Facts: After petitioner Estevan Silva failed to comply with a juvenile court’s order that he follow his parent’s rules, avoid drugs and alcohol, and participate in drug and alcohol evaluation, his mother, respondent Jeanette Silva, petitioned the court to hold him in contempt. In sanctioning Silva, the court determined that statutory remedial contempt sanctions would be inadequate and exercised its inherent contempt authority to impose a punitive contempt sanction of 45 days detention. Silva appealed the court’s sanction to the Washington Court of Appeals, which certified to the Supreme Court of Washington the question of whether a juvenile court is required to rely upon remedial contempt sanctions and specifically find them ineffective before relying upon its inherent authority to impose a punitive contempt sanction.

Question(s): Is a juvenile court required to demonstrate that all less restrictive alternatives have failed before imposing a punitive contempt sanction?

Conclusion: Justice Charles W. Johnson’s opinion for the Court held that as previous cases have established that remedial sanctions are generally the favored juvenile contempt sanction and that punitive sanctions should only be used in the most egregious of circumstances, a juvenile court is required to rely upon remedial sanctions first and exercise its inherent authority to impose punitive sanctions only after remedial sanctions have failed. Thus, the Court vacated the juvenile court’s contempt order and remanded the case.

Docket No. 81573-9 (from Yakima Case No. 07-7-00349-2)

Appellant: In re Interest of Estevan Silva, Jr.

Respondent: Jeanette M. Silva

Briefs:

Argument: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 10:00am

[Source: TVW, http://tvw.org]

Decided: Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Prevailing Party: Jeanette M. Silva (Respondent)

Vote: 9-0

Citation: Pending

Alexander

Johnson
(Majority)

Madsen

Sanders

Chambers

Owens

Fairhurst

Johnson

Stephens