Contempt of court to call a federal judge's chambers and leave msg calling him a f@cking a@shole?

Would it be considered contempt of court, or is it otherwise illegal, to call a federal judge’s chamber’s office phone and leave a profane message regarding your feelings about his rulings? The only other consideration is that the judge in question is (or at least was) under federal protection for having received threats to his life. If you haven’t already figured it out I’m referring to TS Ellis III - Manafort’s disgrace of a judge. Yeah, I know it’s petty and pointless but I’m in that kind of mood.

If you’re not subject to the court’s control I’m not sure you can be charged with contempt of court. However you could be charged with threatening a judge if you crossed the line somewhere.

I guess do it from a pay phone (if you can find one).

[Moderator Note]

This being GQ, don’t promote what might be illegal activity.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

[Moderator Note]

Since you seem to be proposing to do this yourself, I’m going to move this to IMHO as the appropriate forum for legal advice.

I will note that harassment and the promotion of a cause or of illegal activity are against the Registration Agreement, so I would suggest that posters stay well away from that.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

That’s the answer, I think. Contempt of court is usually something that has to do with disregarding or interfering with the proper functioning of a court that you’re part of, or of disregarding the orders of a particular court that has told you to do something.

So if you’re an attorney and you continually ignore the judge, or if you’re a spectator and you’re disruptive, then that could be contempt of court. Or if you’ve been ordered by the court to do (or not do) something, and you violate or disregard that order, that’s also contempt of court. For example, I think if you’re on a sequestered jury and you sneak out to get a beer, that could be considered contempt of court. So is disregarding direct court orders like restraining orders, child support orders, etc…

So calling up a judge out of the blue and saying they’re an asshole isn’t contempt of court, assuming you’re not actually involved with that judge’s court. But it could be interpreted as verbal assault or some kind of threat.

I’ll answer a more general paraphrasing of this question.

A judge makes a decision that you are not a party to. You don’t like their decision so you communicate your displeasure to them in any medium (voicemail, email, snailmail, skywriting).

What do you hope to accomplish?

Even if they miraculously saw the wisdom of your position, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN.

If you do, don’t be surprised at getting a visit from the Federal Protective Services. Whatever you think of such actions, FPS tends to take that sorta thing pretty seriously.

I get that this was inappropriate for GQ (when it was there), but why would calling from a pay phone be illegal?

The only reason to call from a pay phone would be to try to escape legal consequences of a possibly criminal act, so it’s in the nature of advising someone how to avoid the consequences of doing something whose illegality is under discussion.

I didn’t say that calling from a pay phone was illegal in itself. On the assumption that harassment or threats are illegal, you would be promoting it by suggesting a way to avoid being identified and thus any consequences.

Why would you suggest calling from a pay phone if you didn’t think the making an obscene call itself was illegal?

What is the value of using abusive language over just writing him a calm, reasonable letter explaining your position and why you believe that his decision was wrong?

The first will at best get you dismissed as a crank, and at worst bring about some kind of investigation or get you added to a watchlist.

The second might not have any influence over him, but it might add to the overall understanding that the justice system has about public sentiment, or could even make someone who reads it, if not the judge himself, think twice about the reasoning behind the decision.

Of course you are free to call him names, I just can’t see any possible benefit.

I get your point, but not wanting to be identified as the caller doesn’t necessarily draw a straight line to illegality. I can’t believe that simply calling a public official names (even “obscene” names) without any threat is illegal, and I can definitely understand not wanting to be identified as the caller.

In my younger days, I’ve made the odd phone call from a pay phone to see if someone was “really” out as they said, or to check if a guy was married (if a woman answered the phone, etc.). Actually, I did this sort of thing so long ago that calling from a pay phone wasn’t necessary, as caller I.D. hadn’t become widely available yet. When it first came in, you had to pay extra for it.

Sometimes a phone call is just a phone call and not a crime, kwim?

Venting?

I’m of the opinion that people like this judge literally cannot be changed. And that’s not even accounting for the fact that judges are accustomed to their word literally being law.

Again, I didn’t say that the phone call was a crime. And let’s not be disingenuous. You made the suggestion because you though there could be some negative consequences from being identified as the maker of such a call.

[del]Not to put too fine a point on it[/del] I DO want to put a fine point on it: Yes, I thought there might be negative consequences if the identity of the caller was known. That doesn’t mean I thought what the caller was doing was illegal.

Venting is easy to do without putting yourself in a bad light or possibly bringing on legal consequences. The OP has done it by starting this thread. Maybe a reasoned approach would have an influence and maybe it wouldn’t, but I guarantee that being called rude names is not going to change anyone’s opinion (except to make them think that the person doing the naming is a jerk.)

Just because it might not be the smartest approach in the long run doesn’t mean venting isn’t a possible benefit.

And if the dude’s mind will never change no matter what you say, you might as well call him a prick to his face, if you’re going to talk to him at all. It won’t change his mind, but nothing else would have either.

Yes, but not necessarily because doing so is illegal.