noting that even if double jeopardy applied to civil contempt, no double jeopardy issue would arise from separate adjudications of civil contempt when a witness before a grand jury refused to answer a similar question on two separate days
How later courts described this case
- noting that even if double jeopardy applied to civil contempt, no double jeopardy issue would arise from separate adjudications of civil contempt when a witness before a grand jury refused to answer a similar question on two separate days
- finding a plaintiff's due process claim waived because it was raised for the first time on appeal
- “Quite simply, a contemnor who will be sentenced to a determinate term of imprisonment or a fixed fine, which he is powerless to escape by purging himself of his contempt, is entitled to the essential procedural safeguards that attend criminal proceedings generally.”
- involving non-monetary purge condition—i.e., requirement that contemnor testify before grand jury
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
NIX, Justice
(dissenting).
In the instant case upon a filing of its petition the Deputy Attorney General, appellee’s counsel and the supervising judge went into an anteroom at which time the stenographer read questions asked of appellee that day during the grand jury. Appellee’s counsel was then asked to leave, but the Deputy Attorney General remained with the supervising judge for a short in camera hearing. These facts are similar to those in In re Falone, 464 Pa. 42 , 346 A.2d 9 (1975), and I dissent here for the reasons expressed in my dissenting opinion in In re Falone, supra.
EAGEN, J, joins in this dissenting opinion.