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While the Supreme Court has ruled in Turner v. Rogers, that the state, under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, is not always required to appoint public counsel in civil cases where the respondent is facing threat of incarceration, it also ruled that, under the circumstances surrounding Michael Turner’s child support violation case, Turner’s incarceration for failing to pay child support violated the due process clause.

Turner was sentenced for 12 months imprisonment when Turner was never apprised that his inability to pay child support was the central issue of his case. Turner was not provided with a form that would have helped him disclose his financial information and the South Carolina Supreme Court never even officially determined whether Turner had the ability to pay the child support he owed. Breyer stated: “the state must … have in place alternative procedures that assure a fundamentally fair determination of the critical incarceration question.”

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