In re Contempt of Mallory-Nichols

Citations

• 227 N.E.3d 565
• 2023 Ohio 3982

Syllabus

Contempt civil criminal indirect direct beyond a reasonable doubt intent. Judgment vacated. The juvenile court erred in finding Mallory-Nichols guilty of contempt. Mallory-Nichols was not afforded the opportunity to purge himself of the contempt, which indicates his sentence was intended to be punitive. The court intended to punish Mallory-Nichols for his failure to comply with the court's order, not compel his immediate compliance. Thus, we find that the court's contempt sanction was criminal in nature, not civil. With criminal contempt, a contemnor cannot be given a criminal contempt sanction unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and it must be shown that the contemnor intended to violate the court's orders. Here, the court did not find that Mallory-Nichols was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and the testimony at the hearing and the totality of the circumstances do not demonstrate that Mallory-Nichols intended to violate the court's order when he permitted the unsupervised visits.