Court Opinion

ID: 9473338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:26:58.271878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:28.061237
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
If the district judge had found that keeping Crededio in jail might yet induce him to testify before the grand jury, then my brethren would be right to affirm the judge’s refusal to order Crededio’s release. But I am unable to extract such a finding from the record. At the time of the hearing before the district judge, Crededio had already been in jail seven months for civil contempt, and his lawyer said, “He just cannot [meaning, will not] testify,” for a variety of personal reasons including fear for his safety if he did testify. The judge could, of course, have disbelieved the lawyer and have found that there was some chance that another month or two or ten might persuade Crededio to lay aside his fears. But instead the judge cut off this line of inquiry by saying, “The argument that Mr. Crededio should not be subject to the continuing contempt power of this Court because he is fixed in his intention not to testify is one I have heard before ... and I have to reject because the reductio [ad absurdum] of that is if a man is ordered to do something and is held in contempt in a prison until he does it, he can free himself by becoming more determined not to do it. The only argument you have raised today, Mr. Noel [Crededio’s lawyer], which is of serious concern to me ... is the suggestion that the Grand Jury ... no longer want his testimony____” Later the judge said, “And when a man comes up and says ... there is no expectation that I will ever testify, I can’t accept that as a reason for ending the incarceration ____” The judge also said: “The only protection the law affords [Crededio] is that 18 month protection.” (Eighteen months is the maximum period of imprisonment for a civil contempt.) And the judge’s opinion states: “the fact that he [Crededio] cannot be ex*594pected to testify does not end the investigation.” It doesn’t matter whether this means the judge thought Crededio would not in fact testify, or (less probably) whether this was merely an assumption the judge made for the sake of argument. All that matters is that the judge made clear that he thought it irrelevant whether or not continued imprisonment would make Crededio change his mind and testify before the grand jury.
Against this background, I cannot agree with my brethren that the statement in the district judge’s opinion “that Mr. Crededio’s continued incarceration, forming as it does the basis for a compulsion upon him to testify and contribute information to an ongoing investigation, is sanctioned by law” is a finding that keeping him in jail will be effective. No doubt it is “the basis for a compulsion upon him to testify” — but a compulsion unlikely to compel.
The Second Circuit in Simkin v. United States, 715 F.2d 34, 37 (2d Cir.1983), held that a district judge confronting a contemnor who says he will not testify even if he is kept in jail is required to make “a conscientious effort to determine whether there remains a realistic possibility that continued confinement might cause the contemnor to testify.” I think this is right, and that the district judge in the present case did not make such an effort, because he thought it irrelevant whether or not the contemnor could be coerced by continued imprisonment. The judge was concerned that if he paid any attention to the contemnor’s determination not to testify, he would just be encouraging contempt. But that is not true. The judge does not have to believe the contemnor’s assertion that he will never testify, and is unlikely to believe it unless (as in this case) the contemnor has already spent a number of months in prison for the contempt. More important, a finding that the contemnor is indeed determined not to testify does not let him off the hook; for what the judge should do upon making that determination is not only release the contemnor but also refer the matter to the United States Attorney for prosecution for criminal contempt. There is no fixed ceiling on the fine or prison sentence that can be meted out to one convicted of it. See 18 U.S.C. § 401(3). In United States v. Patrick, 542 F.2d 381, 392-93 (7th Cir.1976), this court upheld a four-year sentence for criminal contempt, imposed on a recalcitrant grand jury witness — like Crededio.
We should keep a bright line between civil and criminal contempt. Putting a person in prison for up to 18 months (which is almost as much time as the average federal criminal defendant serves who is sentenced to 5 years in prison), without a full trial, and with none of the safeguards of the criminal process, see 3 Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure: Criminal 2d § 705 (1982), is an anomaly in our system, and is permitted only when the purpose is not to punish for past miscreancy but to induce a specific act that the law has a right to coerce, in this case testifying before the grand jury. See id., § 704, at pp. 823-24. As soon as it is clear that the inducement won’t work, the purpose of civil contempt lapses, and the continued imprisonment of the man becomes penal, and requires a criminal proceeding.
Although I would not affirm, I agree with my brethren’s implicit determination that we have the power to do so despite the fact that we have failed to dispose of the appeal within 30 days of the filing of the notice of appeal, contrary to 28 U.S.C. § 1826(b): “Any appeal from an order of confinement under this section shall be disposed of as soon as practicable, but not later than thirty days from the filing of such appeal.” Crededio’s counsel was emphatic at oral argument (held just after the 30 days had elapsed) that he had no complaint with the court’s allowing the deadline to pass — that he had concurred in a briefing schedule which made it impossible as a practical matter for us to decide the appeal sooner than we have done. But especially in light of the recent and inconclusive discussion of the issue in In re Grand Jury Proceedings of August, 1984, 757 F.2d 108, 110-112 n. 1 (7th Cir.1985), it seems worth considering briefly whether *595our missing the 30-day deadline deprives us of jurisdiction of the appeal, in which event we would have to dismiss the appeal whatever position Crededio’s counsel has taken. It seems clear that the deadline is not jurisdictional. It is designed for the protection of the contemnor, and he would be made worse off if, because we dragged our heels, his appeal had to be dismissed and he had to start all over in the district court with a request to reconsider whether he should continue to be kept in jail. The logical sanction for noncompliance with the deadline is not to dismiss the appeal, so that the contemnor continues to languish in jail, but to order him released. But of course if the contemnor himself does not complain about our delay, he waives his claim to a sanction for the delay. And maybe in a case such as this where the deadline is missed by only a few days, releasing the contemnor might in any event be an excessive sanction, though that is not an issue we need decide.