THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996 TAG: 9608070563
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: 47 lines
The reversal of an alleged child-support scofflaw's conviction seems to undermine a federal effort to crack down on deadbeat parents, the man's ex-wife says.
Lynda Murphy of Roanoke last year received a check for $12,486 in back child support owed by her former husband, James D. Murphy Jr., ending a five-year battle.
He had landed on Virginia's ``10 Most Wanted'' list of child-support evaders in 1994, three years after he quit sending the $290 a month he had been ordered by a Texas court to pay for the support of his daughter, Erin.
Last year, the FBI arrested him in Florida and brought him to Virginia, where he was convicted of willfully violating the federal child-support law and was placed on five years' probation. Since then, he has made the monthly support payments.
But last month, U.S. District Judge Samuel Wilson in Roanoke overturned Murphy's conviction, ruling that he had been tried in the wrong place.
``By all accounts, Murphy has shirked financial responsibility for his daughter,'' Wilson wrote. ``However, as a criminal defendant with statutory and constitutional venue rights, Murphy should not have been prosecuted in this district because venue does not lie here.''
He noted that Murphy never lived in Virginia and was not ordered to make payments here.
The Child Support Recovery Act of 1992 targets parents who move out of state to avoid paying child support. The law allows authorities to deal with out-of-state parents through federal courts rather than having to negotiate differing laws in other states.
``After all the work everyone's done to get the law enacted, if (Wilson's decision) holds, the law is worthless unless we can get beyond the venue issue,'' Lynda Murphy said. ``It's not like 100 years ago, when nobody moved. We're a pretty mobile society.''
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Dudley, who prosecuted the case, declined to comment on the decision. But she said Wilson's ruling was the first in the country on the law to be based on venue.
Dudley said she was awaiting word from the Justice Department's appellate division on whether to appeal.
KEYWORDS: CHILD SUPPORT RULING by CNB