18 Va. App. 14 - Kessler v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1994
Citation profile
11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently May 2019
11 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Hicks Ex Rel. Feiock v. Feiock · Samuel Gompers v. Buck's Stove & Range Company · Nicholas v. Commonwealth · Deeds v. Gilmer · 14 Va. App. 368 - Baugh v. Commonwealth
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"It is not the fact of punishment, but rather its character and purpose, that often serve to distinguish between . . . [civil and criminal contempt]." The punishment is criminal in nature if it is determined and unconditional. The punishment is civil if it is conditional, and a defendant can avoid a penalty by compliance with a court's order. "A proceeding for criminal contempt is a quasi-criminal proceeding between the public and the violator." In a criminal contempt proceeding, the trial court may always punish the violator for the purpose of upholding the authority and dignity of the court. In a contempt proceeding of this nature, the punishment imposed is a fine and/or imprisonment. "A proceeding for civil contempt partakes more of the nature of a remedial civil proceeding than it does of the nature of a criminal proceeding. Its main purpose is to procure the imposition of a punishment which will afford remedial relief to the parties injured."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“We recognize, however, that the unbridled authority of courts to punish for criminal contempt in the absence of a jury is limited to `petty contempts,' with a penalty not exceeding six months.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.