Title I. Courts · Chapter 4. Power and Authority · Amendment history unavailable · Last verified July 30, 2026
Article 227 closes the contempt chapter with a limiting principle: a person cannot be found guilty of contempt for conduct the law has not expressly defined, or expressly made punishable, as contempt. That principle ties directly back to the enumerated categories in Articles 222 and 224 — a court cannot reach beyond those categories, or the catch-all provisions within them, to punish conduct as contempt on some freestanding theory.
Having limited what counts as contempt, Article 227 turns to what a court can do about it once a person is found guilty. Rather than restating the available punishments here, the article cross-references R.S. 13:4611, which sets the specific fines and terms of imprisonment a court may impose for contempt.
Read alongside Articles 223 and 225, Article 227 completes the framework: those articles govern how a court reaches a finding of guilt, while Article 227 confirms that the underlying conduct must fit within the law’s definition of contempt and that the punishment itself is bounded by a separate statute rather than left to unguided discretion.
No. Article 227 limits contempt to misconduct that the law expressly defines or makes punishable as contempt, which in Louisiana’s code means the categories set out in Articles 222 and 224.
Article 227 points to R.S. 13:4611, which sets out the punishment a court may impose on a person adjudged guilty of contempt.
No, it does not create new categories of contempt. It confirms that contempt findings must rest on misconduct already defined as such elsewhere, primarily in Articles 222 and 224.
Articles 223 and 225 set the procedures for finding someone guilty of direct and constructive contempt. Article 227 adds the substantive limit that the conduct must fit the law’s definition of contempt, and it directs to R.S. 13:4611 for the punishment that may follow.