The real story here is that civil contempt can net you an indefinite prison sentence without a conviction, and if you're lucky a judge will decide to let you out. Over something you may or may not even know.
“Federal law generally limits jail time for contempt of court to 18 months. But a federal appeals court in 2019 rejected Thompson’s argument that that law applies to him, saying his refusal violated conditions of a plea agreement.”
This guy took millions of dollars in people's private investment. Found the treasure, hid the treasure, and then refused to comply with a court order to make the investors whole.
How else could it possibly work? The justice system depends on judges being able to compel action. Within the guardrails established by the system (e.g. no self-incriminating testimony, if you’re in the US), I don’t have a problem with refusal to e.g. turn over evidence just resulting in detention until you comply. It’s not a prison sentence, since you can get out any time you want.
You ask how else could it possibly work. How about charge him with a crime first, then detain him if he's convicted. The idea that you can imprison someone forever without a charge is insane.
You can't resolve criminal liability without compliance to judicial authority. It's not even a meaningful demand. If you don't trust the judiciary you can't trust any other component of the system!
The “system” is comprised of normal people. These normal people are vastly more concerned about furthering their own career,ie “Winning”. No one should trust this system to ever find any real justice. It is a joke.
“The only way people can trust the system is if judges can put anybody away indefinitely/permanently without trial” is such a funny idea. That is the premise of Judge Dredd. It’s like saying “Judge Dredd needs to exist”.
I am not a law genius but it seems like in real life since judges can charge plaintiffs, defendants, lawyers, and witnesses with contempt the whole “infinity jail is on the table for every person in the room” thing would make people less likely to want to engage with the civil or criminal justice systems.
Then you can charge him with the crime of contempt, and allow that charge to be proven or disproven through actual due process.
There is no such thing as a valid reason to skip the part where you have to prove guilt. Even for a judge. Frankly especially for a judge. Everyone else has the excuse that they aren't lawyers. What's a judges excuse?
You absolutely can conduct a process to determine if one is actually guilty of that accusation the same as any other accusation, and you should, which is why it's called due process.
There are no valid fiat decrees. Everything must be somehow defensible.
The crime is not simply failing to do what a judge said. Even judges are not gods. The crime is failing to do something that they had the power to do, and that the judge or the state had the right to demand. And both of those are as arguable as anything else.
Exactly. Seeing as there is no presumption of innocence in the US and the burden of proof is the defendant’s, it makes sense that a judge can put anyone in jail indefinitely without proving anything. If he had died in prison it would have been due process because contempt is meant to be so punitive that it acts as a deterrent to any other person that sets foot in a court room from refusing to be compelled into making self-incriminatory statements.
Now obviously this entire line of reasoning would be completely nullified if there were examples to the contrary or if any of the things mentioned had been adjudicated before but
> Seeing as there is no presumption of innocence in the US
Wait, what? Have you served on a criminal jury in the US? There most definitely is a presumption of innocence, and the judge will remind the jury of this multiple times in the course of the trial.
The burden is on the prosecution (I.e. the state) to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
No your explicitly not required provide testimony against yourself the fifth amendment should absolutely override any "contempt" bullshit of him being willing to incriminate himself.
> You can't prove or disprove anything with someone who refuses to comply with the courts.
I don't understand how someone could even think this.
Suppose he stole the loot and refuses to say where it is, but he really put it in a bank safe deposit box. The bank teller remembers him coming into the bank with a big pile of loot and then leaving without it, so you use the teller's statement to get a warrant to search the box, get the camera footage from the bank, etc. There are many ways to prove something without the suspect's cooperation.
How is the alternative supposed to work? The judge tells you to answer a question you'd only know the answer to if you were actually guilty and then you stay in jail for as long as you don't answer it? What are you supposed to do if you're innocent?
A jury could have decided whether his refusal to disclose made him guilty of a crime deserving of that punishment. Authority and power are two different things. Lots of people have authority without the power to unilaterally throw people in prison indefinitely.
That's not how court works. It's not a democratic vote of a group of people just making up their own mind. The judge intricately controls what the jury does and does not hear, and how they are instructed, based on the rules of evidence and of criminal or civil procedure. No, you can't just "let the jury decide" if a party to a case simply decides to ignore the judge.
