Opinion ID: 406483
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Exclusion of Evidence of Good Faith Compliance.

Text: 48 The appellant claims that the trial judge erred in granting the Government's motion in limine preventing him from introducing evidence of his good faith compliance with the court's order. A good faith effort to comply with a court order tends to negate willfulness, an element of criminal contempt which must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., United States v. Greyhound Corporation, 508 F.2d 529, 531 (7th Cir. 1974). Yet the appellant misconstrues the defense of good faith compliance as allowing the defendant in a contempt proceeding to second guess the necessity for the order he is charged with violating. In most instances, a defense of good faith compliance arises when a defendant has not refused to comply with the court order he is charged with violating, but has failed to comply because of the indefiniteness of the order or some other inability to do so. See, e.g., Richmond Black Police Officers v. City of Richmond, Virginia, 548 F.2d 123, 129 (4th Cir. 1977); Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. Amalgamated Transit Union, 531 F.2d 617 (D.C.Cir.1976); Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen v. Bangor & Aroostook Railroad Company, 380 F.2d 570 (D.C.Cir.1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 327, 88 S.Ct. 437, 19 L.Ed.2d 560 (1967). In such circumstances, the defendant cannot be held willfully to have violated the order, having made every effort to comply with it. 49 The appellant in this case, however, never attempted to comply with the court's specific orders until after his conviction for contempt. Instead, he claimed he had complied with the order in the sense that he had given handwriting samples to the state authorities that, in his opinion, were adequate for the purposes of the federal authorities. For establishing a defense to contempt, there is a significant difference between a good faith attempt to comply with a court order and a refusal to comply because of prior compliance with a separate and distinct court order. The appellant does not contend that there was any confusion in his mind, nor could there have been, between the state court order compelling handwriting samples to the state authorities and the district court order compelling handwriting samples to the FBI for determining whether the appellant had written the signatures James R. LaRue and Jerry W. Ryan. The court's order was valid, and the wisdom or necessity for the order could not constitute a defense to contempt for a refusal to comply with the order. United States v. Bukowski, 435 F.2d 1094, 1108 (7th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 401 U.S. 911, 91 S.Ct. 874, 27 L.Ed.2d 809 (1971). Therefore, the appellant's offer of proof for a good faith defense was clearly insufficient as a matter of law, and the district court did not err in the occlusion of the proposed evidence. As the court noted, the evidence could relate only to the validity of the underlying order or mitigation of the sentence, but could not excuse the appellant's refusal to comply with the order. 50