There’s a story at the Wired website about a contempt citation for spamming a federal judge that the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently overturned. See, Spamming a Judge.
Infomercial king Kevin Trudeau had been sentenced to thirty days’ time for contempt of court, because he urged his followers to write to the federal judge presiding over his civil case, and tell they judge they supported Trudeau. Judge Robert Gettleman received so much email his Blackberry locked up. (In the underlying case, Trudeau was being sued by the Federal Trade Commission.) Judge Gettleman sentence Trudeau to contempt, pending appeal.
The Seventh Circuit, on appeal, overturned the contempt citation. The court concluded that criminal contempt was unavailable to the trial court judge, because the conduct occurred outside the judge’s presence, and did not stop proceedings in the case. (Locking up a Blackberry, for example, did not slow or obstruct Trudeau’s case.)
I think that’s the right decision — a contempt citation should be imposed only for in-court behavior, and only when it’s a signification impediment to proceedings.
This also isn’t a typical case of spamming, where someone sends hundreds or thousands of messages on his own; these messages came from third parties, motivated to express support for someone. That’s may be inconvenient and bothersome, but it’s not uncommon for celebrities (or even pitchmen like Trudeau) to have lost of fans. Asking them to write an email is hardly a criminal matter. It may irritate a judge, and wound his pride, but that’s no crime either.
The Wired story reveals that federal prosecutors are looking to see if any of the messages contained threats. If some of the people who sent messages threaded the judge, they should be prosecuted. Absent a showing that Trudeau’s request for email support was a call to threaten the judge, though, that’s not something for which Truda will or should be liable.
During the time that I have been writing, I have emailed officials with public records requests or simple questions. Anything else I’ve wanted to write, I have published at FREE WHITEWATER. It’s lawful to write to an official and express a non-threatening opinion, but it has never been of interest to me.
Many thin-skinned officials, by the way, are likely to interpret any critical email as a threat or risk. Some of these gentlemen walk around never hearing a peep from subordinates, and are stunned when someone expresses a contrary opinion. (They spur all the back and ankle biting in the world, but they seldom hear direct criticism from cowed employees or from residents too nervous to speak up.)
They see criticism as unlawful, even as a kind of transgression against the natural order of things. Self-important politicians and bureaucrats are quick to conflate criticism of their conduct with challenges to society, itself. Normal people can see that the two aren’t the same; it’s a consequence of officials’ confusion, self-importance, or ignorance that they can’t tell the difference.
Officials like this only end up looking foolish to normal people.