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Timestamp: 2019-04-23 17:21:07+00:00

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1. Rule 42 (a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure allows a trial judge, upon the occurrence in his presence of a contempt, immediately and summarily to punish it, if, in his opinion, delay will prejudice the trial. If he believes the exigencies of the trial require that he defer judgment until its completion, he may do so without extinguishing his power. P. 11.
2. During a turbulent nine-months' trial of eleven Communist Party leaders on charges of violating the Smith Act, defense counsel, in the presence of the trial judge and in the face of repeated warnings from him that their conduct was regarded as contemptuous, persisted in a course of conduct that was highly contemptuous and that tended to disrupt and delay the trial and possibly to cause a mistrial. Upon receiving the verdict of the jury at the conclusion of the trial, the trial judge, without further notice or hearing, immediately filed a certificate under Rule 42 (a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure summarily finding such counsel guilty of criminal contempt and sentencing them to imprisonment. Held: This action was within the power of the trial judge under Rule 42 (a). Pp. 3-11.
(a) The word "summary" as used in Rule 42 (a) does not refer to the timing of the action with reference to the offense but refers to a procedure which dispenses with the formality, delay and digression that would result from the issuance of process, service of complaint [343 U.S. 1, 2] and answer, holding hearings, taking evidence, listening to arguments, awaiting briefs, submission of findings, and all that goes with a conventional court trial. P. 9.
(b) Neither the language of the Rule nor the reasons for permitting straightway exercise of summary power requires immediate action. Pp. 9-10.
(c) The overriding consideration is the integrity and efficiency of the trial process; and, if the judge deems immediate action inexpedient, he should be allowed discretion to follow the procedure taken in this case. P. 10.
3. It is not necessary for this Court to consider the trial judge's charge that petitioners deliberately entered into an agreement to impair his health, since the Court of Appeals found the judgment amply sustained without this count, the sentences ran concurrently, and reversal on one count does not require reversal on the others. P. 11.
4. Rule 42 (a) does not deny a trial judge power summarily to punish a contempt that is personal to himself, even when it is not necessary to forestall abortion of the trial. Pp. 11-12.
5. The sentences imposed in this case need not intimidate lawyers in the proper performance of their professional duties as trial counsel, for they know that from any summary conviction under Rule 42 (a) they have an appeal on law and fact to the Court of Appeals. Pp. 12-13.
6. If its aid be needed, this Court will unhesitatingly protect counsel in fearless, vigorous and effective performance of every duty pertaining to the office of the advocate on behalf of any person whatsoever. Pp. 13-14.
Paul L. Ross argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the brief were Martin Popper, Earl B. Dickerson and Robert W. Kenny.
Solicitor General Perlman argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General McInerney, Robert L. Stern and Robert W. Ginnane.
After a turbulent nine months of trial, eleven Communist Party leaders were convicted of violating the Smith Act. 1 On receiving the verdict, the trial judge at once filed a certificate under Rule 42 (a), Fed. Rules Crim. Proc., finding petitioners guilty of criminal contempt and imposing various jail terms up to six months. Those sentenced were defense counsel, with the exception of one defendant who had elected to conduct his own case.
We have taken no issue as to the statute which confers power on a federal court to punish for contempt, 11 but only as to the regularity of the procedure under Rule 42, 12 designed to provide for the manner of exercising [343 U.S. 1, 7] that power. The issue we accepted for review is a narrow one. Petitioners do not deny that they might have been summarily punished for their conduct without hearing under Rule 42 (a) if the trial judge had acted at once upon occurrence of each incident. But it is contended that this power of summary punishment expired by reason of two circumstances: (1) that the trial judge awaited completion of the trial, at which time its progress could no longer be obstructed, and hence, it is said, summary action had become unnecessary; and (2) that he included in the certificate a charge that the contemptuous instances were the result of agreement between counsel which, if it existed, was not made in his presence. Therefore, it is argued that petitioners could not be convicted or sentenced except after notice, time for preparation of a defense, and hearing, probably before another judge, as provided in Rule 42 (b).
Rule 42 obviously was intended to make more explicit "the prevailing usages at law" by which the statute has authorized punishment of contempts. 18 U.S.C. 401, 402. No legislative history sheds light on this issue. Practice of District Judges has not been uniform when they have deemed resort to the power necessary. 13 A variety of questions concerning contempt powers, limitations [343 U.S. 1, 8] and procedures have been considered by this Court, 14 but none construed this Rule, which was promulgated by this Court in 1944 and became effective March 26, 1946. Cases prior to it grew out of facts so distinguishing that their decisions are of little value as precedents.
