Some Progress for California Fathers,
but Still a Long Way to Go
By Jeffery M. Leving and Glenn Sacks

The ‘90s were a bad time to be a father in California.

The OJ Simpson case helped usher in draconian domestic violence policies which have victimized many innocent men. State-mandated mandatory/presumptory arrest policies exhort police to make arrests on domestic violence calls, and "primary aggressor" policies pressure officers to view men as the instigators of domestic violence incidents. As a result, many men have been arrested on flimsy evidence, or when they were acting to defend themselves against attacks by their female partners.

Nearly 250,000 domestic violence restraining orders are currently active in California. The State Bar’s Family Law Section recently complained that the orders are “used in family law cases to help one side jockey for an advantage in child custody,” and that they are “almost routinely issued by the court in family law proceedings even when there is relatively meager evidence and usually without notice to the restrained person.”

When an order is issued, the man is booted out of his own home and can even be jailed if he tries to contact his own children. His first chance to defend himself against the charges is usually two weeks later, at the hearing to make the order permanent. Yet these hearings generally last no more than 15 minutes. The due process they afford the men can be gauged by the State of California’s advice for men contesting restraining orders: 

“Do not take more than three minutes to say what you disagree with. You can bring witnesses or documents that support your case, but the judge may not have enough time to talk to the witnesses.”

Under a 1999 California law these farcical orders can be used to deny these so-called “batterers” joint custody of their children.

In 1998 then-Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti declared a “get tough” campaign against so-called "deadbeat dads," sending out thousands of summonses for paternity cases. The men were given only 30 days to respond. 

Many of the summonses targeted the wrong men, and many never reached the intended parties. Eighty percent of Garcetti's paternity judgments were made by default, locking the men into 18 years of child support. Many took DNA tests proving that they were not the fathers of the children they now had to take second jobs to support. Others were assigned huge support arrearages by mistake. Many became unable to support their own children. Some of their marriages broke up, and some of the men landed in jail.

Garcetti later acknowledged that many of the men had been mistakenly targeted but refused to relent, instead blaming the men for not responding within 30 days. "The law is the law,” he told CBS’s Bernard Goldberg. 

In 1992 the California legislature dramatically increased the financial burdens shouldered by fathers. Many child support orders doubled and tripled overnight, quickly placing California among the five states with the highest child support guidelines.

The legacy of this legislation is a permanent underclass of fathers buried alive under crushing debts. According to an Urban Institute study of California child support, the average arrears owed is $3,000 higher than the median annual earnings of employed child support debtors. Those in the poorest category have a child support debt amounting to their full net income for seven and a half years. 

In the 1996 Burgess ruling the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of a custodial mother who sought to move her children 40 miles away from their father. The ruling had disastrous consequences for fathers and children because it was interpreted by California courts as a bright line rule mandating that courts permit moves of hundreds or thousands of miles. Under Burgess, many children were needlessly moved far away from loving fathers.

Today, however, things have improved, due to some legislative victories, common sense, and the increased societal realization that kids need their dads. Child support enforcement abuses have been tempered by a 2004 law and the Navarro decision, both of which make it easier for falsely-named fathers to vacate default judgments.

Burgess was declawed by the California Supreme Court’s 2004 LaMusga decision, which stressed that children’s best interests and their relationship with the noncustodial parent must be given substantial weight in relocation cases. Two legislative attempts to abrogate LaMusga, including one by Senator Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) last month, have been beaten back by widespread protests.

Nevertheless, the family law system remains stacked against fathers. Most importantly, California law still does not do nearly enough to protect fathers’ relationships with their children.

This column first appeared in the Daily Breeze [Los Angeles] (6/18/06). To read an extended version of the column, click here.

Glenn Sacks' columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of America's largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website at www.GlennSacks.com or via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.