## Facts

- A California court ordered Phillip William Feiock to pay \$150 per month in child support to his ex-wife.
- After Feiock stopped paying, the court issued an order to show cause on nine counts of contempt for failure to pay support.
- Feiock asserted he was financially unable to comply; the trial court accepted the defense in part but found him in contempt on five counts.
- The trial court sentenced Feiock to five consecutive five-day jail terms (25 days total), suspended the sentence, and placed him on three years’ probation conditioned on resuming support payments and paying \$50 per month toward arrearages.
- The proceeding implicated California Code of Civil Procedure § 1209.5, which treats failure to comply with a child support order as prima facie evidence of contempt.
- The California Court of Appeal annulled the contempt order, construing § 1209.5 as a mandatory presumption that shifted the burden of persuasion on ability to comply and violated due process.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari after the California Supreme Court denied review.

## Issues

1. Whether the contempt sanction imposed should be classified as civil or criminal for purposes of determining applicable federal constitutional protections.
2. Whether federal courts must accept the state appellate court’s determinations that (a) ability to comply is an element of contempt under state law and (b) § 1209.5 shifts the burden of persuasion (not merely production) to the alleged contemnor.
3. Whether a mandatory presumption that shifts the burden of persuasion on an element violates due process when used to support criminal contempt punishment.

## Decision

- The Court held that the civil-or-criminal classification of contempt, for federal constitutional purposes, is a question of federal law and is not controlled by a state court’s label.
- The Court held it was bound by the state appellate court’s state-law determinations that ability to comply is an element of contempt and that § 1209.5 shifts the burden of persuasion regarding inability to comply.
- The Court ruled the California Court of Appeal erred insofar as it treated its “quasi-criminal” label as dispositive of the federal due process analysis.
- The Court vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings to determine the proper federal characterization of the contempt and the resulting constitutional analysis of the presumption as applied.

## Legal Principles

- Whether a contempt proceeding is civil or criminal for purposes of federal constitutional protections depends on the sanction’s character and purpose, and is a federal question.
- Federal courts accept state courts’ determinations on state-law questions such as the elements of the offense and whether a statute shifts the burden of persuasion or merely the burden of production.
- If contempt is criminal in nature, due process requires the State to prove each element beyond a reasonable doubt; a mandatory presumption that shifts the burden of persuasion on an element raises serious due process concerns.
- The constitutionality of a burden-shifting presumption in contempt depends on the nature of the contempt sanction and the statute’s operation in the particular proceeding.

## Conclusion

The Court vacated and remanded because the due process effect of California’s prima facie contempt statute could not be resolved without first determining, as a matter of federal law, whether the sanction functioned as civil (coercive/conditional) or criminal (punitive/unconditional) contempt, while accepting the state court’s identification of the relevant elements and burden allocation under state law.


Hicks v. Feiock, 485 U.S. 624 (1988)