A class action suit approved a few weeks ago is back in the headlines -- where it will likely stay for some time. The plaintiffs are parents who have served jail time for failure to comply with a court order to pay child support. The jail time itself isn't as much an issue as the fact that the state does not provide legal representation for indigent parents.

The state believes it has every right to jail these "deadbeat" parents, and the Georgia Attorney General's office wants the class action status overturned. In a motion filed recently, the attorney general argued that the five named plaintiffs went to jail as a result of "their own poor decision-making." The failure to pay child support is an epidemic, the state's attorneys said.

According to a former member of the state Supreme Court, both sides are right. There are parents who can afford to pay who don't. One county sheriff reported seeing parents come up with as much as $20,000 within a day or two of their contempt conviction. The former Supreme Court justice points out that taxpayers end up paying the money that should come from parents in addition to paying to put those parents through the process that lands them in jail.

However, this justice continues, it is illegal to incarcerate anyone who cannot pay -- be it a parent or a 19-year-old kid who defaults on a credit card. As the plaintiffs argue, that amounts to debtor's prison, and, as the former justice says, "We don't believe in debtor's prisons in this country."

While all of this is going on in Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments in a similar case from a different state. The Court's ruling could change Georgia law, and resolve this class action in favor of either party.

Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Jailing a deadbeat dad amounts to debtor's prison?" Jim Galloway, Jan. 30, 2012