STOP IT!!! TO ALL THE ARMCHAIR JUDGES OUT THERE COMPLAINING THAT JUDGE SULLIVAN DIDN’T HIT BLANCHE WITH CONTEMPT YESTERDAY, JUST STOP IT!
When you say these things all you are doing is showing your utter lack of understanding of how the judicial process works.
A judge can’t just charge someone with contempt willy-nilly (or toddy-woddy). A judge has to very carefully, with meticulous attention to a whole lot of moving details, *build a case* for contempt.
He has to give the target of your ire every chance to make things right. *He* knows to not let ire and emotion drive his decisions, which is why he is a judge, and you’re not.
He has to make sure that that all of the Ts are crossed and Is dotted. He has to be sure that the person genuinely understood the orders. He has to be sure that there were deadlines clearly stated with which the person had not complied; lines drawn which were crossed. He has to be sure that it was actually *possible* for the person to comply with the orders that the Court issued, and in the time frame that the Court ordered.
He has to give the person *every opportunity to cure the situation*, and he has to make sure that the case for contempt is *airtight*.
Why?
If you had listened to the hearing, or read the transcript, you would understand that a contempt charge *will* be appealed, and unless and until the case for contempt is *completely solid*, until the judge *knows* without a doubt that the contempt charge will be unassailable, *he cannot pull that trigger*.
In fact, speaking of triggers, what you armchair judges are agitating for is like saying “I don’t know why the judge didn’t just execute him on the spot,” in a case where the death penalty is on the table.
Now go to your corners and let the judge do the judging.
And feel free to share this with all of those armchair judges who are saying this across the Internet, that hotbed of people who think they know better than the judges, but really know very little.
P.S. I am Anne P. Mitchell, Esq., attorney, law professor emeritus, and author of Federal law, and yes, I’m angry.
You can join my effort to educate and be educated about how the law *really* works here: https://annepmitchell.substack.com
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P.S. If you actually read all the way to the bottom please leave a sentence in a comment that includes the word “armchair”. It will show me that my efforts aren’t in vain and that people actually *do* read these things, and it will drive those who just skim crazy wondering just why everyone is talking about armchairs!
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