It sounds like that was a different contempt charge.

No your explicitly not required provide testimony against yourself the fifth amendment should absolutely override any "contempt" bullshit of him being willing to incriminate himself.

> You can't prove or disprove anything with someone who refuses to comply with the courts.

I don't understand how someone could even think this.

Suppose he stole the loot and refuses to say where it is, but he really put it in a bank safe deposit box. The bank teller remembers him coming into the bank with a big pile of loot and then leaving without it, so you use the teller's statement to get a warrant to search the box, get the camera footage from the bank, etc. There are many ways to prove something without the suspect's cooperation.

How is the alternative supposed to work? The judge tells you to answer a question you'd only know the answer to if you were actually guilty and then you stay in jail for as long as you don't answer it? What are you supposed to do if you're innocent?

> You can't prove or disprove anything with someone who refuses to comply with the courts.

Huge citation needed.

Also all you would have to prove is that they're refusing to comply. How disobedient can they really get without proof existing?

Exactly. Seeing as there is no presumption of innocence in the US and the burden of proof is the defendant’s, it makes sense that a judge can put anyone in jail indefinitely without proving anything. If he had died in prison it would have been due process because contempt is meant to be so punitive that it acts as a deterrent to any other person that sets foot in a court room from refusing to be compelled into making self-incriminatory statements.

Now obviously this entire line of reasoning would be completely nullified if there were examples to the contrary or if any of the things mentioned had been adjudicated before but