Tucson, Arizona Saturday, 7 September 2002
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/20907NNOKIDS.html
MEDINA, Ohio - Father any more children in the next five years and you'll risk going to prison, a judge told a convicted deadbeat dad on Friday.
Medina County Common Pleas Judge James L. Kimbler ruled that 30-year-old Sean E. Talty "must make reasonable efforts" to avoid conceiving any children during a five-year probation because he owes more than $43,000 in child-support payments in Medina, Summit and Butler counties.
Despite opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union, Kimbler issued the controversial order Friday morning as part of Talty's sentence on two felony charges for non-support of dependents.
Court records say it's "unclear as to the exact number of children" Talty has, but they put the figure at six or seven.
How Talty should avoid conceiving more kids, the judge said, is "up to him."
Talty's lawyer, Joseph F. Gorman of Akron, said he will appeal the decision to the 9th District Court of Appeals in Akron because it violates his constitutional rights.
On July 26, before ruling on Talty's sentence, Kimbler asked the ACLU and the Medina County Prosecutor's Office for advice on whether he should send Talty to prison or put him on probation with the no-procreation order.
Lawyers for the ACLU, in a nine-page written opinion, said such an order could not be issued under the U.S. Constitution because it "impinges" on an individual's right to privacy, "including the right to procreate."
Such an order is "an area of human liberty in which the state has no business interfering," said the ACLU brief.
The prosecutor's brief, written by assistant prosecutor James R. Bennett II, simply summarized various state and federal court decisions on whether a judge can issue a no-procreation order as part of a defendant's probation: Two Ohio courts have ruled that such an order is "improper," and in nearly 20 other state and federal court decisions on the issue, all but two have "prohibited" it, the brief stated.
Kimbler said he considered both opinions but decided prison would not be a sensible option because it would mean that Talty could not work to support the children he has fathered.