Child Support Recovery Act Does Not Exceed Congressional Commerce Clause Power

In the case of US v. Kukafka, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a Defendant’s conviction and sentence for willful failure to pay his support obligation over his claims that: 1) the Child Support Recovery Act exceeds Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause; 2) a provision in his divorce judgment requiring him to obtain an ecclesiastical divorce violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment; and 3) there was error in instructing the jury on willfulness.