Armstrong v. Guccione

I agree with Judge Walker’s opinion in affirming the district court’s contempt sanction, but I write separately to articulate my belief that the eighteen-month maximum duration imposed on a civil contempt sanction by the Recalcitrant Witness Statute should be a presumptive benchmark for all civil contempt incarcerations. A sanction lasting more than four times the congressional benchmark for *114such punishments is so extreme that, as Judge Walker rightly directs, the district court should undertake soon to revisit whether Armstrong’s imprisonment has slipped into the impermissible terrain of a…