Of course, it is the right of counsel for every litigant to press his claim, even if it appears farfetched and untenable, to obtain the court's considered ruling. Full enjoyment of that right, with due allowance for the heat of controversy, will be protected by appellate courts when infringed by trial courts. But if the ruling is adverse, it is not counsel's right to resist it or to insult the judge - his right is only respectfully to preserve his point for appeal. During a trial, lawyers must speak, each in his own time and within his allowed time, and with relevance and moderation. These are such obvious matters that we should not remind the bar of them were it not for the misconceptions manifest in this case.
The Rule in question contemplates that occasions may arise when the trial judge must immediately arrest any conduct of such nature that its continuance would break up a trial, so it gives him power to do so summarily. But the petitioners here contend that the Rule not only permits but requires its instant exercise, so that once the emergency has been survived punishment may no longer be summary but can only be administered by the alternative method allowed by Rule 42 (b). We think "summary" as used in this Rule does not refer to the timing of the action with reference to the offense but refers to a procedure which dispenses with the formality, delay and digression that would result from the issuance of process, service of complaint and answer, holding hearings, taking evidence, listening to arguments, awaiting briefs, submission of findings, and all that goes with a conventional court trial. The purpose of that procedure is to inform the court of events not within its own knowledge. The Rule allows summary procedure only as to offenses within the knowledge of the judge because they occurred in his presence.
Reasons for permitting straightway exercise of summary power are not reasons for compelling or encouraging [343 U.S. 1, 10] its immediate exercise. Forthwith judgment is not required by the text of the Rule. Still less is such construction appropriate as a safeguard against abuse of the power. If the conduct of these lawyers warranted immediate summary punishment on dozens of occasions, no possible prejudice to them can result from delaying it until the end of the trial if the circumstances permit such delay. The overriding consideration is the integrity and efficiency of the trial process, and if the judge deems immediate action inexpedient he should be allowed discretion to follow the procedure taken in this case. To summon a lawyer before the bench and pronounce him guilty of contempt is not unlikely to prejudice his client. It might be done out of the presence of the jury, but we have held that a contempt judgment must be public. 15 Only the naive and inexperienced would assume that news of such action will not reach the jurors. If the court were required also then to pronounce sentence, a construction quite as consistent with the text of the Rule as petitioners' present contention, it would add to the prejudice. It might also have the additional consequence of depriving defendant of his counsel unless execution of prison sentence were suspended or stayed as speedily as it had been imposed. The procedure on which petitioners now insist is just the procedure most likely to achieve the only discernible purpose of the contemptuous conduct. Had the trial judge here pursued that course, they could have made a formidable assertion that it was unfair to them or to their clients and that a new trial was required on account of it.
In this case counsel repeatedly were warned that their conduct was regarded as contemptuous. No claim can be made that the judge awaited the close of the trial to pounce upon them for some offense unnoted at the time [343 U.S. 1, 11] it occurred. If we were to hold that summary punishment can be imposed only instantly upon the event, it would be an incentive to pronounce, while smarting under the irritation of the contemptuous act, what should be a well-considered judgment. We think it less likely that unfair condemnation of counsel will occur if the more deliberate course be permitted.
The other reason ascribed for reversing this case is that the accusing judge charged the petitioners, among other things, with an agreement deliberately entered into in a cold and calculated manner, "to impair my health." It is not charged that such an agreement was made in the presence of the judge. We need not determine whether a proper construction of the certificate would be that the concert of action which did take place in his presence amounted to an implied agreement or as charging an earlier express verbal agreement to act in concert. This specification was reversed by the Court of Appeals, which, however, found the judgment amply sustained without it, and considered the substantive offenses separable and independent, as do we. It found the judgment amply sustained without the conspiracy count. The sentences ran concurrently, so reversal of one does not require reversal of the other.
We are urged that these sentences will have an intimidating effect on the legal profession, whose members hereafter will decline to appear in trials where "defendants are objects of hostility of those in power," or will do so under a "cloud of fear" which "threatens the right of the American people to be represented fearlessly and vigorously by counsel."
The profession knows that no lawyer is at the mercy of a single federal trial judge. This case demonstrates [343 U.S. 1, 13] that before punishment takes effect he may have appeal on law and fact to the Court of Appeals. Petitioners, as yet, have served no part of their sentences but have been enlarged on bail while their conduct has been directly reviewed by one Court of Appeals on their own appeal and considered indirectly by a differently composed Court of Appeals on their clients' appeal. Some of those judges had trial and appellate experience almost unparalleled in length and variety. These lawyers have not been condemned, as they claim, merely by the impulse of one lone and hostile judge. Their conduct has been condemned by every judge who has examined this record under a duty to review the facts. It is to be doubted whether the profession will be greatly terrorized by punishment of some of its members after such extended and detached consideration. Moreover, if power of contempt excites fear and terror in the bar, it would hardly be relieved by upholding petitioners' contention that the judge may proceed against a lawyer at the precise moment of maximum heat but may not do so if he awaits a cooler second thought.
