Man has spent 14 years in jail for contempt without being charged for a crime
Wall Street Journal reports on a fellow in the United States who has spent 14 years behind bars without being charged for anything.
Consider Mr. Chadwick's case. In 1994, during divorce proceedings, a Delaware County judge held Mr. Chadwick in civil contempt for failing to put $2.5 million in a court-controlled account. He says he lost the money in bad investments; his wife's attorney claimed he had hidden it offshore. In April 1995, Mr. Chadwick was arrested and detained. Nearly 14 years later, Mr. Chadwick, who suffers from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is still in jail -- even after a retired judge was hired to help locate the money, and failed.No Charge: In Civil-Contempt Cases, Jail Time Can Stretch On for Years (Via The Agitator)"The money is gone," says Mr. Chadwick's lawyer, Michael Malloy. "The coercive effect of this order is gone; it has turned into a life sentence." The judge who held Mr. Chadwick in contempt in 1994 couldn't be reached for comment, but he has said publicly that he doesn't believe Mr. Chadwick lacks the funds.
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What an odd legal black hole to be in. One would think there would be some kind of appeals process to determine if this money actually exists or not?
At this point, I think we've pretty much gotta say that if the money exists and he wants it so bad he's willing to spend fourteen years in prison for it, we should just let him have it.
I heard that Mr. Chadwick's lawyer is immortal, or at least, that you can't kill him very easily...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Malloy
What a disgusting abuse of judicial powers.
Someone REALLY doesn't like Mr. Chadwick.
If the money existed I'm fairly sure he would have given it up quite some time ago. $2.5 million is not worth 14 years in prison.
#2: if that's the case then where do you draw the line? What kind of statute do we set up do that you spend x years in prison on a contempt charge for every Y dollars that you supposedly have, before they finally give up and let you out?
Would this guy deserve to still be in prison if he was believed to have ten or twenty times this much money?
What if he really has no money at all?
Wonder what his ex thinks about all this.
The real question is, given the length of his sentence, is the court violating Mr. Chadwick's right to a jury trial?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Also, the burden of proof here is preponderance of evidence, or burden of probabilities, as weighed exclusively by the judge in Mr. Chadwick's case. If Mr. Chadwick were charged with a crime - any crime - the standard of proof would be Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof
Yes, we may debate whether Mr. Chadwick may or may not have this money, but if Mr. Chadwick had the benefit of 12 perfect strangers of good integrity, all of whom had to agree that there was no reasonable doubt, well, I for one believe he would have been free long ago.
How long can he rot in prison before his rights are violated? Will he be given a trial post-mortem?
@7 Well, there is this quote in the article from her lawyer:
Wow.. it makes you wonder if the judge is having something on the side with his wife. What "reasonable" judge would keep someone in prison for so long for something like this..
Did he do anything else? I mean, did this guy do anything to antagonize the judge? Did he stalk his ex? Either way he would deserve a trial, but it seems crazy a judge would do this.
I wonder if the judge ever sends his pants in for cleaning..
It does seem that there should be some recourse in cases like this. Perhaps there should simply be a hard limit on the power of a judge unilaterally keep someone in prison for such purposes.
If they think you've got a mountain of money somewhere that you're willing to sit in jail for a year for, surely that mountain is big enough for the IRS to be interested.
@#5 Profession: You'd be surprised at what lengths spouses will go through in order to spite each other in the process of divorcing each other. That man will rot and die in jail rather than let her touch a red penny from that money.
I believe he has filed appeals against the judge's order (this is an old story, after all)... but no judge, not even appellate judges, want to limit the power of a judge to issue a contempt citation.
And the power of a judge to hold you in contempt is huge. In their courtroom, there is very little a judge cannot do.
For the record: It's a logical impossibility to prove a negative - in this case that that you don't have money. There's just no way to do it, and that seems to be pretty much what would be required at this point.
Magna Carta: 1, American Judicial System: 0
"No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, or in any other way destroyed, except by the lawful judgment of his peers." - The Magna Carta
I've read about this case before (cant find the source as it was a couple of years ago) and It sounded crooked as all get out. I believe the wife is now with her divorce lawyer, who is somehow related to the judge. In any case, there needs to be an investigation as to why any human being can be given a 14 year to life sentence without being charged with a crime.
That's just barbaric.
for every Chadwick there's ten unknowns rotting in jail on charges that would have gotten a wealthy,literate man a suspended sentence. Good article, people need reminders of the peril they walk in.
there outta be a... oh wait, that's what got him into this mess in the first place.
#15 - The Magna Carta may be logically correct but the horrid american legal system is "winning" by virtue of the fact that the guy is still in jail.
The 18 month standard is an improvement, but still too long, I think. Make the government prove a criminal perjury case against them. This shouldn't be hard to do, if you think about it, in cases like this. If he walks out of jail and suddenly has access to any money at all, he has perjured. Then you have the right to put him back in jail and seize the money. But a perjury jail term isn't going to be anywhere near 14 years!
How can they possibly hold him longer than the jail term for the crime he would have been guilty of had this been a criminal case?
He can be held for longer than the jail term for the crime because he's not in jail for the crime; he's in jail for contempt, which is a completely different offense. Note that he's in for civil contempt, which is different from criminal contempt in several ways:
In a case of criminal contempt, there is a finite sentence, designed to punish the contemnor. "That outburst just got you three days in jail for contempt."
In civil contempt, the point is to compel the contemnor to comply. "You'll be fined $50 per day until you clean up that property." "You'll stay in jail until you produce the money."
With civil contempt, the contemnor can end it at any time by complying with the court's order; one phrase used to describe this setup is "The contemnor holds the keys to the jail" or something like that.
