[abduhl]

This is a bit hyperbolic and the exaggerations really undermine what I think is your broader point (that there is rarely recourse when you're held for short to moderate amounts of time). It is hard for me to believe that someone was held for 16 years on civil contempt without due process or that someone was held for half a year without due process after being deemed dangerous. The reason that is hard for me to believe is that the due process is implicit in the action you describe. Civil contempt is from a judge which implies that you're already in court - that's due process. Someone being labeled "dangerous" implies that a finding was made by a neutral party - that's due process.

Just because you disagree with the outcome doesn't mean that due process wasn't given.

[mothballed]

Yeah it's "due process." In civil contempt the judge is a witness and prosecutor in the very "process" they're judging. That's the most perverted form of due process imaginable.

A judge should have to recuse themselves if they are acting as witness to the supposed infraction.

[abduhl]

Civil contempt isn't some roving criminal charge that jumps out of the jury box randomly. It's meant to make somebody comply with a court order. Anybody in civil contempt holds the keys to the jailhouse door in their own hands, all they have to do is comply.

This statement should make you uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable because it is a pure expression of the power of the state. But it's still due process.

[FpUser]

In Criminal Contempt max duration of imprisonment is limited. In civil it is not until somebody decides that one never complies. You may call it due process. I call it for what it is - A torture and fucking crime against humanity. Judge that holds person for years for being stubborn deserves nothing more than walk the plank

[JuniperMesos]

Any power that could force a judge to actually walk the plank for what they see as an abuse of power, is itself something like a state, that could just as easily wield that power against the stubborn defendant.

[FpUser]

Judges are not above the law. They could be and are being made to "walk a plank". Problem is that we have many laws that are very shitty and allow abuse and are heavily distorted to benefit anyone but "we the people"