But that there may be no misunderstanding, we make clear that this Court, if its aid be needed, will unhesitatingly protect counsel in fearless, vigorous and effective performance of every duty pertaining to the office of the advocate on behalf of any person whatsoever. But it will [343 U.S. 1, 14] not equate contempt with courage or insults with independence. It will also protect the processes of orderly trial, which is the supreme object of the lawyer's calling.
[ Footnote 1 ] Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 .
[ Footnote 2 ] United States v. Sacher, 182 F.2d 416.
[ Footnote 3 ] Id., at 423.
[ Footnote 4 ] Id., at 454.
[ Footnote 5 ] Id., at 463.
[ Footnote 6 ] United States v. Dennis, 183 F.2d 201, 225.
[ Footnote 7 ] Id., at 226.
[ Footnote 8 ] 341 U.S. 952 .
[ Footnote 9 ] 342 U.S. 858 .
[ Footnote 10 ] 182 F.2d at 430-453.
"This section shall not be construed to relate to contempts committed in the presence of the court, or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice, nor to contempts committed in disobedience of any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command entered in any suit or action brought or prosecuted in the name of, or on behalf of, the United States, but the same, and all other cases of contempt not specifically embraced in this section may be punished in conformity to the prevailing usages at law."
"(a) SUMMARY DISPOSITION. A criminal contempt may be punished summarily if the judge certifies that he saw or heard the conduct constituting the contempt and that it was committed in the actual presence of the court. The order of contempt shall recite the facts and shall be signed by the judge and entered of record.
"(b) DISPOSITION UPON NOTICE AND HEARING. A criminal contempt except as provided in subdivision (a) of this rule shall be prosecuted on notice. The notice shall state the time and place of hearing, allowing a reasonable time for the preparation of the defense, and shall state the essential facts constituting the criminal contempt charged and describe it as such. The notice shall be given orally by the judge in open court in the presence of the defendant or, on application of the United States attorney or of an attorney appointed by the court for that purpose, by an order to show cause or an order of arrest. The defendant is entitled to a trial by jury in any case in [343 U.S. 1, 7] which an act of Congress so provides. He is entitled to admission to bail as provided in these rules. If the contempt charged involves disrespect to or criticism of a judge, that judge is disqualified from presiding at the trial or hearing except with the defendant's consent. Upon a verdict or finding of guilt the court shall enter an order fixing the punishment."
[ Footnote 13 ] In Hallinan v. United States, 182 F.2d 880, cert. denied, 341 U.S. 952 , defense counsel was summarily adjudged in contempt under Rule 42 (a) and sentenced to six months' imprisonment while the trial was still in progress. The trial judge's power to do so was sustained over the objection that he had delayed overnight and that part of the conduct specified was that of four and five days earlier. In MacInnis v. United States, 191 F.2d 157, cert. denied this date, 342 U.S. 953 , [343 U.S. 1, 8] defense counsel was adjudged in contempt for conduct the day before. Filing of the certificate of contempt was delayed more than three weeks, and it was announced that the fixing of the punishment would be deferred until the end of the trial. When the trial was concluded two months after the contempt, counsel was immediately sentenced to three months' imprisonment. The trial judge's power to do so was upheld.
[ Footnote 14 ] Among them: Ex parte Terry, 128 U.S. 289 ; Cooke v. United States, 267 U.S. 517 ; Nye v. United States, 313 U.S. 33 ; Pendergast v. United States, 317 U.S. 412 ; In re Michael, 326 U.S. 224 .
[ Footnote 15 ] In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257 .
I would reverse these convictions because of my belief that (1) the Judge should not have passed on the contempt charges he preferred; (2) whatever judge considered the charges, guilt should not have been summarily decided as it was - without notice, without a hearing and without an opportunity for petitioners to defend themselves; (3) petitioners were constitutionally entitled to have their guilt or innocence of criminal contempt decided by a jury.
After a nine months' trial of leaders of the Communist Party a jury brought in a verdict of guilty and was discharged. Immediately, presiding Judge Medina asked all the defendants' lawyers 1 to stand up, then read them a very minor part of a lengthy "contempt certificate" in which they were alleged to have committed many acts of contempt at various times during the protracted trial. Without affording any of them a chance to say a word before he acted, the presiding Judge held all of them guilty of contempt and sentenced each one to prison.
