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Lawyer Jailed For Contempt Is Freed After 14 Years
H. Beatty Chadwick has been in a staring match with the judicial system for the past 14 years, and the system just blinked. Chadwick was ordered to pay his ex-wife $2.5 million after their divorce. He refused to pay saying that he couldn't because he lost the money in a series of "bad investments." The judge in the case didn't believe him and sent him to jail for contempt. That was 14 years ago. Last week another judge let Chadwick go saying that "continued imprisonment would be legal only if there was some likelihood that ultimately he would comply with the order; otherwise, the confinement would be merely punitive instead of coercive." Chadwick, now 73, is believed to have served the longest contempt sentence in US history.
"Why is he getting out now then" and "He either cannot or will not ever pay up"
They are very good questions. All the links tend to give the same information, so I did some more searching and found this...
"The petitioner, Mr. Chadwick, has been imprisoned without trial for eight years in Delaware County, Pennsylvania for 'civil' contempt because he has been unable to deposit with the court $2.5 million in cash, funds which he maintains were part of an illiquid overseas real estate investment he does not control."
http://www.amatterofjustice.org/amoj/cases/chadwick3.htm
This news was from 2003, so its very disturbing if he has been held 14 years without trial?. Also surely they would know after 14 years the legal status of his overseas real estate investments?.
It seems the legal system and government suffers from systemic procedural bureaucracy so bad that its taken years more to final free him, but suffocatingly bad bureaucracy is no excuse to allow the legal system to behave the way we have been lead to believe only happens in police state countries.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
So you are sent to jail for not paying, but let out of jail if you can't pay.
He didn't go to jail for not paying. He went to jail for contempt of court.
He was getting divorced from his wife, and his wife alleged that he hid $2.5M in overseas accounts. He never contested the existence of the $2.5M, but claimed that he lost it all in bad business transactions.
The judge said, "OK, show me documentation of these bad business transactions or show me the money." He said, "No." So the judge held in in contempt of court, not as a punishment for not paying, but to coerce him into paying (or at least showing what happened to all that money).
The whole point of holding someone in contempt is not to punish that person--it is to coerce that person into complying with a lawful court order.
The new judge found that after 14 years, Chadwick was not going to be coerced into complying with the order by further confinement, so holding him in contempt could no longer be considered a form of coercion. At that point, holding him further would have to be considered punishment without a trial. And as you surely are aware, it is illegal to deprive someone of life, liberty, or property in the US without due process of law (see US Constitution, Amendments 5 and 14).
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
This isn't a criminal case. The guy DOES owe his ex-wife $2.5m. If he's not going to pay because he says he doesn't have it, then he needs to allow access to his financial affairs so that the court can see that he doesn't have it. To not do so is contempt and is imprisonable without charge or further trial. This is not a flaw of the system.