Counsel may be required in delinquent child support cases: SCOTUS

In Turner v. Rogers a majority of the Supreme Court held (5-4) that due process analysis may compel the appointment of counsel to defend a person facing jail for failure to pay child support. The key is that the state must provide a fair procedure to determine if the delinquent parent has the ability to pay. - GWC

JUSTICE BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court.

South Carolina’s Family Court enforces its child support orders by threatening with incarceration for civil contempt those who are (1) subject to a child support order, (2) able to comply with that order, but (3) fail to do so. We must decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause requires the State to provide counsel (at a civil contempt hearing) to an indigent person potentially faced with such incarceration. We conclude that where as here the custodial parent (entitled to receive the support) is unrepresented by counsel, the State need not provide

counsel to the noncustodial parent (required to provide the support). But we attach an important caveat, namely, that the State must nonetheless have in place alternative procedures that assure a fundamentally fair determination of the critical incarceration-related question, whether the supporting parent is able to comply with the support order.

Prof Steven Schwinn has helpful commentary on Constitutional Law Prof blog.
And our Bruce Green has this comment on Concurring Opinions, which begins:

As a professional responsibility professor, what I found surprising in the Court’sTurner decision was the view that assigning a lawyer to the defendant who faces imprisonment for nonpayment of child support “could make the proceedings lessfair overall” by “increasing the risk of a decision that would erroneously deprive a family of the support it is entitled to receive.”For the organized bar, it is an article of faith that a lawyer’s participation makes judicial proceedings more fair, not less fair.  And it’s not clear why that should not be true in this context.  The Court’s sentiments conjure up the stereotype of the crafty lawyer engaging in sly tactics to distract jurors from the truth.