Court Opinion

ID: 9737613
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:30:22.095792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:00.268554
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE FREEMAN, specially concurring: I join in the result reached by the majority because the State did not charge defendant with indirect criminal contempt and the circuit court did not impose any punishment for contempt upon defendant. I do so with the understanding that where the State calls a defendant as an adverse witness at a probation revocation hearing, the defendant’s answers may not be used to support a finding of criminal contempt. At least two Illinois courts have held that sentencing for contempt of court is a proper sanction for a violation of probation. See People v. Gallinger, 191 Ill. App. 3d 488, 490 (1989) (“The contempt power of the circuit court is a proper sanction for a violation of probation”); People v. Patrick, 83 Ill. App. 3d 951, 954 (1980) (“Because of the court’s inherent contempt power and because the comments of the group drafting the Unified Code of Corrections indicate that the format of the Code was adopted with a recognition of the existence of that inherent power as one added sanction, we deem the court to have possessed power to punish for contempt in this case”); see also People v. Colclasure, 48 Ill. App. 3d 988, 991 (1977) (“Because of the statutory history of use of the contempt sanction for probation violations, the similarity between sentences of probation and periodic imprisonment and analogy to the common law treatment of sanctioning willful violations of other court orders by contempt, we conclude that a trial court is empowered to punish a willful violation of a condition of periodic imprisonment by holding the violator in indirect criminal contempt”). Further, as noted in the council commentary to the probation revocation statute (730 ILCS Ann. 5/5 — 6—4, Council Commentary, at 95 (Smith-Hurd 1997)), “the court retains the sanctions of criminal contempt and fining the offender for violating the conditions of probation.” Because a defendant may be sanctioned for criminal contempt for a violation of the conditions of probation, it is imperative that the defendant’s answers at the probation revocation hearing not be used to support a finding of contempt. Neither may the State use the fruits of the defendant’s testimony against him in a proceeding for contempt. See McCracken v. Corey, 612 P.2d 990 (Alaska 1980) (where the court used its inherent supervisory powers to exclude the parolee’s testimony as well as the fruits of the parolee’s revocation hearing for purposes of the parolee’s subsequent criminal trial). A defendant may not be required to choose between answering the State’s questions, thus supplying the foundation for a finding of contempt, and jeopardizing his conditional liberty by remaining silent. See Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420, 79 L. Ed. 2d 409, 104 S. Ct. 1136 (1984). However, “a State may validly insist on answers to even incriminating questions and hence sensibly administer its probation system, as long as it recognizes that the required answers may not be used in a criminal proceeding and thus eliminates the threat of incrimination.” Murphy, 465 U.S. at 435 n.7, 79 L. Ed. 2d at 425 n.7, 104 S. Ct. at 1146 n.7.