Contempt of court punishment?

Question

About what kinds of punishment can I expect with a contempt of court as a witness, for not showing up after supeona? I believe it went from Civil to criminal, a fight between my brother and I a year ago. I didnt go because as far as im concerned the problems between him and I were over. Just curious if im looking at jail time. Thanks

Answer 1

Unless you were out of town and could prove it,I would have to say a for sure Yes on a little bit of jail time.Don't go in front of him with an attitude because it's up to him weather or not it's 10 days or 110 days.

Answer 2

Yes you will go to jail a bench warrant will be issued.

Answer 3

Ignoring any order from a court to appear, whether it's a subpoena or summons or whatever, is usually not a good idea.  Judges tend to get unhappy if the case cannot be resolved and taken off the calendar because somebody simply did not show up.  What can happen is that the judge issues a "bench warrant," ordering law enforcement to come after you and bring you in to face a hearing.  You could be looking at a fine or some jail time, but the law varies from state to state.  Since you have already gotten on the wrong side of things, a wise move might be to check with a lawyer, who can tell you the quickest way to put things right with the court and avoid anything nasty.

Answer 4

I think that line of "civil to criminal" confuses things.  There are civil and criminal cases, and there are contempt charges that may arise in either situation which would be criminal or civil regardless of which situation they arose in.

Putting aside what the underlying case is about, you could face either criminal contempt or civil contempt.  Just like the difference between civil and criminal matters, Criminal Contempt is a charge meant to punish you for something you've done.  In NYS, there are at least 2 different charges for CC - one being a misdemeanor and the other being a felony punishable by up to 7 years in jail.  Civil Contempt is the opposite - you can be put in jail or fined, but this isn't really a punishment: it's meant to change your conduct, stop you from doing what you're not supposed to do, or make you what you're not doing.  To make a case for criminal contempt, which is a crime itself, you must prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt; civil contempt must be established to a lower burden of proof - preponderance of evidence.  You might also face separate charges called (in NYS anyway) "Bail Jumping" - where you failed to appear for a criminal case - this applies whether there's bail in your case or not, it's not a very well named statute.

Criminal Case - if you were prosecuted for committing a crime and had notice that this was going on, you can be arrested by bench warrant issued by the judge.  You can argue that there was no crime, but you can only do that from inside the court, and simply saying that this was a private family matter doesn't matter since that would eliminate countless parental or spousal abuse cases.  There is no defense of "back off officer, this is a private matter between me and the *****".