The presiding Judge was convinced that the lawyers had deliberately and calculatingly badgered and insulted him throughout the long months of trial. Among these insults, so the Judge believed and declared, were insolent, sarcastic, impudent and disrespectful charges that he angled for newspaper headlines; connived with the United States Attorney; entertained racial prejudice; judicially acted with "bias, prejudice, corruption, and partiality." He found and repeatedly declared that these lawyers were acting in concerted agreement in an attempt to create confusion, provoke incidents and break down his health. As the trial progressed, the record shows that the Judge expressed stronger and stronger fears that the alleged conspiracy to destroy his health was about to succeed. This belief may explain his sharp and somewhat heated repartee in his frequent controversies with counsel. But whatever the provocation, the record shows a constantly growing resentment of the Judge against the lawyers.
"The Court: There was an instance when you deliberately lied to me when they were passing these press releases. You said that they were not and you were caught red-handed.
"Mr. Sacher: That is the most offensive charge that can be made against an officer of the court. . . . What has a lawyer got but his honor.
"The Court: . . . you were caught red-handed.
"Mr. Sacher: That is the most detestable thing I ever heard from a judge. I resent that and I urge that it be expunged from the record. . . . I will defend my honor as a member of the bar against your Honor or anybody else. . . . I think an idiot resorts to lying. I don't have to do it.
"The Court: You did it.
Liar ordinarily is a fighting word spoken in anger to express bitter personal hostility against another. I can think of no other reason for its use here, particularly since the Judge's charge was baseless. 3 And the Judge's personal feeling towards these lawyers, Sacher in particular, is further indicated by an occurrence immediately after they had been sentenced. Sacher asked and was granted the privilege of making a brief statement. This [343 U.S. 1, 17] statement was relevant and dignified. 4 Nevertheless the Judge interrupted him and used this language to a lawyer he had just abruptly and summarily sentenced to prison: "You continue in the same brazen manner that you used throughout the whole trial. . . . despite all kinds of warnings throughout the case, you continue with the same old mealy-mouth way of putting it which I have been listening to throughout the case." (Emphasis supplied.) Candor compels me to say that in this episode the decorum and dignity of the lawyer who had just been sentenced to prison loses nothing by comparison with others.
Second. Before sentence and conviction these petitioners were accorded no chance at all to defend themselves. They were not even afforded an opportunity to challenge the sufficiency or the accuracy of the charges. Their sentences were read to them but the full charges were not. I cannot reconcile this summary blasting of legal careers with a fair system of justice. Such a procedure constitutes an overhanging menace to the security of every courtroom advocate in America. The menace is most ominous for lawyers who are obscure, unpopular or defenders of unpopular persons or unorthodox causes.
Conviction without trial is not only inherently unfair in the first court, but the unfairness is carried up to the appellate level. This case proves that. A fair review requires scrutiny of 13,000 pages of evidence most of which is irrelevant. For the contempt certificate states: "As isolated quotations from or references to the transcript can give but a partial view of the acts, statements, and conduct above referred to, I hereby make the entire record part of these proceedings." Such a record obscured the lawyers' trial conduct in a maze of evidence that has nothing to do with their own guilt or innocence. It is not surprising that this Court shrinks from reading such a record; it refuses to do so. No assertion is made that the Court of Appeals waded through it. Consequently there is every indication that the Court of Appeals appraised the factual accuracy of Judge Medina's charges on a basis deemed by him as "inadequate" because presenting only "a partial view" of the numerous court-lawyer controversies. 5 Such an "inadequate" basis of review [343 U.S. 1, 19] is to be expected since no hearing was held which could have framed concrete issues and focused attention on evidence relevant to them.
For reasons stated above and for reasons stated in the dissent of MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER and the dissent of Judge Charles Clark, I think these cases should be reversed [343 U.S. 1, 20] because Judge Medina denied petitioners a hearing. But I would reverse on the further ground that petitioners are entitled to all the constitutional safeguards provided to protect persons charged with crime, including a trial by jury.
Third. Art. III, 2 of the Constitution provides that "The Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be by Jury." Not satisfied with this single protection for jury trial, the Founders reemphasized the guaranty by declaring in the Sixth Amendment that "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury . . . ." And the Fifth Amendment provides that "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury . . . ." These contempt proceedings are "criminal prosecutions" brought to avenge an alleged public wrong. Petitioners were imprisoned for terms up to six months, but these terms could have been longer. The Government's position in United States v. United Mine Workers of America, 330 U.S. 258 , was that the amount of punishment for the crime of contempt can be fixed at a judge's discretion, with no limit but the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Certainly, petitioners have been sentenced for crimes. 6 Consequently these lawyers have been wrongfully deprived of the jury benefits of the foregoing constitutional provisions unless they are inapplicable to the crime of contempt.
