A Georgia court can hold you in criminal contempt only on proof beyond a reasonable doubt that you violated a court order and that you did so willfully.
The Standard
Criminal contempt is punished as a crime, so it must be proved like one. In In re Burton, 271 Ga. 491 (1999), the Georgia Supreme Court held that a court could find an attorney in criminal contempt “based only upon evidence of her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” And in In re Hadaway, 290 Ga. App. 453 (2008), the Court of Appeals applied the rule that proving the violation is not enough; the evidence must also show beyond a reasonable doubt that the violation was willful.
Civil contempt sets a lower bar. In Thedieck v. Thedieck, 220 Ga. App. 764 (1996), a civil contempt finding against a mother who kept a father from his visits stood because “a preponderance of the evidence supported the finding.”
Examples
In Hadaway, after a court vacated a custodian’s custody of a child, she gave the child to the mother, the mother gave the child back, and the custodian sought custody in another county instead of appealing. The Court of Appeals reversed criminal contempt findings against her and her attorney: the order was directed at the mother, and filing a new petition rather than an appeal “does not mean that they wilfully violated the order.”
Similarly, in Burton, the only proof that an attorney in a custody case had given a reporter confidential information from court records was witnesses repeating what the reporter told them, and the reporter never testified. The Supreme Court reversed a juvenile court’s criminal contempt finding, holding that such a secondhand claim “does not suffice as proof that such information was in fact imparted as claimed.”
Our post on contempt for unpaid child support covers willfulness in civil contempt.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!