No, that is how it works. If you are charged with criminal contempt, you have the right to a jury trial, and the jury determines whether guilt has been proven to the appropriate standard.
That’s not how any of this works. You still have rights when you’re being detained for contempt, you can claim you’re being held arbitrarily for being asked to turn over evidence that doesn’t exist, and an appeals court will decide if that’s true and release you if so. It’s not a magic incantation to hold anyone indefinitely at random.
It seems he pled guilty to missing a hearing and then was held indefinitely on that plea bargain, because the judge wanted him to turn over evidence. I don't know, if this happened as it's reported it seems incredibly close to a magic incantation
The standard federal limit is 18 months. An appeals court said that didn’t apply to him because he was violating a plea agreement that he voluntarily entered into.
> I don’t have a problem with refusal to e.g. turn over evidence just resulting in detention until you comply. It’s not a prison sentence, since you can get out any time you want.
It is if you don't have the item(s) or knowledge being asked for.
> Thompson was held in contempt for refusing to answer questions about the location of about 500 missing gold coins
You can claim “I forgot” in response to questioning, and the judge will decide on the balance of evidence whether you appear to be telling the truth. Contra the panicky memes about contempt of court, people aren’t indefinitely detained because they forgot something. But that’s clearly not what happened here.
> the judge will decide on the balance of evidence whether you appear to be telling the truth
Hmm, not sure if that's adequate, civil court is usually balance, and that's because it doesn't deprive someone of their liberty. Criminal court is beyond a reasonable doubt, because of the seriousness of the consequences
It's entirely conceivable that he stashed the gold, it was subsequently discovered and stolen by somebody else (any of his relatives might have been in a position to do this, if for instance he stashed it in his home and they had reason to suspect he had done so.) Then, not knowing that the gold is gone he admits that he had it and agrees to turn it over, only to then discover that he cannot. What then is he meant to do?
The "balance of evidence" may say that he once had it, since he did seem to admit it when he agreed to turn it over, but what then? What evidence is there that he's now lying?
The order was not that he had to produce the coins, just that he cooperate in tracking them down. Telling them where he had stashed it would have been fine.
Here is the idea - six month in jail for contempt.
> The justice system depends on judges being able to compel action"
It does not. The person gets punished and this should be the end of it. Instead they have Machiavellian twist bypassing all standard checks and bounds.
The is the most totalitarian bullshit I've ever heard on HN.
The fact that you're okay with another human, just because they have a robe, to compel you to do as they ask OR rot away without a conviction is utter madness.
Imagine if this was the 1500s and the man in the robe was a priest. Would you be okay with that? and if your answer is some form of distinction without a difference argument, I'd urge you to not even reply.
Indefinite imprisonment isn't the only way to solve this. Over here we just have trials without the defendant, and they usually don't end up well for them. Better than indefinite imprisonment, though.
Seems sort of like he was held for as long as he'd have been held if he'd been judged guilty of stealing everything he was accused of stealing, and if he wanted to default himself into prison for that stretch without a trial, the judge was content to oblige him.
The problem obviously being that then there is never a trial and no one ever proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was even capable of disclosing the information.
Because the point of the contempt charge is to compel someone to obey a court order or ruling. So yes, demonstrating that you cannot comply is generally a relevant defense.
I don’t see any evidence he ever attempted to make that claim.
Demonstrating that you can't comply and claiming it are obviously two different things. The issue is that they're not required to convince a jury that you can't beyond a reasonable doubt before locking you up, and then what do you get from claiming it when you can't prove a negative?
Not sure what you’re trying to say here. Contempt charges like this are an established part of judicial process for when a participant is not cooperating with the process.
A core way to appeal a civil contempt is on the grounds that you cannot comply.
Then the human beings involved have to assess whether or not the claim has merit.
It would seem insane to sit in jail for 10 years without even attempting to make that claim if he legitimately couldn’t remember where he stashed an actual treasure trove. And yet, as far as I can see he did not even make the attempt.
Based on that, it looks pretty clearly like he knew where the treasure was, he knew they knew where it was, and he was willing to sit in jail rather than give it up.
> It would seem insane to sit in jail for 10 years without even attempting to make that claim if he legitimately couldn’t remember where he stashed an actual treasure trove. And yet, as far as I can see he did not even make the attempt.
How would you propose to prove that you can't remember something?