There are undoubtedly sayings in some past opinions of this Court broad enough to justify what was done here. Indeed judges and perhaps lawyers pretty generally subscribe to the doctrine that judicial institutions would [343 U.S. 1, 21] be imperiled if judges were without power summarily to convict and punish for courtroom offenses. Our recent decisions, however, have expressed more cautious views about the judicial authority to punish for contempt. Returning to the early views of this Court, we have marked the limits of that authority as being "the least possible power adequate to the end proposed." In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 274 , and cases there cited. The "end proposed" is "power adequate" in the court to preserve order and decorum and to compel obedience to valid court orders. To achieve these ends - decorum and obedience to orders - courts must have power to act immediately, and upon this need the power of contempt rests. Concurring opinion, United States v. United Mine Workers of America, supra, 330 U.S. at 331-332. Measured by this test, as Judge Charles Clark's dissenting opinion pointed out, there was no necessity here for Judge Medina's summary action, because the trial was over and the danger of obstructing it was passed. For the same reason there was no longer need, so far as that trial was concerned, to try petitioners for their courtroom conduct without benefit of the Bill of Rights procedural safeguards.
A concurring judge in the Court of Appeals feared that it might bring about "demoralization of the court's authority" should any one other than Judge Medina try the case. The reason given was: "For instance, in all likelihood, at a trial of the lawyers, Sacher would introduce the testimony of himself and others in an effort to prove that he was not `angrily shouting,' as charged in Specification VII, and did not speak `in an insolent manner,' as charged in Specification VIII; Gladstein would similarly seek to prove there he did not `angrily' advance `toward the bench' or make remarks in a `truculent manner,' as charged in Specification VIII, and did not speak to the judge `in a sarcastic and impertinent manner,' as charged [343 U.S. 1, 22] in Specification XI; etc., etc." 182 F.2d 416, 461. What would be wrong with this? Are defendants accused by judges of being offensive to them to be conclusively presumed guilty on the theory that judges' observations and inferences must be accepted as infallible? There is always a possibility that a judge may be honestly mistaken. Unfortunately history and the existence of our Bill of Rights indicate that judicial errors may be from worse causes.
[ Footnote 1 ] The defendant Dennis, who had acted as his own lawyer, is included in this group.
[ Footnote 2 ] While the full text of the colloquy is pertinent, all of it is not repeated here as it is set out at pp. 80-81 of the appendix to MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER'S opinion.
[ Footnote 3 ] The Court of Appeals held that the record failed to sustain the accusations that Sacher had spoken falsely about the press releases. Specification XV based on that charge was reversed.
"And I respectfully submit, your Honor, that a country with an intimidated bar is a country whose liberties are in danger. Here in America we know that the American bar occupies a place of honor in the achievement and preservation of the liberties of our people, and I say, your Honor, with all due respect to your decision and judgment here that any threat to the integrity, independence and courage of the bar can only constitute a threat to the integrity and wholesomeness and preservation of our civil liberties.
"The Court: It isn't the price of liberty; it is the price of misbehavior and disorder as stated in the certificate.
"Mr. Sacher: I say to your Honor - "
[ Footnote 5 ] I do not think the convictions of these lawyers for contempt should be affirmed on the theory that such has already been expressly or impliedly done by the "differently composed Court of Appeals" that affirmed conviction of the Communist leaders. That "differently composed" court merely held that no conduct of the trial judge called for reversing the convictions of the Communist leaders. I think that [343 U.S. 1, 19] affirmance does not support an inference that the "differently composed" court would also have sustained a judgment of contempt against the lawyers. Moreover while this "differently composed" court severely condemned the lawyers' conduct, it apparently felt constrained to imply that the trial judge "did not conduct himself with the imperturbability of a Rhadamanthus . . . ." 183 F.2d 226.
[ Footnote 6 ] New Orleans v. Steamship Co., 20 Wall. 387, 392; Gompers v. United States 233 U.S. 604, 610 , 611; Michaelson v. United States, 266 U.S. 42, 66 -67; Pendergast v. United States, 317 U.S. 412, 416 -418; but cf. Myers v. United States, 264 U.S. 95, 103 .
[ Footnote 7 ] Frankfurter and Landis, Power of Congress over Procedure in Criminal Contempts in "Inferior" Federal Courts, 37 Harv. L. Rev. 1010, 1047. See also Nelles and King, Contempt by Publications in the United States, 28 Col. L. Rev. 401; Fox, History of Contempt of Court (1927).
