Whether incarceration for up to six months for alleged indirect contempt without trial by jury is always per se cruel and unusual

Questions Presented After Pounders v. Watson, 521 U.S. 982 (1997) (with Justices Stevens and Breyer dissenting), South Carolina’s Supreme Court (“SC S Ct”), in conflict with many courts, assumed everexpanding contempt powers. Meanwhile, Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008), basically held the risk of arbitrary entry of any punishment violates the Eighth Amendment, especially when lesser punishment is effective; and Alabama v. Shelton, 535 U.S. 654 (2002), held that risk of even brief incarceration for minor misdemeanor conviction triggers all the constitutional protections due to a criminal defendant. Also, Florence v. Board of [.../ Burlington, 566 U.S. 318 (2012), and Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493 (2011), recognized, respectively, that “jails are often crowded, unsanitary, and dangerous places,” imperiling “both correctional employees and inmates,” and “immediate action is necessary to prevent death and harm caused by” prison overcrowding, for example by “diverting low-risk offenders” to non-incarceration, which would “lower the prison population without releasing violent convicts.” After a series of bizarre orders amounting to Jim Crowe revisited on Jawful immigrants, SC S Ct convicted Petitioner of criminal contempt for no more than, during two years of physical closure of SC’s courthouse buildings and interim and permanent orders instituting service and filing by e-mail and electronically statewide, having sent the then-SC S Ct clerk a total of two e-mails inquiring about the status of Petitioner’s cases before SC S Ct (after that clerk “elected” to remove those cases from SC’s public access website) and two more emails after that clerk retired, inquiring of his availability in private practice. Nothing in the content of the four emails was held improper or even unjustified. Yet, without opportunity to present a defense or compel witnesses therefor, without a truly public trial, and without realistic opportunity for Petitioner’s Consul to monitor the quasi-trial before SC S Ct,, Petitioner was sentenced to six months suspended upon service of ten days in a fearsome local jail. There, she was struck with atrial fibrillation and remained untreated for a day, with jail personnel later actively preventing her recovery when there was a chance of it. In light of the evolution of this Court’s jurisprudence, the questions presented are: 1. Given that: (a) CoViD-19 and monkey-pox make even an hour in jail a peril to life or limb, (b) jails are generally overcrowded and do nothing to “reform” minor non-violent offenders, (c) alternate but civilized measures can control genuine contempt, (d) the six-monthsentence line between summary punishment and guarantees of fair trial was elsewise eroded or overruled, (e) the potential for abuse of contempt powers by temperamental and/or vindictive judges, (f) six-month incarceration being long enough to cause irreparable injury but short enough to be capable of repetition yet evading review, and (g) this Court’s exercise of its own judgment in Eighth Amendment cases, has civilized society evolved enough for this Court to find that incarceration for up to six months for alleged indirect contempt without trial by jury is always per se cruel and unusual? 2. Where a state constitution provides for jury trial for a// offenses, and the state legislature provides trial by jury for petty offenses, even those punishable by fines only, may a state court of last resort deny an alleged indirect contemnor a jury in a trial before that court? | 3. When a state court of last resort livestreams all proceedings before itself, and given that | one consul cannot realistically travel to monitor all criminal trials of his/her nationals | here, was due process denied when SC S Ct denied Petitioner remote access by her consul? | 4. Does due process allow a court to be the judge of the validity of its own orders? ii and iii Contents and Authorities } Contents Item page Questions Presented i Contents and Authori