Background
Between July 2016 and January 2020, Damond Charles Williams made only one full monthly child-support payment and a few small voluntary payments, accumulating an arrearage of $38,461.66. Before trial, Williams sought to assert an impossibility defense but invoked his right to remain silent at the evidentiary hearing and presented no evidence that payment was genuinely impossible. The trial court denied the impossibility defense.
Prior to trial, the prosecution moved to remove Crystal Crooks (the mother of Williams’s children and victim) from its witness list, noting her testimony was unnecessary to prove its case. The prosecutor indicated Crooks lived out of state and lacked sufficient childcare. Williams objected and claimed he would call Crooks as a witness, though his defense counsel confirmed he did not intend to do so. During trial, Williams objected to the admission of MiCSES (Michigan Child Support Enforcement System) records, arguing the OCFOC specialist lacked proper authentication authority. The trial court admitted the records, and the jury convicted Williams on both counts of failure to pay child support.
Williams was sentenced as a second-offense habitual offender to 150 days in jail and three years’ probation for each conviction, plus ordered to pay restitution of $38,461.66. He subsequently moved for a new trial, claiming defense counsel was ineffective and that his Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause rights were violated.
The Court’s Holding
The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed all convictions. Although Williams had objected to Crooks’s absence and the MiCSES records at trial, he had not raised Confrontation Clause objections, so the court reviewed these claims for plain error. The court held that Crooks was never used as a witness against Williams—no out-of-court statements from her were introduced as substantive evidence—and therefore the Confrontation Clause was not implicated by her absence. Williams had no constitutional right to confront a witness who never testified against him.
Regarding the MiCSES records, the court held they were nontestimonial administrative documents. The OCFOC specialist testified that the system serves a broader administrative function, tracking not only nonpayment but also successful payments, legal proceedings, and case notes—providing “pretty much a basic breakdown of everything in the case.” Because the records were routine, objective catalogs created for administrative business reasons rather than prosecutorial purposes, they were nontestimonial and their admission did not trigger Confrontation Clause protections. Defendant had no right to cross-examine the person who entered data into the system.
The court also rejected Williams’s ineffective assistance of counsel claims on the ground that he failed to establish prejudice. Regarding Crooks, Williams provided no evidence that she would have testified favorably to him. As for the impossibility defense, an investigator’s affidavit actually undermined the defense by revealing that Williams had owned property (sold in 2020), a motorcycle, trailer, and business interests during the relevant nonpayment period. This demonstrated he had not exhausted all reasonably available avenues to pay his child-support obligation.
Key Takeaways
- The Confrontation Clause protects only against the use of testimonial statements from witnesses who bear testimony against the accused; it does not apply to absent witnesses when no statements from them are introduced as substantive evidence.
- Administrative record-keeping systems like MiCSES are nontestimonial business records whose admission does not trigger Confrontation Clause protections, even if they document criminal enforcement obligations.
- An impossibility defense to failure-to-pay-child-support charges requires a defendant to affirmatively demonstrate he exhausted every reasonably available avenue to generate income; mere financial hardship or inability to pay is insufficient.
- Ineffective assistance of counsel claims require a defendant to establish both deficient performance by counsel and prejudice (a reasonable probability of a different outcome); the defendant bears the burden of establishing the factual predicate for such claims.
Why It Matters
This decision significantly clarifies Confrontation Clause limitations in child-support enforcement prosecutions. By holding that administrative record-keeping systems are nontestimonial, the court streamlined prosecutions and reduced the burden on prosecutors to secure victim testimony in emotionally charged proceedings—a practical benefit for enforcement agencies pursuing cases involving child support arrearage. The holding may influence how similar administrative systems are treated across Michigan and other jurisdictions.
For defendants and defense counsel, the decision reinforces that the impossibility defense is genuinely narrow and fact-intensive. Defendants cannot rely on general financial hardship; they must demonstrate they pursued employment, considered asset liquidation, explored refinancing, and otherwise exhausted available options. The opinion also clarifies that strategic decisions by defense counsel—such as declining to call particular witnesses—are evaluated under an objective reasonableness standard and do not constitute ineffective assistance absent concrete evidence of prejudice.