[ Footnote 8 ] During the parliamentary discussion of Mr. Fox's libel bill, which sought to preserve trial by jury, it was called to the Parliament's attention that Mr. Justice Buller, while trying the Dean of St. Asaph at Shrewsbury, had declared the "rights of appeal" to be the "dearest birth-rights" of an Englishman: "The marquis [of Lansdowne] ridiculed the declaration, that a right of appeal in arrest of judgment, and of moving for a writ of error, was one of the dearest birth-rights of Englishmen, asserting that it was neither more nor less than the being turned over from one set of lawyers to another, and from that other to a third. In fact, it was to be turned over from the judge who tried the cause, to himself and three others, in a second place; and from them to themselves again, mixed with a few more judges, in a third place!" 29 Hansard, Parliamentary History of England, p. 1419.
Bitter experience has sharpened our realization that a major test of true democracy is the fair administration of justice. If the conditions for a society of free men formulated in our Bill of Rights are not to be turned into mere rhetoric, independent and impartial courts [343 U.S. 1, 24] must be available for their enforcement. To that end, courts must have the power to deal with attempts to disrupt the course of justice. This safeguard concerns not merely the litigants in a particular case; it is everyone's concern. The impartial administration of justice presupposes the dignified and effective conduct of judicial proceedings. That in turn is dependent on a proper atmosphere in the courtroom. Thus, the power of courts to punish for contempt is a means of assuring the enforcement of justice according to law. The protection of the most generously conceived civil liberties presupposes a court overawed neither by interests without nor by disruptive tactics within the courtroom. Such is the teaching of the history of English-speaking nations.
But this power does not authorize the arbitrary imposition of punishment. To dispense with indictment by grand jury and trial by a jury of twelve does not mean the right to disregard reason and fairness. Reason and fairness demand, even in punishing contempt, procedural safeguards within which the needs for the effective administration of justice can be amply satisfied while at the same time the reach of so drastic a power is kept within limits that will minimize abuse. While experience has shown the necessity of recognizing that courts possess this authority, experience has also proven that restrictions appropriate to the purposes of the power must fence [343 U.S. 1, 25] in its exercise. Hence Congress, by legislation dating back more than a hundred years, has put geographic and procedural restrictions upon the power of United States courts to punish summarily for contempt. See Michaelson v. United States, 266 U.S. 42 ; Nye v. United States, 313 U.S. 33 . And even before Congress drew on its power to put limits on inherent judicial authority, this Court derived the general boundaries of this power from its purpose, see Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204; more recently, the Court has defined the procedure appropriate for its exercise. See Cooke v. United States, 267 U.S. 517 .
The Court did so for a reason deeply imbedded in our legal system and by that very fact too often neglected. Times of tension, which are usually periods of war and their aftermath, bring it to the surface. Reflecting no doubt their concern over untoward events in law enforcement arising out of the First World War, Mr. Justice Brandeis and Mr. Justice Holmes gave quiet warning when they observed that "in the development of our liberty insistence upon procedural regularity has been a large factor." Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465, 477 . It is not for nothing that most of the provisions of our Bill of Rights are concerned with matters of procedure.
That is what this case is about - "procedural regularity." Not whether these petitioners have been guilty of conduct professionally inexcusable, but what tribunal should sit in judgment; not whether they should be punished, but who should mete out the appropriate punishment; not whether a Federal court has authority to prevent its proceedings from being subverted, but how that authority should be exercised so as to assure the rectitude of legal proceedings and at the same time not detract from the authority of law itself.
This case arises out of the trial of the eleven Communist Party leaders whose convictions were sustained in [343 U.S. 1, 26] Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 . In many ways it was a trial wholly out of the ordinary - in its length, the nature of the issues, the political and emotional atmosphere in which they were enveloped, the conduct of court and counsel, the conflicts between them. After several weeks of proceedings on pre-trial motions, the trial proper got under way. Nine weeks were consumed in getting a jury and thirty more in trying the case to the jury. Immediately after the jury brought in the verdict of guilty against the defendants, the trial judge charged the five defense lawyers and one of the defendants (who had conducted his own defense) with contempt of court during the trial. He filed a carefully prepared, elaborate certificate of contempt containing forty charges, and without further hearing found them guilty and imposed sentences ranging from thirty days' to six months' imprisonment. These specifications charged misconduct of a nature especially reprehensible when committed by lawyers, who, as officers of the court, are part of our judicial system. As such they are under a duty to further, not obstruct, the rational and fair administration of justice.
"joined in a wilful, deliberate, and concerted effort to delay and obstruct the trial of United States v. Foster, [343 U.S. 1, 27] et al., C 128-87, for the purpose of causing such disorder and confusion as would prevent a verdict by a jury on the issues raised by the indictment; and for the purpose of bringing the Court and the entire Federal judicial system into general discredit and disrepute, by endeavoring to divert the attention of the Court and jury from the serious charge against their clients of a conspiracy in substance to teach and advocate the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence, by attacking the Presiding Judge and all the Judges of this Court, the jury system in this District, the Department of Justice of the United States, the President of the United States, the police of New York City, and the public press of New York and other cities."
