Punitive (criminal) contempt
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 223 U.S. 639 - Re Merchants' Stock & Grain Company et Als · 1912Most cited · 112 citing opinions
and is deemed punitive when its purpose is to vindicate the authority of the court by punishing the act of disobedience as a public wrong.
How often courts cite the case defining “Punitive (criminal) contempt”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “Punitive (criminal) contempt” — 103 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.