short of the truth before forcing innocent men to be responsible for children they never fathered.


Dianna Thompson