Though the certificate makes it plain enough, a reading of the record leaves no doubt that in the judge's mind the individual occurrences set forth in Specifications II to XL derived their chief significance from his finding that they were tributary to the design upon which the petitioners had embarked - a conspiracy against the judge in order to prevent a fair trial of the issues. He found them guilty of that. But the Court of Appeals reversed - and the Government has not questioned this reversal of the trial judge - the convictions of the petitioners on the main charge, that of conspiracy. However, that court, with one judge dissenting, did sustain the convictions on thirty-seven other specifications. 182 F.2d 416. Convictions on two specifications were found unsupported by evidence. Ibid.
I would not remotely minimize the gravity of the conduct of which the petitioners have been found guilty, let alone condone it. But their intrinsic guilt is not relevant to the issue before us. This Court brought the case here in order to consider whether the trial court followed the proper procedure in determining that the misconduct of [343 U.S. 1, 28] the petitioners subjected them to punishment. 342 U.S. 858 . Time out of mind this Court has reversed convictions for the most heinous offenses, even though no doubt about the guilt of the defendants was entertained. It reversed because the mode by which guilt was established disregarded those standards of procedure which are so precious and so important for our society. So here, the only question for decision is whether, in the circumstances of this case, the trial judge himself should, without notice and hearing and after the successful termination of the trial, have summarily punished a series of contempts growing out of what he conceived to be a central mischievous design, committed over a period of nine months; or whether another judge, designated by the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals or of the District Court for the Southern District of New York, should have heard, after due notice, the charges of contempt made by the trial judge. At the end of the trial the judge was not confronted with the alternatives of doing what he did or allowing the contemnors to go unpunished. The question was not punishment, but who should punish. Due regard for such procedural questions, too often misconceived as narrow and technical, alone justifies the truth of one of the great boasts of our democracy, the essential fairness of our judicial system.
All grants of power, including the verbally unlimited terms of Rule 42 (a) of the Rules of Criminal Procedure, are subject to the inherent limitation that the power shall be fairly used for the purpose for which it is conferred. It is a limitation derived not merely from general considerations of reason but from the traditional concepts of the proper discharge of the judicial function. "A criminal contempt may be punished summarily," so runs Rule 42 (a), "if the judge certifies that he saw or heard the conduct constituting the contempt and that it was committed in the actual presence of the court." The Rule merely permits summary punishment. It does not command summary punishment of all contempts "committed in the actual presence of the court," in all circumstances and at any time. That there are unexpressed limits to this power is recognized even by the Government. For it concedes that a judge could not summarily punish contempt without notice and hearing at any undefined time long after it has occurred in his presence. In short, Rule 42 (a), which in 1946 declared what the law was, 1 acknowledges an undefined power for imposing summary punishment without expressly laying down the boundaries of the power granted. Legislation normally carries such implications.
To recognize the generality of a power is the beginning not the end of the inquiry whether in the specific circumstances which invoked the power due regard was had for the implied restrictions. Among the restrictions to be implied, as a matter of course, are two basic principles of our law - that no judge should sit in a case in which he is personally involved and that no criminal punishment should be meted out except upon notice and due hearing, unless overriding necessity precludes such indispensable [343 U.S. 1, 30] safeguards for assuring fairness and affording the feeling that fairness has been done. Observance of these commonplace traditions has its price. It sometimes runs counter to public feeling that brooks no delay. At times it seems to entail a needlessly cumbersome process for dealing with the obvious. But as a process it is one of the cherished and indispensable achievements of western civilization. It is his disregard of these controlling traditions that forces me to conclude that the district judge, however sorely tried, erred in using the summary contempt procedure in the circumstances before him.
"The power of contempt which a judge must have and exercise in protecting the due and orderly administration of justice and in maintaining the authority and dignity of the court is most important and indispensable. But its exercise is a delicate one and care is needed to avoid arbitrary or oppressive conclusions. This rule of caution is more mandatory where the contempt charged has in it the element of personal criticism or attack upon the judge. The judge must banish the slightest personal impulse to reprisal, but he should not bend backward and injure the authority of the court by too great leniency. The substitution of another judge would avoid either tendency but it is not always possible. Of course where acts of contempt are palpably aggravated by a personal attack upon the judge in order to drive the judge out of the case for ulterior reasons, the scheme [343 U.S. 1, 31] should not be permitted to succeed. But attempts of this kind are rare. All of such cases, however, present difficult questions for the judge. All we can say upon the whole matter is that where conditions do not make it impracticable, or where the delay may not injure public or private right, a judge called upon to act in a case of contempt by personal attack upon him, may, without flinching from his duty, properly ask that one of his fellow judges take his place. Cornish v. The United States, 299 Fed. 283, 285; Toledo Company v. The United States, 237 Fed. 986, 988.
