Probation for Contempt

Sentences for criminal contempt may be suspended. That has been understood as a matter of case law for a while, see Bishop v. Bishop, 90 N.C. App 499 (1988), and it became clear as a matter of statute for some contemnors in 2009 with the addition of G.S. 5A-12(a)(3), S.L. 2009-335. That subdivision allows a judge a term of imprisonment of up to 120 days (instead of the ordinary limit of 30 days) for a failure to pay child support, provided that the sentence is suspended. The question is, what is the nature of that suspended sentence? Does it include the regular conditions of probation applicable by default under Article 82 of G.S. Chapter 15A? May it include supervision by a probation officer? As I sometimes put it, is probation for contempt Probation with a capital P? I don’t think there’s a clear answer. The contempt punishment statute doesn’t actually use the word “probation,” but it does refer to suspending a sentence. In general, North Carolina long ago moved away from the notion of a “suspended sentence without probation.” See Official Commentary to G.S. 15A-1341 (“Subsection (b) specifies both supervised an unsupervised probation. These two categories replace the present [circa 1977] probation and release on suspended sentence; in this Article unsupervised probation is the equivalent of the present release on suspended sentence without probation.”). With that in mind, the reference to a suspended sentence is pretty much the same as saying “probation.” But even if it is, I don’t think it [...]