| Turner v. Rogers | ||||||
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Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued March 23, 2011 Decided June 20, 2011 |
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| Full case name | Michael D. Turner v. Rebecca L. Rogers | |||||
| Docket nos. | 10-10 | |||||
| Prior history | Defendant convicted at trial (Oconee Cty Fam. Ct.); affirmed sub nom. Price v. Turner, 387 S.C. 142, 691 S.E.2d 470 (S.C. 2010) | |||||
| Argument | Oral argument | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, while it does not require a state to provide counsel at civil contempt proceedings to indigent individuals, even if incarceration is a possibility, does require some safeguards to prevent the erroneous deprivation of liberty. South Carolina Supreme Court reversed and remanded. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | Breyer, joined by Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan | |||||
| Dissent | Thomas, joined by Scalia, Roberts (on Parts 1B and II), Alito (on Parts 1B and II) | |||||
| Laws applied | ||||||
| U.S. Const. amends. VI, XIV | ||||||
Turner v. Rogers, 564 U.S. __ (2011) is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court on June 20, 2011, that held that a state must provide safeguards to reduce the risk of erroneous deprivation of liberty in civil contempt cases such as child support cases. The decision, however, stopped short of requiring that a state provide counsel to indigent defendants in civil contempt cases.
Contents |
The petitioner in this case, Michael D. Turner, was jailed six times between 2003 and 2010 for accumulated child support payment arrears. The duration of Turner's jail spells ranged from one day to eight months. A person being in arrears on child support payments is not unusual: in 2008, 11.2 million U.S. child support cases had arrears due.[1] The number of persons kept in jail or in prison for child support arrears is not generally tracked. Based on a publicly available collection of relevant data, an estimated 50,000 persons are kept in jail or in person on any given day in the U.S. for child support arrears.[2] Hence Turner v. Rogers does not merely concern a technical question of legal procedure. Being in arrears on child support payments is a situation that many persons experience. Moreover, as a result of child support debt, many persons in the U.S. are being imprisoned.
During his most recent term in prison, Turner appealed his sentencing, claiming that he was entitled to counsel at his hearing. Before the case was heard by the South Carolina Supreme Court, however, Turner's sentence expired, and the South Carolina Supreme Court subsequently rejected the claim, distinguishing between civil contempt and criminal contempt, arguing that counsel was only required for the latter. Turner's pro bono counsel then appealed the case on Turner's behalf to the U.S. Supreme Court.[3]
In a 5-4 ruling, in a decision written by Justice Stephen Breyer, the Supreme Court rejected the claim of mootness by South Carolina, arguing that the time period of the sentence is too short to allow for full adjudication of the sentence, the likelihood of Turner being subjected to civil contempt proceedings again (that is, being capable of repetition) made the case not moot (distinguishing this case from DeFunis v. Odegaard, where the case was decided to be moot), proceeding to rule on the merits. Breyer held that a state is under no obligation to provide free counsel to indigent defendants in civil contempt cases, especially if the plaintiff is not represented by counsel (as was the case here). However, Breyer held that the South Carolina courts were under an obligation to provide an alternative procedures to ensure a fair determination of the questions at hand. Since Turner did not have clear notice that ability to pay would be the critical question in this proceeding, nor was he provided with information that would have allowed Turner to disclose such information, the South Carolina courts erred in finding him able to pay and thus in civil contempt.[4]
Justice Clarence Thomas authored a dissenting opinion in which he noted that the 14th Amendment never provided for alternative safeguards to ensure that protections under the 14th Amendment were not violated, and that the 6th Amendment only applies to criminal prosecutions, and not civil cases, and that as such, the 6th Amendment does not require the state to provide counsel to indigent defendants (in this case, neither side was represented by counsel at the initial civil contempt hearing). Thomas further argued (with Justice Antonin Scalia, but not Chief Justice John G. Roberts or Samuel Alito joining) that the majority opinion did not consider the effects of this decision with respect to child support payments, and expressed concern that the majority opinion would undermine state efforts to collect child support payments.[4]