Section 25-63.Right to Counsel in Family Civil Contempt Proceedings

The advisement. A person before the court in a family civil contempt proceeding who faces potential incarceration must be advised of the right to be represented by counsel and of the right to court-appointed counsel if indigent. An indigent person who cannot obtain counsel has counsel appointed — unless they waive the appointment under Section 25-64, or the court eliminates incarceration as a possible result and says so on the record at the time of the application.

That second exception is the honest one. The right to appointed counsel here follows the risk of jail, so a court that takes jail off the table takes the entitlement with it, and must state that decision on the record where it can be relied on.

The thirty-day rule. The person must also be advised that no one continues to be detained in a correctional facility on a civil contempt order for longer than thirty days unless, at the expiration of those thirty days, they are presented to the judicial authority. At each presentment the contemnor is given an opportunity to purge the contempt by complying with the order; if they do not, the court may direct that they remain in custody on the order’s terms.

Scope of the appointment. An attorney appointed to represent the contemnor represents them only on the contempt, and is not appointed for any other purpose.