Will a contempt of congress lawsuit actually reach the merits? Hypothetical Scenario: Kellyanne Conway is subpoenaed by the House Oversight committee for Hatch Act violations. Conway appears but tells the chairman that he is a fraudulent partisan grandstander, a disgrace to Congress and is carrying out a ridiculous preposterous hearing that she feels is absolutely unpredicated on any legal basis and that she will not give credibility to the hearing by answering even a single question. But keep in mind, she honored the subpoena and showed up for the hearing. Now, the House holds her in contempt for insulting the chairman and refusing to answer questions and applies the imprisonment penalty to her. She appeals her penalty to the courts saying that her first amendment rights are being violated as the government is penalizing her for speaking her mind and compelling her to speak against her intent. Will this case be decided on the merit of Conway's contention - that the investigation is fraudulent (that is her reasons for not answering questions and berating the chairman) or will it only be decided on the statue that Congress has the power to hold her in contempt and the courts will not second-guess Congress' decision and accept whatever reason Congress gives them?
"Contempt of Congress" does not extend, in a legal sense, to insulting Congress as a whole, one house, a committee chair, or a member. (Congress and its committees have power to require both members and witnesses to abide by its rules of decorum, which forbid such insults, but as far as I know the remedy is merely to remove the disorderly person.) Contempt of congress is defined by 2 USC 192, which provides that: Every person who having been summoned as a witness by the authority of either House of Congress to give testimony or to produce papers upon any matter under inquiry before either House, or any joint committee established by a joint or concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress, or any committee of either House of Congress, willfully makes default, or who, having appeared, refuses to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000 nor less than $100 and imprisonment in a common jail for not less than one month nor more than twelve months. Note that this is a Federal criminal statute like any other, and Congress does not normally "declare" a person guilty, much less "apply the imprisonment penalty". Charges would have to be brought before a federal court, and the person convicted by a jury, or by a judge if a jury trial was waived. Congress does have the "inherent power" to hold trials for contempt itself, but this has not been done since 1934. This power was upheld by the Supreme Cout in Anderson v. Dunn 19 U.S. 204 (1821) A conviction under 2 USC 192 for refusal to answer questions on the part of a witness under subpoena was upheld against a First Amendment challenge in Wilkinson v. United States, 365 U.S. 399 (1961) In that case, according to the Wikipedia article, a standard for testing subpoenas was declared by the US Supreme court: As announced in Wilkinson v. United States, a Congressional committee must meet three requirements for its subpoenas to be "legally sufficient." First, the committee's investigation of the broad subject area must be authorized by its chamber; second, the investigation must pursue "a valid legislative purpose" but does not need to involve legislation and does not need to specify the ultimate intent of Congress; and third, the specific inquiries must be pertinent to the subject matter area that has been authorized for investigation. Thus, in considering such charges, it is a proper defense that the subject matter of the hearing was not withing the power of Congress to investigate, or that the questions were not relevant to the subject. The court would consider these issues if they were raised by the defense. But the political "merits" of the investigation -- whether it is a wise use of the Congressional power, would not be considered.
There is one context where this does happen. Common law judges have direct contempt power. This means that while a judge is in the courtroom presiding over a case, the judge can summarily punish someone with incarceration and/or a fine without a trial for &quot;contempt of court&quot; because the judge has personally observed what has happened. Contempt of court encompasses types of disorderly conduct that wouldn't otherwise be criminal conduct. In other contexts, the judge is just one more witness and would not be assigned to handle the case. so you can only get &quot;non-witness judges&quot; from out-of-state or another region. The lawsuit hasn't begun yet, and all of the possible, local judges saw it happen. As a practical matter, this is basically impossible. But there are procedures in cases where large numbers of judges a conflicted out of a case, for example, to get a judge from the next county over or another part of the same state.
