In Re: Linda Stukey C.A. Case No. 15604.

• Decision Date: 11 October 1996
• Docket Number: 96-LW-4573,C.A. 15604
• Parties: IN RE: LINDA STUKEY C.A. CASE NO. 15604.
• Court: United States Court of Appeals (Ohio)

IN RE: LINDA STUKEY

No. C.A. 15604.

96-LW-4573 (2nd)

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Second District Montgomery

October 11, 1996

DECISION

PER CURIAM

Appellant Linda Stukey, an attorney, appeals from the finding by a judge of the Common Pleas Court of Montgomery County Juvenile Division, that she was in direct contempt of the court. She was punished, as allowed by law(fn1) as follows:

ORDERED, that Linda Stukey shall be punished for such Direct Contempt by the payment of a fine of $50.00 and that she be sentenced to 10 days in the county workhouse. The Court will suspend said 10 day sentence so long as full payment of the $50.00 fine is made within 10 days of filing this Order of the Court.

Entry and Order, October 20, 1995, Doc. 17.

No appellee brief was filed. In the appellant's brief, we are informed that Stukey paid her fine of $50.00. We accept that statement of fact as correct. App.R. 18(C).

Since the fine has been paid and the sentence of ten days therefore suspended, there is now no case to be heard and the appeal is moot. Springfield v. Myers (1988), 43 Ohio App.3d 21 (this court dismissed an appeal from a contempt citation as moot because the sentence had already been served, citing State v Wilson (1975), 41 Ohio St.2d 236, and State v. Berndt (1987) 29 Ohio St.3d 3.)

The test for mootness outlined in Wilson and Berndt has been confined to appeals from misdemeanor convictions. State v. Golston (1994), 71 Ohio St.3d 224. A direct contempt conviction is a petty or minor offense, and only a misdemeanor, when its punishment is imprisonment not in the penitentiary and not for more than one year. In re Neff (1969), 20 Ohio App.2d 213. Since Golston, Berndt and Wilson have both been cited by Ohio Courts finding appeals from non-felony satisfied judgments to be moot and, therefore, to be dismissed. See e.g., Turner v. Cleveland City School Dist. (1995), 99 Ohio App.3d 666; Bowling Green v. Boggs (1995), 74 Ohio Misc.2d 133. Moreover, no exceptions to the mootness doctrine, such as a case that raises matters of great public interest or a debatable constitutional issue, apply to the case before us. See OCSEA v. Dept. of Transp. (1995), 104 Ohio App.3d 340.

Finally, we specifically find that attorney Stukey's petty punishment and citation for contempt will not impose some collateral legal disability on her (such as preclusion of holding an office of "honor, trust, or profit" which applies to a...