Opinion ID: 1437505
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Nature of This Case Indirect Criminal Contempt

Text: The question for this Court to resolve is almost identical to the one which was presented in Bagwell: are the non-compensatory assessments or fines imposed upon DiSabatino coercive civil or criminal sanctions? [8] In this case, after levying the initial $1500 sanction, the Family Court advised DiSabatino that assessment, and each one thereafter, would be doubled for subsequent violations. We note, as in Bagwell, the fact that the sanctions imposed against DiSabatino were announced in advance did not render them coercive and civil, as a matter of law. United Mine Workers v. Bagwell, ___ U.S. at ___ _ ___, 114 S.Ct. at 2561-2562. The other considerations in Bagwell, which resulted in the conclusion that the fines at issue were criminal, are equally applicable in this matter. First, DiSabatino's conduct did not occur in the [Family] court's presence or otherwise implicate the court's ability to maintain order and adjudicate the proceedings before it. United Mine Workers v. Bagwell, ___ U.S. at ___, 114 S.Ct. at 2562. Second, DiSabatino's contumacy did not involve simple affirmative acts, such as the paradigmatic civil contempts examined in Gompers.  Id. Instead, the Family Court levied assessments against DiSabatino for widespread, ongoing, out-of-court violations of [the automatic] injunction and its later orders. United Mine Workers v. Bagwell, ___ U.S. at ___, 114 S.Ct. at 2562. Thus, as in Bagwell, the Family Court was policing DiSabatino's compliance with an entire code of conduct that the court had itself imposed. Id. In Bagwell, it was determined that under such circumstances, the defendants were entitled to all of the rights afforded to a defendant in a criminal proceeding. Id. In particular, it was determined that the defendants were entitled to a criminal jury trial because disinterested factfinding and even-handed adjudication were essential. Id. The United States Supreme Court has stated that the procedural protection afforded by jury trial is of heightened importance when a court exercises its inherent criminal contempt powers. Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 194, 201-202, 88 S.Ct. 1477, 1481-82, 20 L.Ed.2d 522 (1968). The ratio decidendi for that statement was a recognition that allegations of a rejection of judicial authority may strike[] at the most vulnerable and human qualities of a judge's temperament. Id. The proceedings and the sanctions in this case were criminal. The sanctions imposed upon DiSabatino by the Family Court were criminal for two separate reasons: the assessments were not compensatory and the assessments were not purgeable by subsequent compliance. DiSabatino was entitled to the full panoply of rights that are guaranteed in a criminal proceeding for two other reasons: the assessments were serious, not petty, and the origin of each of the proceedings was DiSabatino's on-going, out-of-court violations of a judicially mandated course of conduct. United Mine Workers v. Bagwell, ___ U.S. at ___, 114 S.Ct. at 2562. The record reflects that the Family Court denied DiSabatino the constitutional rights which are guaranteed in a criminal proceeding. Accordingly, the judgments of the Family Court must be reversed. It is necessary, therefore, to address the nature and manner of the proceedings that should be conducted when this matter is remanded to the Family Court.