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Tommy Gregory Thompson is a former deep-sea treasure hunter and is about to mark his fifth year in jail for contempt of court for refusing to disclose the whereabouts of 500 missing coins made from gold found in an historic shipwreck. The normal maximum to hold someone is 18 months, so we are well past that.

Can the courts hold someone indefinitely for contempt of court? When would this situation be considered 'cruel and unusual' punishment?

jcaron
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Digital fire
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    dosn't he also rack up 1000 USD per day, and owes the state a million every 3 years? – Trish Feb 08 '21 at 20:09
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    @Trish is that relevant? I believe debtor prisons have been outlawed. You can be imprisoned for failing to pay money to the state if you owe it and you have it. But you can't be imprisoned for failing to pay it because you are unable to pay. – grovkin Feb 09 '21 at 14:13
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    @grovkin it doesn't matter that he can't pay it, it matters that if he ever told, he still would owe the government lots and lots of money for contempt of court. – Trish Feb 09 '21 at 15:17
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    @grovkin, No, they were never abolished in the United States, where non-payment of child support, fines, or back taxes can land you jail time, whether you have the money stashed away or not. – PatrickT Feb 10 '21 at 02:21
  • H. Beatty Chadwick spent 14 years in jail for civil contempt, in Pennsylvania. – benrg Feb 10 '21 at 05:41
  • @PattrickT not having the money is not a defense against such imprisonment? – grovkin Feb 10 '21 at 06:31
  • @Trish but why is this relevant to the question? – grovkin Feb 10 '21 at 06:32
  • Really curious why he's being held for contempt, rather than for theft (or whatever charge) for defrauding his investors by keeping/selling the coins. – brichins Feb 12 '21 at 22:53

1 Answers1

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Can the courts hold someone indefinitely for contempt of court?

Yes. This is civil contempt which is imposed to compel compliance with a court order that the disobedient person has the ability to comply with, rather than criminal contempt which is limited to a set time period to punish disrespect for the Court in an instance that is over and complete.

Often, it is eventually vacated on the grounds of futility (i.e. it is clear that further incarceration will not secure compliance) or mootness (e.g. when a witness refuses to testify in a trial and then the trial is completed). In the case of government officials who refuse to comply to an order directed to them in an official capacity, the government official can be released forthwith by resigning from their official post.

Long periods of detention for civil contempt are most common for cases like this where someone refuses to provide the location of something of great value, or in asset protection trust type cases involving millions of dollars worth of assets where the detained person refuses to disclose hidden assets or to take the steps necessary to cause them to be turned over to a creditor or ex-spouse, and the Court has determined that the person detained is capable of doing so. Less often, it is done for quite a long time in cases involving national security secrets.

Persons held in civil contempt also have fewer due process protections than persons charged with indirect criminal contempt which is just a procedurally unusual form of crime (direct criminal contempt is even more procedurally unusual and involves less due process, the person held in direct criminal contempt can be jailed or fined for a set period of time summarily by a judge without a hearing for disrespectful conduct in the judge's physical presence with only a brief few seconds opportunity to speak up for himself or herself without a right to counsel in response before being punished).

When would this situation be considered 'cruel and unusual' punishment?

No. Cruel and unusual punishment applies to punishment for wrongdoing. Civil contempt isn't designed to punish wrongdoing. It is calculated to secure compliance going forward with a lawful court order with which the person incarcerated has the ability to comply.

In a case of civil contempt, a fundamental principle is that the person detained, who has refused to comply with a court order that the person has the ability to comply with and does so without lawful justification, "holds the key to the jail" and can be released forthwith upon complying with the Court's order at any time.

