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injunction.  In seven subsequent hearings, McGlothin found

the UMW in contempt of court for over 400 violations,

adding up to over $64 million in fines.53

After Pittston and the UMW settled, Pittston asked

the circuit court to dismiss the fines.  The judge dis-

missed $12 million in fines intended to compensate

Pittston for its financial losses but retained $52 million

"payable in effect to the public" to compensate for the

"law enforcement burdens posed by the strike."54   The UMW

eventually appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the

contempt fines amounted to a criminal, as opposed to a

civil penalty, which would have entitled the UMW to a

criminal trial by jury.

Writing for the majority in his last opinion before

retiring, Justice Harry A. Blackmun distinguished between

criminal and civil contempt citations.  Civil contempt,

according to Blackmun, is a "coercive" sanction aimed at

forcing the party held in contempt to "comply with an

affirmative command," and thereby "purge" the party of the

sanction.  If the party were imprisoned, compliance would

bring release.  If he were fined, compliance would end the

obligation to pay any more fines beyond those already

paid.55

Criminal contempt sanctions, on the other hand, are

considered a "punitive" measure designed solely to punish

past behavior, not to modify future behavior.56   The

Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the prospective nature

of the fines, dependent on the UMW's behavior, made them

"coercive," and therefore, civil.  But in this case,

Blackmun wrote, the "union's ability to avoid the contempt

fines was indistinguishable from the ability of any ordi-

nary citizen to avoid a criminal sanction by conforming

his behavior to the law."57   Because the fines more closely

resembled "retrospective criminal fines," Blackmun rea-

soned, the UMW would have been entitled to a jury trial.

Accordingly, the fines were dismissed.

Blackmun conceded that his decision would "[impose]

some procedural burdens on courts' ability to sanction

widespread indirect contempts" of court, but concluded that

"considerations of efficiency must give way to the more

fundamental interest of ensuring the even-handed exercise

of judicial power."58

How far-reaching the Court's decision was became clear

in the next strike during the summer of 1993.  In addition

to the usual violence, Eddie York, an independent contrac-

tor, was shot through the head as he tried to leave a min-