Robertson v. United States ex rel. Watson
The Supreme Court dismissed this case as improvidently granted, meaning it decided not to answer the question it had agreed to hear after all. That leaves in place a lower court's ruling that a woman's criminal-contempt case against her abusive ex-boyfriend counted as a private action rather than a government prosecution.
Four justices dissented, arguing the Court should have resolved the underlying question of whether criminal prosecutions can be brought in a private citizen's name rather than the government's, calling the issue too important to leave unanswered.
How it got here: The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled Watson's contempt case was a private action unaffected by Robertson's plea deal; the Supreme Court granted review, then dismissed the writ as improvidently granted.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A woman, Wykenna Watson, got a civil protective order against her then-boyfriend, John Robertson, after he assaulted her. He violated it with another assault, and while prosecutors separately charged him over the earlier incident and reached a plea deal covering the later one, Watson later asked a court to hold Robertson in criminal contempt for violating the protective order.
The question before the Court
When a domestic-violence victim personally asks a court to hold her abuser in criminal contempt, is that a private lawsuit or a prosecution brought on behalf of the government?
Why it matters
The decision leaves unresolved, at least for now, whether people can pursue criminal contempt cases in their own name to enforce protective orders without being bound by the government's separate plea deals with the same defendant. Victims relying on private contempt actions to enforce restraining orders in the District of Columbia and similar jurisdictions remain in the same legal position as before the Court took the case.
What changes now
Because the Court dismissed the writ rather than deciding the merits, the D.C. Court of Appeals's ruling that Watson's contempt prosecution was a private action stands. The underlying dispute over whether the plea agreement barred that contempt case was never resolved by the Supreme Court and remains as the lower court left it. No further Supreme Court proceedings follow from this order.
What this does not decide
This order does not decide whether criminal contempt prosecutions must be brought on behalf of the government rather than a private person, and it does not resolve whether Robertson's plea agreement barred Watson's contempt case. It also does not address civil contempt proceedings, as Justice Sotomayor's separate dissent specifically notes.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts argued the Court should not have ducked the question it specifically rephrased when granting review: whether a criminal contempt prosecution can constitutionally be brought in a private person's name instead of the government's. He concluded, relying on United States v. Dixon and historical sources, that criminal prosecutions—including contempt actions—must be understood as exercises of sovereign power, not purely private lawsuits, and would have sent the case back to resolve the plea-agreement question on that corrected premise.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor joined the Chief Justice's dissent but wrote separately to stress that its holding is narrow: it addresses only criminal contempt proceedings, not civil contempt, and does not pass judgment on the broader legitimacy of existing systems for enforcing protective and restraining orders through private action.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- After granting certiorari and rephrasing the question to focus on whether criminal contempt prosecutions must be brought on behalf of the government rather than a private person, the Court did not issue a full opinion explaining a decision on that question.
- Instead, the per curiam order simply dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted, a step courts take when they conclude, after full briefing, that the case is not a good vehicle for resolving the issue they took it to decide.
- A dismissal as improvidently granted leaves the lower court's decision in place without Supreme Court review of its reasoning, so the D.C. Court of Appeals's ruling that Watson's contempt case was a private action stands undisturbed.
- The order gave no reasons for declining to decide the rephrased question, which prompted four justices to write separately arguing the Court should have gone ahead and resolved it.