As I read the hypothetical facts in the linked question Bob has not filed a suit against Big Co, because no law firm is willing and able to handle such a suit (which I find unlikely). BigCo has not filed a suit against Bob, perhaps because it does not want to draw attention to Bob's claims. So there is no suit in progress. If this is true, no court has jurisdiction of the case, indeed there is no case in a legal sense. No US Court will reach out to take a case that no one has filed, and if one attempted to do so, I strongly suspect this would be a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth or Fourteenth amendments, depending on whether it was a Federal or State court. If it were a Federal court, this would also violate the &quot;Case or controversy&quot; provision. I can't find any report of any US court that has tried to do anything of the sort, so there is no case law to cite about the outcome of such an attempt. If i have misunderstood the question, and either Bob or BigCo has in fact filed a suit, and some court has jurisdiction of it, then the situation is quite different. In that case a court can restrict publication of statements that might be likely to result in jury prejudice and deny one party's right to a fair trial. However such orders are strongly disfavored. A court must demonstrate by findings of fact in the gag order that impairment to a fair trial is likely, and that he proposed order is the narrowest possible means of ensuring a fair trial, and that less restrictive methods, such as change of venue, a sequestered jury, or careful examination of potential jurors, cannot achieve this goal. It must also show that the order is the least restrictive order that will achieve the goal. If such findings are not included with the order, they order may be overturned promptly by a higher court on motion of either party, or of any third party (such as a news organization) affected by it. The situation as described seems implausible.
What remedies are therein the United States? I would imagine that the witness could be prosecuted for perjury. My guess is that the plaintiff could prosecute the witness for the lost damages. Are there any other remedies like reopening the original trial or declaring a mistrial so that the plaintiff could sue the (deep-pocketed) defendant, or would this be double jeopardy? Perjury prosecutions are like unicorns. They are rumored to exist but are almost never seen. A prosecutor would be exceedingly unlikely to bring charges in such a case, but it might not hurt to ask. Even if the criminal prosecution prevailed, however, the defeated plaintiff would be no better off, or might get out of pocket court costs as restitution at most. You could request that the witness be sanctioned for contempt. But, this leaves the loser in the original case no better off unless the judge made the highly unusual decision to award compensatory damages as a contempt sanction. Similarly, if you have reason to believe that the attorney knew that the testimony offered was false, that would be grounds to grieve the lawyer which could result in the lawyer's suspension or disbarment, but that is very difficult to prove and again would not advance the unjustly defeated plaintiff's cause. Assuming that the time to move for a retrial (usually two weeks) expired when the new evidence was discovered, you could move to set aside the verdict (Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60 or the equivalent state rule). The deadline for such motions based upon fraud by an adverse party is usually six months. Sometimes an independent action to set aside the verdict for fraud on the court could also be brought (sometimes within two or three years), which is an uphill battle, but probably the best option if all other deadlines have expired. The witness probably has absolute immunity from civil liability outside that court case for the testimony offered, so a civil action suing the witness for lost damages would be dismissed. The doctrine of double jeopardy does not apply, but a similar doctrine called "res judicata" (a.k.a. "claim preclusion") prohibits retrying a case that was tried on the merits between the same parties, if it has become a final order. So, filing a new case is ruled out assuming that no appeals were filed within the deadline for doing so. And, even if the deadline for filing an appeal has not lapsed, it probably wouldn't prevail because the key new evidence wouldn't be in the record. It would be better to file to set aside the judgment in a motion and to appeal if that motion was denied.
Why does the one country that promotes constitutional democracies above all others not have a judicial branch specifically for those matters? I know SCOTUS will hear these matters . . . I have had it mention that SCOTUS hears less than a hundred cases a year. Something which sounds incredibly low. A constitutional court profoundly limits the extent to which relief for violations of the constitution are judicially reviewable relative to the U.S. status quo. All courts from traffic court on up hear these matters and adjudicate constitutional issue in the status quo. It is also helpful to recognize that the U.S. Constitution regulates government conduct, not necessarily only though the device of determining that legislation is or is not constitutional. If a police officer stops you without having reasonable suspicion to do so, he has violated the U.S. Constitution, without regard to what the statutes of the state in question say. If evidence is seized without probable cause and this evidence is introduced in court over your objection in a criminal case, the government has violated the constitution and you are entitled (unless it was harmless error) to have your conviction vacated. If a tax collector seizes your property for unpaid taxes without first affording you due process to dispute their right to do so, the government has violated one of your constitutional rights. The Constitution imposes affirmative duties and obligations on the government, it does not merely invalidate laws enacted as unconstitutional. Most instances of constitutional adjudication involve government conduct and not the validity of government enacted statutes.
