Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on June 26, 2008, to allow chief judge of a circuit court, the prosecuting attorney for a county, and the county board of commissioners to enter an agreement to delegate to the Friend of the Court office the prosecutor’s duties related to paternity and child support orders

The vote was 35 in favor, 0 opposed and 3 not voting

(Senate Roll Call 692 at Senate Journal 87)

Click here to view bill details.

SB 1430 allows FOC officers to act as prosecuting attorneys. Given that FOC officers work closely with judges every day, all judges will likely have ex-parte communications with the FOC officers acting as PAs in their cases. It's likely that FOC officers will not be subject to civil judgments or criminal charges to which PAs are subject, as they're not lawyers or officers of the court, have financial conflicts of interests in prosecuting child support debtors, and will not be expected to understand when their prosecutions extend into malicious prosecution. Extends the multiple collectors problem which can encourage fraud, indefinitely. SB 1431 same as 1430, but also assigns birth expenses to dad. Some restrictions on retroactive support orders preventing them from starting before the initial filing.