Invalid contempt order

The Fifth Circuit reversed a contempt order related to the Bureau of Prisons’ calculation of sentencing credits, noting, inter alia:

• Oral injunction? An oral injunction can be effective, where, as here: “[T]he oral injunction was not tentative, and the district court did not indicate that the sanction was open to further argument or reconsideration. Rather, the district court asked the BOP to affirm that it understood the scope of the injunction.”
• Limits to inherent power. “The contempt power is not an appropriate means for a district court to express its reasoned disagreement with a federal statute. Threatening government officials with individual contempt sanctions for complying with federal law, as the district court did here, is a clear abuse of discretion.”
• Specificity required. “The district court made no explicit factual findings to support its decisionto hold the BOP in contempt. Nor did it identify which specific court orders the BOP violated, notwithstanding the BOP’s ‘request that the Court clarify itsorder to reflect such findings as to how and when the Respondents violated anorder of th[e] court.’ The district court’s refusal to identify the basis for its contempt finding was in itself an abuse of discretion.”

In re U.S. Bureau of Prisons, No. 18-50512 (March 14, 2019).

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