No Charge: In Civil-Contempt Cases, Jail Time Can Stretch On for Years

SoulManX

The Inspector!
Joined
Oct 20, 2004
Messages
11,028
Reaction score
1
Points
58
One can spend a long time in jail in the U.S. without ever being charged with a crime.

It happened to H. Beatty Chadwick, a former Philadelphia-area lawyer, who has been behind bars for nearly 14 years without being charged.

Businessman Manuel Osete spent nearly three years in an Arizona jail without ever receiving a criminal charge. And investment manager Martin Armstrong faced a similar situation when he was held for more than six years in a Manhattan jail.

All three men were jailed for civil contempt, a murky legal concept. Some scholars say it is too often abused by judges, to the detriment of those charged and their due-process rights. "These results of too many civil-contempt confinements are flatly outrageous and often unconstitutional," says Jayne Ressler, a professor at Brooklyn Law School.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123137263059962659.html?mod=rss_US_News
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Staff online

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
201,152
Messages
21,907,298
Members
45,704
Latest member
BMD
Back
Top
monitoring_string = "afb8e5d7348ab9e99f73cba908f10802"