Don't get me wrong; this guy's totally getting screwed, especially if he really doesn't have the money. But the above is how the court's contempt power works, in theory.
#7 - It was kind of just a joke about how ridiculous the situation is. You know, Internet laffs, haha?
Cripes. It's like something out of Bleak House.
'Chadwick' is even a fairly Dickensian sort of name.
I saw an interview with this fellow; He's mental, -- and if it matters, IT IS AN ABUSE of judicial power.
But, sorry to say, this guy really hates his wife and IMO, actually has or had the money.
But the judge should be removed from the bench, this isn't how our courts should be run.
The right solution? At one time, a weekend away might have worked, neither spouse was cheating, they were having trouble -- the man was in the midst of a breakdown and being really unreasonable to his wife, who, at least back then, clearly, still loved him.
IANAL, but my understanding is that contempt is only allowed to be used to compel someone to cooperate with the Judge. If the victim can prove that being imprisoned will not change whether they cooperate, then the contempt isn't allowed.
For example, journalists have been given contempt sentences to compel them to reveal sources. If they get out and still refuse to talk, it's a pretty strong indication that jailing them won't make them talk, so further jailing would be purely spiteful, and not towards the end of gaining cooperation.
There's a lot of grey though, obviously. Who decides whether a contempt charge is reasonable? Who can challenge it? What needs to be proved? I dunno.
I agree with the theory, this guys in contempt to this day...let him try to stare down the Law, but he gets no sympathy from me, or , I suspect, his ex-wife or the Judge that jailed him.
My bet is that he's got the money squirrelled away.
I like how people are surprised.
Just goes to show the ignorance and apathy of virtually every American as to the direction the country is going.
Yes loraksus, it's getting closer to Asia at about 2 cm. per year, right? It will take some mighty work to get it to change course, I am afraid.
Ugly Canuck @ 29
What if they hauled 2 cm worth of dirt from the West Coast to the East Coast per year?
The great land mass at the centre would be moving slowly West, but there would also be enough soil moving East much more quickly, such that the velocity of the entire landmass would be null.
Dragonfrog, i had not thought of that, but it sounds like an excellent make-work program for Obama's "new-new" deal or whatever it'll be called. Get the nation working again!
Mr Chadwick obviously got a bad lawyer..
Jokes beside: is this possible in the USA, nowadays?
So the guy has cancer: He gets himself held in jail for 14 years to get free medical care. Big surprise.
The idea of people with plane tickets to JFK being handed bags of dirt at LAX with the words "Do your duty for your country" makes me lol, I'll admit that.
I think you're selling the American people short, I'm sure they could manage about /3/cm a year?
Yeah! Take that France!
Law and Order had an episode with a plot like that a few years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumed_(Law_%26_Order:_Criminal_Intent_episode)
14 years. I think I would have broken out long before then and killed the judge.
Anon, there has to be a check from Uncle Sam accompanying the dirt bag, for the stimulative effect to be, well, effective.
If he has the money then this is the worst case of walk/wait dilemma I've ever read about.
My first post on Boing Boing. Yay.
welcome home
@15 (DAEMON)
"No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, or in any other way destroyed, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or we just feel like accusing him of terrorism" - The Magna Carta, New Labour Edition
It's terrible our justice system in the United States is broken. I'm a firm believer that judges should have to endure incarceration before they are seated so that they will know exactly what they are doing to people. We are close to having more inmates than China and Russia combined (as the number varies over time we may have more or fewer). Our incarceration rate serves as just one more major piece of evidence that our experiment in representative democracy has failed the majority of the people it was supposed to serve.
There's one good thing about our devastated economy. In many places it's being used as an excuse to undo some of the draconian prison sentencing, because it costs a lot of money to cage human beings like animals. THIS is my source article.
On topic, I was tortured into a confession and then imprisoned for nonviolent crimes I committed as a drug user and dealer. I would have paid $2.5 million to get out of prison. I would have paid it in a heartbeat. I wouldn't have had to think about it at all. I am extremely skeptical Mr. Chadwick has the money.
Go ahead, prove the money doesn't exist - prove a negative!
Lesson: Do not be in contempt of court.
Can has contempt for entire legal system?
oh yeah, haz
Okay folks, settle down. Once again, a review of the actual facts reveals that we must shamefacedly lower our heads and say, "Oops. Never mind."
A quick Google search on Chadwick and his legal troubles will net you the text of decisions from his appeals, as well as the text of the decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court regarding his suspension from the practice of law.
First, Chadwick holds the keys to his cell, in the metaphoric sense that he can get out at any time. He actively engaged in a number of frauds involving the transfer of funds to a Panamanian bank, and attempted another illegal assignment of funds in 2006; no one doubts that the 2.5 million still exists somewhere - he has admitted as much himself.
He failed to show for several court hearings, obstructed the disciplinary proceeding with respect to his law license, assaulted two peace officers when they found him in hiding and attempted to arrest him, and has repeatedly refused to take any steps toward his own release. He has never pled poverty - his argument is just that his money is somewhere that he can't disclose, and that he can't get to the money. No tears for him.
Ha! This reminds me of an old Rockford Files episode on the exact same subject. The looks James Garner gives the prosecuting attorney and the Jugde when he finally gets released is priceless!
Fortunately, you can view it here:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/34927/the-rockford-files-so-help-me-god
Rockford, summoned before the Grand Jury concerning the alleged kidnapping of a union official, is cited for contempt and put In a Federal prison.
Chadwick's beyond our help, but I like the coastal parity plan.
Do you suppose that if enough New Englanders filed a class action suit for loss of their topsoil, Long Island would have to give it all back?