Opinion ID: 1931497
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Appealability/Mootness

Text: The State's initial response to that issue is that the appeal should be dismissed. It urges, first, that as appellant has never been incarcerated or otherwise sanctioned and, as matters now stand, cannot be incarcerated, there is no appealable judgment. Apart from the declaration of no incarceration, the 18-month period of probation ordered in June, 2002, to which the two conditions were attached, has expired, which, in the State's view, renders the issue raised by appellant moot. The State also views the June 27 order as a consent order, from which no appeal is permissible in any event. Finally, it argues that the two conditions were permissible and that a finding of contempt for their wilful violation was valid. Appellant views the two conditions as jurisdictionally deficient, permitting him to challenge them at any time. Though tacitly recognizing that any argument regarding possible future incarceration may be moot, he urges, without any documentation, that the approach taken in his case, of attaching drug testing and rehabilitation conditions to a probation that, in his view, have nothing to do with his paying child support, is commonly used by the Circuit Court for Howard County, that the issue will arise again, and that the Circuit Court needs to be instructed that it may not use that approach. The question, then, is whether the appeal is a permissible and sustainable one, namely, whether the appeal is from a nonappealable consent order, whether an appeal lies from a contempt finding that is unaccompanied by any sanction, and whether, even if the order was initially appealable, the issue raised by appellant the validity of the finding of contempt based on non-compliance with the drug testing and rehabilitation requirements has since become moot. The October 9, 2003 order that embodied the finding of contempt was approved by appellant's counsel as to form, but it certainly was not consented to by either counsel or appellant. The two conditions at issuedrug testing and attending NA self-help meetingsemanated from the addendum that was attached to the June 27 Order for Probation, to which appellant, uncounseled at the time, did consent and from which he did not appeal. Although it is true that, ordinarily, a party may not appeal from a judgment to which he/she consented see Franzen v. Dubinok, 290 Md. 65, 68, 427 A.2d 1002, 1004 (1981), Mercantile Trust Co. v. Schloss, 165 Md. 18, 24, 166 A. 599, 601-02 (1933) it is also clear that a party may not validly consent to a criminal sentence that is unlawful. See Holmes v. State, 362 Md. 190, 195-96, 763 A.2d 737, 740 (2000) and cases cited there. If, as urged by appellant, the conditions at issue were, when first imposed, in the nature of criminal sanctions and, as such, not permissible in a civil contempt proceeding, they would, indeed, constitute an unlawful criminal sentence to which no consent could be valid. The consent issue thus hinges on the substantive one. As to whether an appeal may be taken from a finding of contempt unaccompanied by any sanction, the law generally, and the jurisprudence of this Court in particular, have shifted. In Kelly v. Montebello Park Co., 141 Md. 194, 196, 118 A. 600, 601 (1922), this Court observed that, at common law, a court of competent jurisdiction was the sole judge of contempts against its authority and dignity and that its judgment in such cases was final, conclusive, and not reviewable in any other tribunal unless such review was authorized by statute. The Court at least suggested, however, that the unreviewability of contempt orders in Maryland, in the absence of a statute, was limited to findings of criminal contempt, which was the nature of the order then before the Court. That view was confirmed in Ex Parte Sturm, 152 Md. 114, 124-26, 136 A. 312, 316 (1927) (holding, in absence of statute, order of criminal contempt not appealable). At its next session, the General Assembly, by 1927 Md. Laws, ch. 593, added to the list of equity orders from which appeals may be taken, an order remedial in its nature adjudging in contempt of Court any party to a cause or any person not a party thereto (except orders passed requiring the payment of alimony). In International Pocketbook Workers' v. Orlove, 158 Md. 496, 148 A. 826 (1930), the Circuit Court had entered a preliminary injunction in a labor dispute, enjoining the defendants from picketing and engaging in certain other concerted activity. The court thereafter made the injunctions permanent and also found the defendants in contempt for violating the preliminary injunction. Because it found the violations not to be intentional, however, it imposed no punishment. This Court entertained an appeal from the injunctions, which were vacated as being too broad, but dismissed an appeal from the contempt orders on the ground that, even under the statute, the right of appeal supposes the existence of some injury from the orders to be redressed by appeal. Id. at 505, 148 A. at 829. Because no punishment had been imposed on the contempt, the Court did not regard the defendants as having been injured. In Mitchell v. Mitchell, 61 Md. App. 535, 487 A.2d 680 (1985), the Court of Special Appeals followed that approach, as it was required to do, and dismissed an appeal from a finding of contempt devoid of any punishment. A facially similar ruling was made in Director of Fin., Prince George's