This probably isn't a ground for an appeal. While a party arguing to reverse a trial court's decision must show that the argument that they are making on appeal was "preserved" by that party at trial by making that argument in the trial court, the converse is not true. Indeed, one of the rules of appellate practice is that a trial court's ruling will be upheld for any reason supported by the evidence even if it wasn't made by any party at trial. Generally speaking, a trial court isn't supposed to try a pro se party's case for them, but once the evidence is in, the court is free to do original legal research and come to a conclusions contrary to the arguments made by either of the parties. A judge is supposed to correctly apply the actual law to the facts notwithstanding the efforts of the parties to lead it astray. This doesn't systemically happen in favor of one party or the other in my experience, but is more common when one or both parties is relatively inexperienced in the relevant legal field. Appellate courts also come to conclusions about the law not advanced by either party on a regular basis. If anything, this is even more common in the area of administrative law, where the judge is likely to be a subject area specialist, than in ordinary civil litigation. It is also more common in administrative law because a judge in that context is more focused on the institutional implications of a bad precedent than trial court judges in ordinary courts. (PS is there a technical term for the rules concerning the "role" of the judge in a court, what they supposed to do, and not supposed to do?) Probably, but there isn't any term that comes readily to mind. If I can think of one, I will update this answer.
The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination applies only in criminal trials, but it permits a witness to refuse to answer a question in either criminal or civil cases, including in a deposition. If he had committed crimes or thought that his answers might have incriminated him, he should have declined to answer. I'm not terribly familiar with this case, but it occurs to me that a lot of the allegations against Cosby go pretty far back; it could be that he was talking about something so far back that he wasn't exposed to any criminal liability. In a case like that, it may even be that a judge had already ordered him to answer the question. Assuming that he voluntarily answered the question, he has waived his right against self-incrimination and the testimony is generally admissible.
What prevents someone from pleading the Fifth Amendment, even if they don't necessarily have something that would incriminate themselves if they answered? Immunity. Sometimes prosecutors offer immunity to a witness in exchange for testimony against another defendant. In such cases, the witness cannot claim protection under the fifth amendment because the witness's testimony can no longer incriminate the witness. Does the opposition have to prove that nothing they say could incriminate themselves to remove the protection? No. Proving a negative proposition is generally impossible. Does the witness have to reveal something to the judge to enforce the protection? No, because such a revelation would also tend to incriminate the witness. Additionally, who knows what random law they might have broken, and might admit to if they testify? Can someone plead the fifth on those grounds? Yes. It is not in fact necessary to cite specific grounds for invoking the fifth amendment, because forcing a witness to cite a reason would itself be tantamount to forcing the witness to incriminate him- or herself. Quoting Wikipedia: Truthful statements by an innocent person An incriminating statement includes any statement that tends to increase the danger that the person making the statement will be accused, charged or prosecuted – even if the statement is true, and even if the person is innocent of any crime. Thus, even a person who is innocent of any crime who testifies truthfully can be incriminated by that testimony. The United States Supreme Court has stated that the Fifth Amendment privilege: protects the innocent as well as the guilty.... one of the Fifth Amendment’s basic functions . . . is to protect innocent men . . . who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances..... truthful responses of an innocent witness, as well as those of a wrongdoer, may provide the government with incriminating evidence from the speaker’s own mouth. (Ohio v. Reiner, 532 U.S. 17 (2001) (per curiam)) The U.S. Supreme Court has also stated: Too many, even those who should be better advised, view this privilege as a shelter for wrongdoers. They too readily assume that those who invoke it are either guilty of crime or commit perjury in claiming the privilege. (Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 426 (1956) (footnote omitted)) (Citations inlined)