Court Opinion

ID: 9569882
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:18:17.236418+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:12.685232
License: Public Domain

ANDREWS, Presiding Judge.
Robyn Pressley Harris appeals a juvenile court’s orders finding her in contempt of court, arguing that the evidence was insufficient.1 We affirm.
The record shows that at a hearing on June 26, 2008, the juvenile court was considering a protective order submitted by the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS) and including provisions that Harris “shall make herself available to the Department no less than twice per month” and that she “shall cooperate with the Department.” At the close of evidence, DFCS asked the juvenile court “to order the mother to do everything asked [for] in the protective order.” The juvenile court immediately granted “all the requests required by DFCS.” The court continued:
[I am] [g]oing to require her to submit to a hair follicle test today. I require DFCS to advance the funds but I require the mother to reimburse DFCS at the rate of —... $50 per month till it’s reimbursed in full. I’m going to require DFCS to make a home visit today to see what the status of the issue concerning the home is to make sure we know exactly what is going on concerning home — I mean, her home and where she’s living. I’ll require DFCS to contact to get all the *217information of where these children are located, addresses, telephone numbers, and people that are responsible. I’m going to require you to contact them today or tomorrow to find out what the status of these children are and what means of support they are receiving and what type of educational programs they are receiving this summer, if any. . . . That’s the order of the Court.
(Emphasis supplied.)
Even assuming that the court’s last-quoted requirement was addressed to the DFCS representative rather than Harris, the record, construed in favor of the juvenile court’s judgment, shows that Harris was under an obligation to cooperate with DFCS concerning the location of her children from the moment the trial court issued its order.
At the subsequent hearing on July 10, 2008, after Harris stated that she had not provided some information to DFCS because she did i not want other people involved, the following transpired:
THE COURT: Did you understand what the court order was?
MS. HARRIS: (Unintelligible)
THE COURT: No, ma’am. Listen. Don’t interrupt. The court order was for you to provide the information. Why didn’t you provide the information?
MS. HARRIS: I did not want them to contact the people my children were (unintelligible) with.
! Harris’s counsel explained that the children were with their mother “back in the home to avoid having other persons involved with this case so that she can — that the Department can have access to the : children.” The Court responded:
That’s not what the Court ordered to be done. She doesn’t have the discretion of saying I don’t want somebody else to know. When the Court has ordered her to do something she has to do it. Do you understand that, ma’am?
! Counsel responded, “I do, Your Honor.”
The DFCS representative later reported to the court that Harris had given “the names and the cities,” but no addresses or telephone : numbers at the location where the children had been staying part : time. He did not know if Harris knew the information or not. The : court directed Harris to provide her contact number for one of the *218fathers, and the following exchange took place:
MS. KARRIS: I don’t have [the phone number for contacting one of the fathers] with me.
THE COURT: Place — I find her in willful contempt of the Court. Place her in the common jail of Henry County for 20 days or until all information is given that has been requested. Take her into custody.
[COUNSEL]: Your Honor —
THE COURT: No, ma’am. Take her into custody.
(Emphasis supplied.)
Later in the hearing, a DFCS representative said that she did not understand the problem because she had spoken with the children and was astounded that Mrs. Harris would claim that she did not know the fathers’ addresses because they were all in the local area and the children spent a lot of time with their fathers. The court responded:
I understand completely. This is a game they are playing. It is over with. She’s been found in willful contempt of the Court’s order. She’s given 20 days in jail and that’s where she is. She can purge herself of the contempt by providing all of the information that is requested. That’s the order of the Court. Get me an order.
The court’s written judgment reiterated that Harris was in “willful contempt” of the June 26 protective order as well as the Court’s “verbal order” of July 10, sentenced her to 20 days in jail, and noted that she might purge herself of her contempt “by providing the Department with all of the information requested by the Department, including but not limited to, all contact information for each of the children’s fathers.”
“The distinction between [criminal and civil contempt] is that criminal contempt imposes unconditional punishment for prior acts of contumacy, whereas civil contempt imposes conditional punishment as a means of coercing future compliance with a prior court order.” (Citation omitted.) Alexander v. DeKalb County, 264 Ga. 362, 364 (444 SE2d 743) (1994). Because Harris could obtain her freedom from imprisonment and purge herself of the contempt by providing the information that had been requested of her, we consider whether the evidence sufficed to hold Harris in civil contempt.
At this July 10 hearing, neither Harris nor her counsel ever asserted ignorance of the content of the June 26 order, including its provisions that she cooperate with DFCS. On the contrary, Harris *219admitted that she did not comply because “[she] did not want [DFCS] to contact the people” her children were staying with. As such, the record supports a determination that the juvenile court did not abuse its discretion when it found Harris in contempt for disobeying its prior order. See Chatfield v. Adkins-Chatfield, 282 Ga. 190, 192-193 (1) (646 SE2d 247) (2007) (finding no abuse of discretion in civil contempt finding where the record showed that a party disobeyed the trial court’s oral order).

Judgment affirmed.

Miller, C. J., Blackburn, P. J., Ellington and f Mikell, JJ, concur. Johnson, P. J., and Barnes, J., dissent.

 We do not address Harris’s enumeration of error concerning the trial court’s finding that her children were deprived because it was the subject of a separate appeal in Case No. A09A0217, which was dismissed.