Perini v. State, 35596
| Decision Date | 05 February 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 35596,35596 |
| Citation | 264 S.E.2d 172,245 Ga. 160 |
| Parties | PERINI v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
E. Graydon Shuford, Jr., Decatur, for appellant.
Winston Harvey, Asst. Sol., State Court of DeKalb County, Clarence Seeliger, Decatur, for appellee.
The defendant, Anthony Perini, was convicted of abandonment of his three-month- old illegitimate child, Crystal Dianne Bobo. He appeals this conviction alleging three errors.
1. Defendant first alleges that the trial court should have granted his motion for acquittal. He contends the abandonment statute, Code Ann. § 74-9902, is unconstitutional since it provides that the father of an illegitimate child, upon conviction of abandonment, shall be required by the court to pay the reasonable medical expenses paid or incurred by the mother due to the birth of the child. He contends this violates equal protection of the laws.
While the major portion of Code Ann. § 74-9902 is equally applicable to women as to men, 1 it is true that the portion objected to does provide that the mother's medical expenses be paid solely by the father. As a gender-based classification, this classification must "serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives" to withstand scrutiny under the equal protection clause. Orr v. Orr, 440 U.S. 268, 99 S.Ct. 1102, 59 L.Ed.2d 306 (1979). "A classification by gender ' "must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation. " ' Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 76, 92 S.Ct. 251, 254, 30 L.Ed.2d 225 (1971).'' Lamar v. State, 243 Ga. 401, 254 S.E.2d 353 (1979).
It is clear that one of the purposes of Georgia's laws on abandonment is to provide that children be provided for by their natural parents. The challenged portion of Code Ann. § 74-9902 indicates the duty to support does not simply arise at some indefinite time after the birth of the child but rather manifests the intention that both parents share in the responsibility of the birth itself. After the birth (which is necessarily the case since the requirement to pay medical expenses only arises after conviction of abandonment) the only contribution to the birth the father can make is monetary. Furthermore, while the mother is having the child and, except in rare instances, immediately thereafter, she is unable to work to earn money to pay the medical expenses. On the contrary, the father is able to work before, during, and after the birth of the child and is in a much better position to pay the expenses. We find the gender-based classification reasonable in these circumstances.
2. Defendant next contends that the...
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...and Georgia Constitutions, Code Ann. § 1-815 and § 2-203, was decided adversely to him in our recent decision of Perini v. State, 245 Ga. 160, 264 S.E.2d 172 (1980). We also hold that the criminal provisions of that Code section do not deny appellant due process as provided in the United St......