In Re: Thomas Corey McDonald and Edwin Cheshire
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Concerned with the sufficiency of process in multiple paternity and child-support cases, Chancellor D. Neil Harris conducted a hearing in which he found an individual process-server, Guy Jernigan; a notary, Thomas McDonald; and an owner of a process service company, Edwin Chesire (collectively, "Defendants"), to be in civil contempt of court for causing the filing of false proof-of-service affidavits. Ten days after the initial contempt hearing, the chancellor held a "sentencing hearing" in which he made all the Defendants jointly and severally liable for $88,500 in sanctions, required Jernigan and McDonald to issue written apologizes to the other chancellors in the Sixteenth Chancery Court District, and banned them from ever again serving process or notarizing documents for the Sixteenth Chancery Court District. The chancellor further ordered all the Defendants to be incarcerated every weekend until the reimbursements were received and the apologizes were made. The Supreme Court subsequently found that the judgments were for constructive criminal contempt, as opposed to civil contempt. Thus, Chancellor Harris was bound by the additional due-process safeguards which govern constructive criminal contempt proceedings and erred by neither recusing himself from the proceedings nor notifying the Defendants of the specific criminal charges against them. The Court vacated the contempt judgments on these procedural grounds and remanded the case to the Jackson County Chancery Court for further proceedings.
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