Court Opinion

ID: 9664628
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:23:31.476529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:07.892824
License: Public Domain

SAM D. JOHNSON, Justice
(concurring).
It is beyond question that the trial court judge found the relator in contempt of court on October 19, 1973; he so announced and her punishment was set at confinement in the county jail for ninety days. It was in response to the request of the attorney for the relator that the trial court judge thereupon gave the relator one week in which to purge herself from the punishment assessed. At the subsequent hearing on October 31, 1973 the relator made no attempt to purge herself and of course did not do so.
The trial court judge was at that time empowered to enter his judgment of contempt for any period of time not in excess of ninety days. The trial court judge increased the punishment for contempt from ninety to 150 days, however, and it is this action, this increase in the punishment, without hearing or justification which the majority holds violative of due process. There is no dissent from this determination.
The majority opinion in the next to last paragraph states, “[n]or do we have the question of whether she may be placed in such restraint for ninety days pursuant to Judge Smith’s earlier announcement. An order to such effect was not entered.” The power of the trial court judge now to enter a judgment in conformity with his announced determination of October 19, 1973 is not reached by the majority. This writer is of the opinion that the trial court judge, if he so chooses, is not now inhibited from entering a judgment in conformity with his announced determination of October 19, 1973.