Co. v. Cole, 296 Md. 607, 465 A.2d 450 (1983), although the actual basis for that ruling was not entirely the same as in Intern'l Pocketbook Workers, which was not cited by the Court. In November, 1980, the District Court ordered the Director of Finance of Prince George's County to return money that had been seized in a gambling raid. The order was never served on the Director, who also had not been notified of the motion seeking the return of the money and was not in court when the order was issued. Nonetheless, on April 2, 1981, the court orally held the Director in contempt of court for failing to return the money. No sanction or purge was mentioned in the oral ruling. That same day, the Director noted an appeal from the oral finding of contempt. The next day, the court entered a written order of contempt that did contain a sanction and purge provision, but no appeal was taken from that order. This Court dismissed the Director's appeal from the oral ruling on the ground that it was premature, as not being from a final judgment in the matter. In explaining why the appeal was premature, the Court noted that the oral ruling, which contained no sanction or purge provision, did not constitute a contempt order from which an appeal may properly be taken. Id. at 613, 465 A.2d at 454. The heart of the decision was that the oral ruling on April 2 was not intended to be a final disposition of the matter, as evidenced by the fact that, in failing to provide for a sanction and purge, it was not a complete recitation of the court's ultimate ruling. The court obviously understood that a sanction and purge were necessary if the contempt finding was to be effective and enforceable, as those provisions were included in the written order filed the next day. The oral ruling was nothing more than a preliminary announcement of a partial decision, from which no appeal will lie. The 1927 statute was substantively rewritten in 1957 ( See 1957 Md. Laws. ch. 399, § 4) and now appears as Maryland Code, § 12-304(a) of the Cts. & Jud. Proc. Article. It provides, subject to the exception for a contempt based on the violation of an interlocutory order for the payment of alimony, that [a]ny person may appeal from any order or judgment passed to preserve the power or vindicate the dignity of the court and adjudging him in contempt of court. It is no longer part of a statute dealing just with equity orders and on its face, plainly applies to both criminal and civil contempts, so the distinction in that regard seemingly drawn in Kelly and Sturm no longer would be valid. The only issue is whether the view expressed in Intern'l Pocketbook Workers and Mitchell still pertainsthat a condition to appealability under the statute is the existence of some injury and that a mere finding of contempt devoid of any punishment does not suffice. That view, we think, was modified in Lynch v. Lynch, 342 Md. 509, 677 A.2d 584 (1996). In Lynch, the defendant was found in civil contempt for failure to pay child support. The court sentenced her to 20 days in the detention center but provided that the contempt could be purged by the payment of $500. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the finding of contempt but, after concluding that the evidence was legally insufficient to show that she had the ability to purge the contempt, vacated the sanction. This Court went further and held that, absent a showing that the defendant could, in fact, meet a purge, no finding of contempt was permissible. That aspect of the decision has been overturned, in non-support cases, by the subsequent adoption of Maryland Rule 15-207(e). See Committee Note to Rule 15-207; Rawlings v. Rawlings, supra, 362 Md. at 552-53, 766 A.2d at 107-08. The part of the decision that remains extant and enduring, however, is the further conclusion that a finding of contempt, where there is no possibility of enforcing compliance with the court order to which it relates, simply labels the defendant a contemnor and imputes guilt to him or her. That is a form of punishment.  Id. at 529, 677 A.2d at 594 (emphasis added). That conclusion is entirely valid. A finding of contempt, even without the immediate imposition of punishment or sanction, leaves the defendant adjudged to have wilfully violated a court order and may well leave the defendant subject to future punishment at the will of the court. The adjudication itself is and will remain a matter of public record, readily accessible, and may well affect the defendant's ability to obtain employment, licenses of one kind or another, housing, insurance, or other benefits or opportunities. See Williams v. Williams, 63 Md.App. 220, 226, 492 A.2d 649, 651 (1985), aff'd, 305 Md. 1, 501 A.2d 432 (1985). Even if we were not to regard that as punishment, the plain wording and a common sense reading of § 12-304 indicate an intent to permit an appeal from the adjudication of contempt itself, without regard to whether an immediate sanction is imposed. The appeal is allowed from  any order or judgment passed to preserve the power or vindicate the dignity of the court and adjudging him in contempt of court. Maryland Code, § 12-304(a) of the Cts. & Jud. Proc. Article (emphasis added). The statute does not require that the order be accompanied by an immediate sanction. For those reasons, we hold that the October 9, 2003 order was appealable, and for the same reasons, we conclude that the appeal is not moot. The adjudication of contempt remains on the record.