Opinion
No. 98 C 0217
January 17, 2001
ORDER
This bitterly-fought suit, arising from Plaintiff's claim that he was beaten by correctional officers at Stateville Correctional Center, culminated in a jury trial resulting in a verdict for Defendants and against Plaintiff on all counts. At the close of the trial, Defendants filed a petition for a rule to show cause why Plaintiff should not be held in contempt of court.
The alleged contempt involved communications between Plaintiff's appointed counsel (both former and current) and a number of potential witnesses, inmates in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC). In addition to the attorney's communication, these letters also set forth short messages from the Plaintiff himself in his own words. (Pet. Exs. A, B.) Defendants contend that transmitting these messages violated 20 Ill.Admin. Code § 525.120(b), which requires that correspondence between inmates confined in different institutions be approved by the Chief Administrative Officers (wardens) of both institutions. Notably, Defendants do not accuse Plaintiff's attorneys of misconduct; Defendants and this court recognize that Plaintiff's attorneys were not aware of these rules. The petition is addressed solely to Plaintiff. Nor have Defendants identified anything unlawful in the contents of these messages; instead, they argue that their transmission by itself violated IDOC rules. Defendants ask the court to hold Plaintiff in contempt of court for inducing his counsel to transmit these communications, and seek $12,000 in sanctions, $1000 for each offending letter.
While the court shares Defendants' dismay concerning Plaintiff's apparent "end-run" around the regulations, it concludes sanctions are unwarranted. First, it is not clear to the court that Plaintiff himself understood that a brief, one-time message to another inmate, incorporated in a letter drafted by his attorney, amounts to "correspondence" in violation of the rule. In any event, sanctions for civil contempt "must be predicated on a violation of an explicit court order." Jones v. Lincoln Electric Co., 188 F.3d 709, 738 (7th Cir. 1999). The letters in question do not violate any explicit order of this court. Defendants suggest that these letters violated the court's order appointing counsel to represent Plaintiff, or that they represent a violation of the court's admonition to Plaintiff that he not file his own motions after counsel had been appointed. The order appointing counsel was not even addressed to Plaintiff, however, and neither order can fairly be read as specifically prohibiting the communications at issue here.
Defendants have known for some time that Plaintiff intended to call inmate witnesses to testify concerning the events in question, and Plaintiff was not represented by an attorney at all times. Defendants were free to ask the court for an order setting forth a protocol for communications between Plaintiff and his potential witnesses. Such a request would have put Plaintiff and his appointed attorneys on notice of IDOC's legitimate security concerns.
Further, civil contempt sanctions are remedial rather than punitive, and are intended either "to compel the contemnor into compliance with an existing court order or to compensate the complainant for losses sustained as a result of the contumacy." Id. Even assuming that Plaintiff had violated a court order, at the point Defendants brought their petition the trial was over. The possibility that the conduct would be repeated is non-existent in this case and remote in any future litigation. Nor have Defendants suggested how they had been injured by these communications, or how their losses amount to $12,000.
To the extent Defendants suggest Plaintiff is guilty of criminal contempt, their request for a monetary award is inappropriate, as criminal contempt is a matter solely between the contemnor and the public interest. In any event, criminal contempt of court is strictly limited to three categories of misconduct:
(1) Misbehavior of any person in [the court's] presence or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice;
(2) Misbehavior of any of its officers in their official transactions;
(3) Disobedience or resistance to its lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command.18 U.S.C. § 401. None are applicable here. The alleged misconduct did not occur in the court's presence, no evidence was offered of any effect on the administration of justice, and Plaintiff is not an officer of the court. Finally, as noted earlier, there was no disobedience of a specific court order.
The motion is denied.