Even the most sympathetic explanation, offered by Hall's lawyer, doesn't claim that Hall was sent to jail for "overpaying" child support. Rather, his lawyer maintains that his child support payments were not made on time due to a clerical error, and a recent change in Texas law meant that those who fell behind in their payments (for whatever reason) could not avoid jail time by retroactively getting their accounts up to date:
His falling behind was not even due to his own transgression but, rather, was caused by a clerical error in his paycheck by his employer. The payments were supposed to come out of his check automatically, but it was discovered that the payments were being withdrawn only sporadically. Hall racked up an impressive bill that forced him to pay almost $3,000 in past-due payments.
The problem, as [his lawyer, Tyesha Elam] explained, lies in a law passed back in June 2013 that repeals protections for parents paying child support who may fall behind. Before, if you paid in full after falling behind, there was usually no problem. However, after the statute was passed, that all changed. The law, in Elam's view, was designed to target deadbeats who willfully fell behind and used the protections to their benefit. Now, however, it catches all parents with late payments in its dragnet.
After exhausting his appeals options, Clifford Hall eventually spent eight days in the Harris County Jail and was released on 2 July 2014.
Hall may have suffered an injustice, but nothing in the information presented about this case other than catchy headlines and sensationalized re-reporting of the original story supported the interpretation that Clifford Hall was "sentenced for paying too much child support." Others sources reported, more accurately, that Hall was jailed "for failing to pay child support, even though [by the time he was sentenced] he was fully paid up."
Read more at
http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/childsupport.asp#PZWGWZTyDeZJiohj.99
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