Child-support-law amendment comes to attention of Hill: Provision revision could end to horror stories.(Nation)

0 Comments | Washington Times, The, April, 1999 | by Wetzstein, Cheryl

In 1990, Lockheed employee and divorced father Bobby Sherrill was captured in Kuwait and spent nearly five harrowing months as an Iraqi hostage. When Mr. Sherrill was released, he returned to his joyful, weeping family in North Carolina. The next night, the sheriff came to arrest Mr.

Sherrill. The charge: not paying $1,425 in child support while he was a hostage. A similar shock awaited Clarence Brandley. In 1980, the Texas high school janitor was wrongly accused of murder. He spent nearly 10 years in prison, most of it on death row, until his exoneration in January 1990. In 1991, Mr. Brandley sued the state for wrongful imprisonment. The state responded with a bill for nearly $50,000 in child support that Mr. Brandley didn't pay while in...