Reply #20: INHERENT CONTEMPT is the real deal. [View All]

[Disturbed]

INHERENT CONTEMPT

Under this process,the procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation,the person cited for contempt is arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate,brought to the floor of the chamber,held to answer charges by the presiding officer,and then subject to punishment that the House may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment reasons,imprisonment for coercive effect,or release from the contempt citation.)

Concerned with the time-consuming nature of a contempt proceeding and the inability to extend punishment further than the session of the Congress concerned (under SupremeCourt rulings), Congress created a statutory process in 1857.


While Congress retains its"inherent contempt" authority and may exercise it at any time, this inherent contempt process was last used by the Senate in 1934,in a Senate investigation of airlines and the U.S.Postmaster.
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"..MacCracken had filed a petition of HabeasCorpus in federal courts to overturn his arrest,but after litigation,the USSupremeCourt ruled that Congress had acted constitutionally,and denied the petition in the case Jurney v. MacCracken, 294U.S.125 (1935).

Presidential pardons appear not to apply to civil contempt procedures like the above, since it is not an "offense against the United States" or an offense against "the dignity of public authority."