Bryant v. Howard County Department of Social Services Ex Rel. Costley

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• concluding that a finding of civil contempt for non-payment of child support is appealable even though no sanction was imposed
• noting that as a condition of probation the petitioner was required to report to his probation officer
• A contempt sanction can be purged if it permits the contemnor “to avoid the penalty by some specific conduct that is within its ability to perform.”
• “[I]t is ... clear that a party may not validly consent to a criminal sentence that is unlawful.”
• “[A] penalty for civil contempt, if it is to be coercive rather than punitive, must provide for purging; it must permit the defendant to avoid the penalty by some specific conduct that is within the defendant’s ability to perform.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).