## Facts

- In 1990, an Illinois court entered a judgment dissolving the marriage between Kenneth L. Wronke and his former wife.
- In 1991, the state court entered an order addressing child-related matters and requiring Wronke to pay child support for two minor children.
- By 1995, Wronke had accumulated child-support arrearages of about $44,226, and the state court found he had the ability to pay but did not.
- Wronke also placed the children’s names on a sign along a state highway; the state court ordered him to remove the names, and he refused.
- On October 5, 1995, the Circuit Court of Champaign County found Wronke in indirect civil contempt and ordered him jailed until he purged the contempt by meeting specified child-support payment conditions and removing the children’s names from the sign.
- The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the contempt order as civil and coercive.
- In July 1996, Wronke filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, arguing that his continued incarceration without a jury trial for longer than six months violated the Constitution.
- The federal district court twice dismissed for non-exhaustion; the Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded for merits review, and the case was reassigned.
- The district court (C.D. Ill.) then decided the petition on the merits.

## Issues

1. Whether Wronke’s confinement was criminal contempt (punitive) rather than civil contempt (coercive), such that criminal procedural protections applied.
2. Whether incarcerating Wronke for more than six months without a jury trial violated the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments where the contempt order was conditional and could be purged by compliance.
3. Whether, under AEDPA, the Illinois courts’ decision upholding the civil-contempt confinement was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Supreme Court law.

## Decision

- The court denied Wronke’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus under § 2254.
- The confinement was for indirect civil contempt because it was conditioned on Wronke’s compliance and intended to compel payment of child support and removal of the children’s names from the sign.
- Because the contempt was civil and purgeable, the constitutional jury-trial rule applicable to criminal contempt and fixed criminal sentences did not require a jury, even though confinement extended beyond six months.
- Applying AEDPA, the court held the Illinois courts’ decision was not contrary to, and did not unreasonably apply, clearly established Supreme Court precedent distinguishing civil from criminal contempt.

## Legal Principles

- Civil contempt is remedial and coercive; criminal contempt is punitive and imposed as punishment for completed disobedience.
- A contempt sanction is civil when the contemnor can end confinement by complying with clear purge conditions (the “keys to the jail” concept).
- The Sixth Amendment jury-trial right tied to the seriousness of a jail term applies to criminal punishment, including criminal contempt, not to open-ended civil-contempt confinement that remains conditional and coercive.
- On § 2254 review, federal courts may grant relief only if the state-court decision is contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Supreme Court law; state factual determinations receive strong deference.

## Conclusion

The district court denied habeas relief because the Illinois contempt order was a coercive, purgeable civil sanction aimed at compelling Wronke to comply with child-support and related orders, so his extended confinement without a jury trial did not violate clearly established federal constitutional law, and AEDPA barred relief.


Wronke v. Madigan, 26 F. Supp. 2d 1102 (1998)