A California woman is single handedly crusading to change California’s spousal support laws. Despite the best efforts of her divorce attorney, Crystal Harris was ordered to pay her husband $1,000 a month in alimony, despite the fact that her ex-husband had been convicted of raping her. Harris is out to change the law so that victims of marital rape aren’t then further traumatized by having to pay their attackers spousal support.
During the divorce proceedings, a family court judge ruled that in addition to the $1,000 in spousal support, Harris was also forced to pay $47,000 of her ex-husband’s attorney fees. At the time of the divorce the California judge said that he had to order spousal support in a marriage that lasted 12 years where Harris made $11,000 a month and her ex-husband only made $100 a month.
California state law already denies spousal support when one spouse is convicted of attempted murder of the other. Harris is simply trying to ad rape as another crime to the already existing law.
Even if the bill is signed into law, Harris will be forced to pay the attorney’s fees, but will be able to stop making the monthly alimony payments to her husband. To date, Harris has not paid any spousal support to her husband. The family court order stated that the $1,000 a month spousal support statements would begin upon the release of Harris’ ex-husband from prison. He has served approximately 4 years of a 6 year sentence.
What do you think? Should there be a list of crimes, where if convicted a spouse should not be eligible to collect spousal support?
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