YOUNG v. UNITED STATES ex rel. VUITTON ET FILS S. A. et al. (481 U.S. 787)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 26, 1987 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 481 U.S. 787 · 107 S. Ct. 2124
- Decided
- May 26, 1987
- Term
- October Term 1986
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Brennan
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, III-A, and IV, and an opinion with respect to Part III-B, in which Justice Marshall, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join. Petitioners in these cases were found guilty of criminal contempt by a jury, pursuant to 18 U. S. C. §401(3), for their violation of the District Court’s injunction prohibiting infringement of respondent’s trademark. They received sentences ranging from six months to five years. On appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, petitioners urged that the District Court erred in appointing respondent’s attorneys, rather than a disinterested attorney, to prosecute the contempt. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 780 F. 2d 179 (1985), and we granted certiorari, 477 U. S. 903 (1986). We now reverse, exercising our supervisory power, and hold that counsel for a party that is the beneficiary of a court order may not be appointed to undertake contempt prosecutions for alleged violations of that order. H-( The injunction that petitioners violated in these cases is a result of the settlement of a lawsuit brought in December 1978, in the District Court for the Southern District of New York, by Louis Vuitton, S. A., a French leather goods manufacturer, against Sol Klayminc, his wife Sylvia, his son Barry (the Klaymincs), and their family-owned businesses, Karen Bags, Inc., Jade…
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