ohwilleke
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    Mr. Thompson could at any moment end being held if he just told what the court wants to know. He could, at 2 AM in the morning, have a judge called! at least in theory. Practically, he'd get to "see" the judge at the earliest available moment. – Trish Feb 08 '21 at 20:04
  • @Trish Just so. – ohwilleke Feb 08 '21 at 20:04
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    Are there any Fifth Amendment implications? It seems strange that someone can be held until they reveal some information, as they are effectively being coerced into providing information by being detained. Perhaps the location of the gold is not strictly self-incriminatory in this case, though. – Michael Seifert Feb 08 '21 at 20:11
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    The Fifth Amendment only applies if the person whose testimony is sought invokes it. Its limitations can be avoided by granting the person testifying use immunity for their testimony (i.e. by prohibiting it from being used as evidence in a criminal case), but only if the relevant prosecutors agree (but the other party may not want to take that off the table). So, why doesn't he not claim the 5th? Because if he did, the judge could use the assertion as a basis for an adverse inference against the person and as a basis for imposing liability upon that person. – ohwilleke Feb 08 '21 at 20:19
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    in many cases, the disclosure also is necessary part of a deal with the state: you tell us X, we don't do Y. Because he doesn't disclose, he is held in contempt. – Trish Feb 08 '21 at 20:23
  • Isn't the exclusionary rule basically saying that any time time someone is coerced into disclosing something they had a right to not say, use immunity applies? – Acccumulation Feb 09 '21 at 03:43
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    H. Beatty Chadwick spent 14 years behind bars in Pennsylvania for a similar "contempt of court" problem. That's believed to be the all-time record in the United States, at least. https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=8101209&page=1 – Lorendiac Feb 09 '21 at 03:58
  • @MichaelSeifert Not a lawyer, but I would expect that anyone can be forced to comply with a court order in any means necessary. I think that kind of court order is supposed to be impossible to get out of. If Mr Thompson was not required to divulge the location then the order would not exist in the first place. – user253751 Feb 09 '21 at 08:20
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    @ohwilleke If the court wasn't already firmly convinced (way beyond the mere preponderance standard that an adverse inference would overcome) that he had this information, he could not be held in contempt for not revealing it. In this particular case, Thompson already invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege and a court held that the information was not requested for any testimonial purpose in any conceivable criminal case and thus his right against self-incrimination was not implicated. – David Schwartz Feb 09 '21 at 10:28
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    @Trish - Not trying to disagree, but genuinely curious...certainly there is a chance that he no longer has that information, right? 'Five years ago, I left them here...' but someone else comes along and takes them. Say he decides to talk, and revels the location the coins were last at, but they are gone. How would the court respond (especially compared to him simply lying and giving a false location)? – Rob P. Feb 09 '21 at 16:00
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    @DavidSchwartz: I can certainly think of situations where the coins might be in the presence of evidence that would alert authorities to a crime of which authorities would otherwise be unaware. I would hardly regard such a notion as being particularly implausible, much less inconceivable. Would there be any legally recognized procedure by which a court could require that the person retrieving the coins be "legally oblivious" to anything they might observe in the process, even if it would represent clear and obvious evidence of a crime? – supercat Feb 09 '21 at 16:04
  • @RobP. THAT is a good but different question. They might say "ok, you divulged the info" or they might say "You lied." – Trish Feb 09 '21 at 16:21
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    @supercat: That's a different question, but in short: Yes. They (prosecutors, not the judge) could give Mr. Thompson use-and-derivative-use immunity, which would render such evidence inadmissible in any future criminal proceeding. They could also give him transactional immunity (which would remove his hypothetical criminal liability altogether), but that's uncommon at the federal level. However, he would need to convince the judge that he can take the fifth first (because otherwise, there is no reason for prosecutors to give him this deal), and it sounds like he failed to do that. – Kevin Feb 09 '21 at 19:17
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    One of the most high-profile cases in recent decades was that of Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who refused to disclose which Bush Administration official told her Valerie Plame was a CIA operative: https://www.rcfp.org/judith-miller-freed-jail-after-agreeing-testify/ – jeffronicus Feb 09 '21 at 19:34
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    The clear problem with this is the risk of infinite detention on a judge's errant belief. – Joshua Feb 09 '21 at 23:44
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    @Joshua Court orders can be challenged/appealed, so there is an out if you legitimately cannot comply with the original order. – bta Feb 10 '21 at 01:46
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    @bta How would you prove that you legitimately could not comply with the order? If you simply forgot the information which was wanted from you, a judge could always claim that you are withholding the information. – forest May 03 '22 at 00:32
  • @forest It varies based on what exactly is being ordered and the details of the underlying case. In general, though, the judge isn't going to hold you in contempt unless there's evidence that you are fully capable of complying. As is commonly seen in congressional hearings, "I don't recall" is a valid - and common - answer to a question and holding someone in contempt for it requires hard evidence. – bta May 03 '22 at 15:39
  • @bta "I don't recall" isn't a perfect out. If a judge finds that the statement is a lie in a particular case, that can constitute a non-responsive contempt of court by refusing to answer. It isn't common, but often seen when, for example, someone makes a social media post or says in a recorded conversation that they are deceiving the court, or recently provided a more full answer to someone else. – ohwilleke May 03 '22 at 15:56
  • @Trish Except that the judge can hold him in contempt for no other reason that the judge believes -- or purports to believe -- that he could tell what he is not. He does not have to produce the slightest evidence to the satisfaction of anyone else that the person being held could tell it. – Mary Jan 16 '23 at 05:09