# Contempt of Court **Status: stub — expand.** The judiciary's power to punish disobedience of its own orders. In the federal system the authority is both inherent and statutory: 18 U.S.C. § 401 reaches misbehaviour in the court's presence, disobedience by court officers, and **disobedience of a lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree or command**. The load-bearing distinction is **purpose**, not severity: - **Civil contempt** is coercive or compensatory. It looks forward, the contemnor holds the keys, and compliance ends it — which is why a conditional fine that produces compliance collects nothing. Willfulness is not an element. - **Criminal contempt** is punitive. It looks backward at a completed act, later compliance is no defence, and it carries the procedural apparatus of a criminal prosecution: notice under Rule 42(a)(1), a prosecutor under Rule 42(a)(2), and in some cases a jury. Three features make the power structurally weak against the federal executive. The prosecutor at Rule 42(a)(2) is first requested from the Department of Justice. Monetary sanctions against the United States itself run into [[Sovereign Immunity]] absent a congressional waiver. And a criminal-contempt conviction is a federal offence and therefore **pardonable**. ## See also - [[How a Federal Court Order Is Enforced]] · [[United Mine Workers v. Bagwell]] - [[Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure]] · [[Sovereign Immunity]] · [[The Pardon and Clemency Pipeline]]