PPARKER@TWSUVM.UC.TWSU.EDU wrote:
> 
> * News of the Weird previously reported in March 1994 and July 1995
> on unlucky men who were ordered to continue child-support payments
> despite DNA tests that revealed the kids were other men's
> responsibilities.  In the latest case, the Arkansas Supreme Court
> ruled in July 1996 that because Darryl Littles failed to get a
> court- ordered blood test in 1982 (he said he was indigent and not
> represented by a lawyer), he would be permanently regarded as the
> father of 15-year-old Brandi even though a 1994 test showed he
> could not be. (Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate.)
> 
> No wonder they wouldn't convict OJ!

	Just to set the record straight, for what little its worth since 
I agree that the result is absurd and the laws changed but:

	The result has nothing to do with "junk science", even it the 
judges and lawyers in Arkansas are even more illiterate about science 
than the average non-scientist.

	The problem is that, and this is true in every state to some 
extent, there are laws designed to "settle" issues legaly somehow, so 
that courts don't have to try and litigate issues when evidence is 
stale or missing and/or witnesses are dead or out of the jurisdiction.

	Thus in California (the one state whose statute was covered in 
the course of covering this general issue in one class), the law 
requires that if a married womans husband wishes to challange the 
fatherhood of a child, he must bring an action to have the tests done 
within a certain time, or he the legal presumption--which just as in 
Arkansas becomes unrebuttable--is that he is the father.

	One general policy argument is that those who sleep on their 
rights should lose the ability to enforce those rights later. Another is 
to ensure a certain amount of stability for the innocent child.

	This obiously doesn't always produce the desired results.

	The stickiest problem for the man in Arkansas is that he claims 
(at least) to have been indigent at the time. Unfortunately the Supreme 
Court has decided that the poor are not a "suspect class" for 
costitutional analysis. 

	In short what this means is that a law cannot be challenged on 
consitiutional grounds because it discriminates on the basis of 
income--which is what the law in Arkansas does, apparently. I.e., if YOU 
can afford the tests and the lawyer fees, then you can challange the 
paternity of a child if you don't think its yours. But the state does 
not have to help an indigent to do the same.

	It rather stinks, but so long as Rhenquist, Scalia and Thomas 
sit on the court, it's not likely to change.

	Ciao.

-- 
	Michael Fisher, ET1/SS USN ret., lawstudent	

	http://home.aol.com/Mfish6994

	*		*		*     
	
     He that would make his own liberty secure, 
     must guard even his enemy from oppression; 
     for if he violates this duty, 
     he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
		
                                             Thomas Paine