Case ID: ad_98/html/0092-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People of the State of New York ex rel. Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, Relator, v. Joseph E. Newburger, Judge of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace of the County of New York, Respondent.
    
      Criminal contempt — an attorney withdrawing from a criminal case because the court refuses to reverse a ruling.
    
    An attorney defending a prisoner on a criminal trial, who persists in attempting to induce the trial judge to reverse a ruling theretofore made hy him, after the trial judge has positively declined to do so, and who, finding such persistent efforts ineffective, abruptly withdraws from the case in the midst of the trial, is guilty of a criminal contempt of court and may properly be fined, and, in default of the payment thereof, be committed to jail for a period of ten days.
    Certiorari issued out of the Supreme Court and attested on the Uth day of May, 1904, directed to Joseph E. Newburger, Judge of the Court of General Sessions, commanding him to certify and return to the office of the clerk of the county of New York all and singular his proceedings had in relation to the summary commitment of the relator for a criminal contempt of court by which the relator was adjudged to pay $100 and in default of the payment to be committed to jail for a period of ten days.
    
      John G. Milbur.n, for the relator.
    
      Hoioard S. Gans, for the respondent.
   Per Curiam :

We have no reason to doubt the sincerity of the appellant’s declaration that his conduct in connection with the unfortunate incident, which has heen the subject of examination on this appeal, was inspired by what he believed to be his duty to his client and that he had no intention to reflect upon the judge of the Court of Sessions, whose direction he disobeyed. His persistency in seeking to have the court reverse a ruling time and again made ivas, doubtless, prompted by zeal, but at the same time under a very mistaken apprehension of what his duty really required. Where, through an honest but erroneous conception of duty counsel transcends the proprieties of a trial, an ample apology and expression of regret would ordinarily be sufficient to condone the offense or to call forth only a reprimand, but here the repeated efforts of counsel to compel the court to do that which it had positively declined to do and the abrupt desertion of the case in the midst of the trial because he could not coerce the court into compliance with his request was something which demanded more than a simple reprimand. The attitude taken by counsel was such as must necessarily have impressed the jurors and others attending the court with the idea that the judge had deprived a prisoner on trial of a substantial right and had hence acted in an arbitrary manner. If the court were wrong in its ruling (and we are not called upon now to determine whether it was or not) an adequate remedy was afforded by the law.

Under the circumstances of the case, without intending to impute to the appellant anything more than excessive zeal and a misunderstanding for the time being of what his duties required, we think the penalty of a fine was properly imposed and that it is by no means excessive.

The writ must be dismissed and the order of commitment affirmed.

Present — Van Brunt, P. J., Patterson, O’Brien, McLaughlin and Laughlin, JJ.

Writ dismissed and order affirmed.