When reading the Constitution, they emphasize the powers retained by the people under the Ninth Amendment without recognizing that the Tenth Amendment reserved to the states the power to establish state court systems and to regulate persons engaged in the practice of law. Mokdad are involved with a loosely organized group of people sometimes described as "constitutional counselors" or the "constitutional court." Their difficulties in this case, in large part, arise from their unusual and incor-rect reading of the United States Constitution. When the bailiffs attempted to take the former wife into custody, a physical disturbance erupted. Mokdad, and the other members of the group surrounded her and moved into the hallway. Mokdad, who are not related to the parties in the dissolution proceeding, attended the hearing with a group of citizens.Īt some point during the hearing, Judge Stringer ad-vised the former wife that she was not free to leave and would be held in contempt and taken into custody if she attempted to leave the hearing. The former wife had allegedly violated certain child visitation requirements. On September 14, 1992, Judge Thomas Stringer conducted a postjudgment criminal contempt hearing in a dissolution of marriage proceeding. Because we conclude that her isolated comment was not objectively an imminent threat to the administration of justice, we reverse this conviction. Mokdad also appeals her conviction for direct criminal contempt. Mokdad appeal their con-victions and sentences for two misdemeanors. Munsey, Jr., Assistant Attorney General,Įmilio Lombardo Ippolito and Susan L. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Williams I. IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDAĪppeal from the Circuit Court for Hillsborough County Įmilio Lombardo Ippolito and Susan L. NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED This interpretation of the Ninth Amendment, if correct, would give support to the type of vigilantism and ‘lynch-mob justice’ that any democracy must abhor.” ‘The people’ in this context appears to be any small group whose members agree on a particular view of justice in a given case. The court noted the difficulties of dealing with a group like the “constitutional counselors,” saying, “(T)hey have little respect for the courts created by Article V of the Florida Constitution and apparently believe that ‘the people’ have some retained power to override or ignore the authority of such courts. rights will present their cases with more emotion and less finesse than a licensed attorney,” the DCA observed. “Self-representation is not a permit to disrupt the courtroom or disobey court orders, but it is inevitable that criminal defendants who invoke their. The DCA, sympathetic to what the trial court had endured, nonetheless concluded that her comment - coming from a criminal defendant untrained in the law - did not rise to the level of direct criminal contempt. At trial on charges related to the disturbance, one member of the group called the trial judge “a disgrace,” which gave rise to the contempt finding against her. The group members believe the powers retained by the people under the Ninth Amendment take priority over the state’s Tenth Amendment right to establish its court system. The DCA affirmed convictions stemming from a courthouse disturbance that erupted when members of the group interfered in a dissolution of marriage proceeding to which they were not parties. The 2nd DCA reversed a direct criminal contempt conviction for a woman who represented herself in proceedings stemming from the activities of a loosely organized group described as “constitutional counselors.”
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