2013 Mississippi Code
Title 93 - DOMESTIC RELATIONS
Chapter 9 - BASTARDY
UNIFORM LAW ON PATERNITY
§ 93-9-31 - Security; commitment; probation

(1) The court shall, if need be, require the father to give security by bond or other security, with sufficient sureties approved by the court, for the payment of the order of filiation. Such security, when required, shall not exceed three (3) times the total periodic sum the father shall be required to pay under the terms of the order of filiation in any one (1) calendar year. If bond or security be required, and in case the action has been instituted by a public welfare official, the defendant shall also be required to give security that he will indemnify the state and the county where the child was or may be born and every other county against any expense for the support and education of the child, which said undertaking shall also require that all arrears shall be paid by the principal and sureties. In default of such security, when required, the court may commit him to jail, or put him on probation. At any time within one (1) year he may be discharged from jail, but his liability to pay the judgment shall not be thereby affected.

(2) Whenever any order of filiation has been made, but no bond or other security has been required for payment of support of the child, and whenever such payments as have become due remain unpaid for a period of at least thirty (30) days, the court may, upon petition of the person to whom such payments are due, or such person's legal representative, enter an order requiring that bond or other security be given by the father in accordance with and under such terms and conditions as provided for in subsection (1) of this section. The father shall, as in other civil actions, be served with process and shall be entitled to a hearing in such case.

(3) Where security is given and default is made in any payment, the court shall cite the parties bound by the security requiring them to show cause why judgment should not be given against them and execution issued thereon. If the amount due and unpaid shall not be paid before the return day of the citation, and no cause be shown to the contrary, judgment shall be rendered against those served with the citation for the amount due and unpaid together with costs, and execution shall issue therefor, saving all remedies upon the bond for future default. The judgment is a lien on real estate and in other respects enforceable the same as other judgments. The amount collected on such judgment or such sums as may have been deposited as collateral, in lieu of bond when forfeited, may be used for the benefit of the child, as provided for in the order of filiation.

(4) If at any time after an order of filiation in paternity proceedings shall have been made, and an undertaking given thereon, in accordance with the provisions of Sections 93-9-1 through 93-9-49 and such undertaking shall not be complied with, or that for any reason a recovery thereon cannot be had, or if the original undertaking shall have been complied with, and the sureties discharged therefrom, or if money were deposited in lieu of bail, and the same shall have been exhausted, and the natural child still needs support, the public welfare official of any county where the natural child for whose support the order of filiation was made shall be at the time, or the Commissioner of the State Welfare Department upon giving proof of the making of the order of filiation, the giving of the above-mentioned undertaking, and the noncompliance therewith, or that the sureties have been discharged from their liability, or that for any reason a recovery cannot be had on such undertaking, may apply to the court in such county having jurisdiction in filiation proceedings, for a warrant for the arrest of the defendant against whom such order of filiation was made, which shall be executed in the manner provided in criminal procedure for the execution of the warrant; upon the arrest and arraignment of the defendant in said court, and upon proof of the making of the order of filiation, the giving of the above-mentioned undertaking, and the noncompliance therewith, or that for any reason a recovery cannot be had on such undertaking, the said court shall make an order requiring him to give a new undertaking, which said undertaking shall also require that all arrears shall be paid by the principal and sureties, or upon his failure to give such new undertaking, shall commit him to jail, or put him on probation.

(5) If the child and mother die, or the father and mother be legally married to each other, the court in which such security is filed, on proof of such fact, may cause the security to be marked "cancelled" and be surrendered to the obligors.