After Poundersv. Watson, 521 U.S. 982 (1997) (with Justices Stevens and Breyer dissenting),
South Carolina 's Supreme Court ("SC S Ct"), in conflict with many courts, assumed ever-
expanding contempt powers. Meanwhile, Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008), basi
cally held the risk of arbitrary entry of any punishment violates the Eighth Amendment,
especially when lesser punishment is effective? and Alabama v. Shelton, 535 U.S. 654 (2002),
held that risk of even brief incarceration for minor misdemeanor conviction triggers all the
constitutional protections due to a criminal defendant. Also, Florences. Board of [ ...] Burling
ton, 566 U.S. 318 (2012), and Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493 (2011), recognized, respectively,
that "jails are often crowded, unsanitary, and dangerous places, " imperiling "both correctional
employees and inmates, " and "immediate action is necessary to prevent death and harm
caused by" prison overcrowding, for example by "diverting low-risk offenders " to non-incar
ceration, which would "lower the prison population without releasing violent convicts. "

After a series of bizarre orders amounting to Jim Crowe revisited on la wful immigrants, SC
S Ct convicted Petitioner of criminal contempt for no more than, during two years of physical
closure of SC's courthouse buildings and interim and permanent orders instituting service
and filing by e-mail and electronically statewide, having sent the then-SC S Ct clerk a total
of two e-mails inquiring about the status of Petitioner 's cases before SC S Ct (after that clerk
"elected " to remove those cases from SC's public access website) and two more emails after
that clerk retired, inquiring of his availability in private practice. Nothing in the content of
the four emails was held improper or even unjustified. Yet, without opportunity to present a
defense or compel witnesses therefor, without a truly public trial, and without realistic op
portunity for Petitioner 's Consul to monitor the quasi -trial before SC S Ct„ Petitioner was
sentenced to six months suspended upon service of ten days in a fearsome local jail. There,
she was struck with atrial fibrillation and remained untreated for a day, with jail personnel
later actively preventing her recovery when there was a chance of it.

In light of the evolution of this Court 's jurisprudence, the questions presented are:

1. Given that: (a) CoViD-19 and monkey-pox make even an hour in jail a peril to life or limb,
(b) jails are generally overcrowded and do nothing to "reform " minor non-violent offend
ers, (c) alternate but civilized measures can control genuine contempt, (d) the six-month-
sentence line between summary punishment and due-process*mandated guarantees of
fair trial was elsewise eroded or overruled, (e) the potential for abuse of contempt powers
by temperamental and/or vindictive judges, (f) six-month incarceration being long enough
to cause irreparable injury but short enough to be capable of

Whether incarceration for up to six months for alleged indirect contempt without trial by jury is always per se cruel and unusual