Court Opinion

ID: 9466743
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:26:10.177878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:55.755469
License: Public Domain

SEITZ, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
In determining the nature of the contempt sentence imposed on the appellant, Eyler, the majority regards as controlling its construction of the district court’s “intention.” In my view, the court’s intention is irrelevant until we determine that appellant received timely notice that he was charged with a criminal offense. This notice is fundamental in our system of criminal justice. See United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 295-98, 67 S.Ct. 677, 696-98, 91 L.Ed. 884 (1947).
These proceedings were summary; no written charges were filed. Consequently, we must rely on the record of the hearings to determine whether appellant had fair notice. Certainly no document or statement by either the government or the district court explicitly informed him prior to his conviction that he was charged with criminal contempt.
Assuming that the proceedings themselves can provide sufficient notice, can we say that these proceedings put the appellant on notice? The quotations from the record contained in the majority opinion and, indeed, the majority opinion itself demonstrate that neither the district court nor the government focused on the criminal nature of the contempt proceedings.1 Obviously, then, their actions could not inform appellant in that regard. I do not think that one should be charged with notice of a criminal charge on such an ambiguous record.
Furthermore, even though civil and criminal charges may be tried together, United States v. United Mine Workers, supra at 299, 67 S.Ct. at 698, such a proceeding does create real risks that a defendant’s rights on the criminal charge may be lost or obscured. Here, even if we postulate fair notice of the criminal charge, appellant was prejudiced substantially by the district court’s failure to give him his right of allocution on the charge. Taylor v. Hayes, 418 U.S. 488, 498, 94 S.Ct. 2697, 2703, 41 L.Ed.2d 877 (1974). Notwithstanding the contrary statement of appellant’s attorney at oral argument, the record makes plain that the court did not address the appellant person*1266ally and in the manner required by Fed.R. Crim.P. 32(a).
Nor is the right of allocution an empty ritual in this type of summary criminal contempt. A contemner may be able to persuade the sentencing judge to consider, when determining the length of sentence, such mitigating factors as the danger to him or his family were he to testify. Such considerations would be irrelevant in formulating the terms of a civil contempt order.
Given the considerations that I have mentioned, I believe the doubt should be resolved against treating these contempt proceedings as criminal. The construction that I place on the order would place no double jeopardy bar to a subsequent criminal contempt proceeding against appellant. I would therefore remand the case to the district court to modify its order.
HIGGINBOTHAM, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. The record does not show that the district court conformed strictly to the procedural requirements of either type of contempt. Rather, the court proceeded with indiscriminate references to the requirements of both. The majority notes that the court, in compliance with rules applicable only to criminal proceedings, limited the sentence to six months. The district court also stated that appellant’s refusal to testify could lead to imprisonment for up to 18 months, a limitation applied only to civil contempt. 28 U.S.C. § 1826(a) (1976). The court provided that appellant’s contempt sentence would interrupt the running of his prior criminal sentence, a feature of civil contempt. Finally, the court complied with the most critical feature of civil contempt: it gave appellant an opportunity to purge himself of the sentence. See Shillitani v. United States, 384 U.S. 364, 370-72, 86 S.Ct. 1531, 1536, 16 L.Ed.2d 622 (1966). While I choose not to contest the majority’s conclusion that the indicia of criminal contempt predominate, the foregoing persuades me that the district court itself determined that its proceeding was criminal in nature only after the fact.