Alimony Issue

[erpowers]

CNN has posted the video about a story in which a women, who is now in jail for beating one of her sons that later died after the beating, is asking that her former husband be required to continue paying alimony after she is release from prison. How do people a DU feel about this issue? The link to the video is below.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/11/25/acosta.child.alimony.cnn

[H2O Man]

1. It's an extreme example

that illustrates the need for such laws to be up-dated.

[kdmorris]

2. About like this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=2340488

I would say "not at all supportive".

[no_hypocrisy]

3. The true rationale underlying alimony/maintenance is to prevent

divorced women from becoming "wards of the state", that is to keep them off welfare/relief, with the government providing them financial assistance that originated from their marriage "partnership".

This is a different case than when, for example, the same woman kills her husband (instead of her son), and is prevented from her rights to his estate/inheritance due to her causing his death, as she may not benefit from her acts.

This situation is distinguishable from the above example as it is irrelevant that she caused her son to die with respect to her continued receipt of alimony. She is legally entitled to a certain amount, which can be modified according to her or her former spouse's financial circumstances, as long as one of them is alive. Morality has no bearing on the re-evaluation of her continued provision of alimony.

[treestar]

4. This is akin to the protests that any prisoner make money

on any book he/she writes, or by any means by which they could make $$ before their conviction.

It appears many want to add "financial death" to the punishment dealt out. If so, get that into statutes, rather than having these outrages that the statutes aren't there already. Of course it will just hurt rehabilitation and make it harder on society when they get out. But since we appear to prefer undergoing those problems rather than forgo any possible source of punishment, perhaps we are willing to pay those prices.

Adding huge fines to any life sentence would be all that is necessary. Of course the very rich could always pay them. But the civil suits added to them might work to destroy all future financial opportunity for any wealthy felon.

Naturally their children, if any, will not get their inheritance. But hey, they had a parent who committed a crime, right? No reason they shouldn't feel the consequences, too. :sarcasm:

If there are other children in this family, they might benefit from the alimony in some way, it all depends. Presuming the father is still alive, it seems logical that he keep the money. But he may owe it to the wife under the alimony laws. She might use it to pay her lawyer, or it might sit an account like any other felon's $$ might do, or she might choose to give it to someone - a wealthy person who goes to jail does not automatically forfeit all property to the state, so there is some precedent for this.

[aikoaiko]

5. He should pay the alimonry, but should sue her for the wrongful death of her son.

And why the fuck is she ever getting out of prison after beating her son to death?