District of Columbia Civil Contempt Imprisonment Limitation Act: Wikis

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District of Columbia Civil Contempt Imprisonment Limitation Act was an act of Congress passed in 1989 to alter local law in Washington D.C.. An individual citizen, Elizabeth Morgan, was mentioned frequently during the deliberations. The Act allowed Morgan to walk out of local jail, where she had been incarcerated after she refused to share custody of her daughter, Hillary, with Hillary's father. Dr. Eric Foretich. The Act only applied to custody cases, rather than to all cases of contempt, permanently complicating contempt issues in Washington D.C.

Background

Dr. Morgan had been incarcerated by Herbert B. Dixon Jr. for contempt of court in her custody dispute. Since she showed no signed of obeying Dixon's orders, she seems destined to remain in jail indefinitely.

For the next two years, Morgan's incarceration received a great deal of publicity. In much of it she was portrayed as a model prisoner, and a woman of fortitude. Chuck Colson visited her in jail and she convinced him that Dr. Foretich had sexually abused Hillary. Colson had a wide array of powerful Republican, conservative and religious connections at his disposal and used them. Morgan and Colson convinced many famous and influential people came to believe in Morgan's accustaions and this effort lead to the passage of the Act.

As Richard Doyle put in 2002 in his web blog entitled "Conservative Blunders":

:"I can understand liberal columnists going ga-ga over the celebrated Ms. Elizabeth Morgan and the fawning articles in such pop magazines as Glamour and People. What troubles me is that several normally sensible conservatives did likewise, e.g. Charles (Chuck) Colson, James Dobson, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Sen. John Heinz, Lt. Col. Oliver North (although he merely attended a party and said "God Bless") and H. Ross Perot. Strange bedfellows, indeed. Then, in a monument to political pandering to public ignorance, Galahads in Congress unanimously passed and President Bush, the elder, signed a bill freeing this demonstrably prevaricating maternal child molester. Republican Rep. Tom Davis sponsored a bill to let her bring her daughter back from New Zealand without facing the consequences of her defiance of the court."

As James Jewell, Chuck Colson's former chief-of-staff at the time, recently put it:

:"Without Mr. Colson's involvement, Morgan would have stayed in prison much longer. It was his influence with members of Congress, such as Congressman Wolf, as well as his rallying of the evangelical Christian community, including James Dobson, that resulted in the bill that forced Judge Dixon to release Elizabeth Morgan."

Congressional action

Rep. Frank Rudolph Wolf sponsored, and the U.S. Congress passed, the District of Columbia Civil Contempt Imprisonment Limitation Act of 1989, a bill that limited to twelve months the time that a person can be jailed on civil contempt charges in custody cases in Washington, D.C. (which has limited home rule).

As example of those supporting Morgan was Prof. Doug Rendleman of Washington and Lee University School of Law, who said that although Congress had engaged in "legislative adjudication," it was proper for Congress to get involved in the Morgan case, because the checks and balances within the judicial system had, in essence, failed. On the other hand, he was disappointed by the lack of preparation before the deliberative process commenced, and the narrowness of the resulting law.

On September 25, 1989, Morgan was released from prison.