"The case before us is one in which the issue between the judge and the parties had come to involve marked personal feeling that did not make for an impartial and calm judicial consideration and conclusion, as the statement of the proceedings abundantly shows. We think, therefore, that when this case again reaches the District Court to which it must be remanded, the judge who imposed the sentence herein should invite the senior circuit judge of the circuit to assign another judge to sit in the second hearing of the charge against the petitioner." 267 U.S. at 539.
In the Cooke case the Court did much more than set aside a sentence of thirty days for contempt because "the procedure pursued was unfair and oppressive," 267 U.S. 517, 538 . There, as here, the contempt was by a lawyer; there, as here, the trial court's action was affirmed by a Court of Appeals in an opinion by one of the most eminent judges of his day. 295 F. 292. In reversing the two lower courts and finding an abuse of judicial discretion by the trial court, this Court did what it feels called upon to do from time to time in a class of cases that have a close kinship to matters deemed fundamental within the concept of Due Process. It defined the procedural standards [343 U.S. 1, 32] to be observed by the lower courts. The general direction thus given to lower courts is not likely to be respected by them if this Court is too genial in enforcing its observance.
Enforcement is not had by repetition of generalities and sanction of their disregard in practice. We must start, no doubt, with a predisposition in favor of the propriety of a trial judge's action. His is the initial responsibility, and we must assume that the discretion with which he is entrusted will normally be exercised by judges of firmness, self-discipline, and good sense. These considerations should count heavily on review. But when men are given short shrift in being punished, abstract rules cannot dispense with the duty of the reviewing court imaginatively to re-create the courtroom drama. In order to save trial courts from being unduly hampered, it is not necessary to leave them with arbitrary power by relying on the presumption of judicial propriety to the exclusion of a sophisticated, even if indulgent, scrutiny of the record.
Deeply as I believe in the importance of giving wide and not niggardly scope to the discretionary powers of [343 U.S. 1, 33] trial judges and with a lifelong regard for the wisdom of the judge who, on behalf of the Court of Appeals, found that the discretion of the trial judge was not abused, I cannot escape the conviction that another district judge should have tried the contempt issue. And this, though one may well assume that any other judge would have been compelled to find contempt in this case and might have imposed even severer sentences. Preserving and enhancing respect for law is always more important than sustaining the infliction of punishment in a particular case.
"m. Generally conducted themselves in a most provocative manner in an endeavor to call forth some intemperate or undignified response from the Court which could then be relied upon as a demonstration of the Court's unfitness to preside over the trial."
The conviction on Specification I was, as already indicated, reversed by the Court of Appeals. But its theme underlies the whole certificate. It conveys inescapably what the judge deemed to have been the permeating significance of the behavior of these lawyers. The "overt acts" listed in Specification I are but a compendium of the other specifications. At least twenty-nine of these describe conduct directed against the trial judge personally: charges of prejudice and racial bias, of collusion with the prosecution, of headline-seeking.
This, then, was not a situation in which, even though a judge was personally involved as the target of the contemptuous conduct, peremptory action against contemnors was necessary to maintain order and to salvage the proceedings. Where such action is necessary for the [343 U.S. 1, 37] decorous continuance of a pending trial, disposition by another judge of a charge of contempt is impracticable. Interruption for a hearing before a separate judge would disrupt the trial and thus achieve the illicit purpose of a contemnor.
Had the judge here found the petitioners guilty of contempt during the actual course of the trial a different problem would be presented. Even then, however, only compelling circumstances would justify a peremptory judgment of contempt. For while "Courts of justice are universally acknowledged to be vested, by their very creation, with power to impose silence, respect, and decorum, in their presence," the power that may thus be exercised is "the least possible power adequate to the end proposed." Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 227, 231. Resort by a judge to criminal sanctions without the usual safeguards in imposing punishment is to be supported only if the moral authority of a trial judge cannot command order and respect, only if a firm reprimand calculated to secure obedience would not halt an incipient course of misconduct.
Criminal justice is concerned with the pathology of the body politic. In administering the criminal law, judges [343 U.S. 1, 38] wield the most awesome surgical instruments of society. A criminal trial, it has been well said, should have the atmosphere of the operating room. The presiding judge determines the atmosphere. He is not an umpire who enforces the rules of a game, or merely a moderator between contestants. If he is adequate to his functions, the moral authority which he radiates will impose the indispensable standards of dignity and austerity upon all those who participate in a criminal trial.
Truth compels the observation, painful as it is to make it, that the fifteen volumes of oral testimony in the principal trial record numerous episodes involving the judge and defense counsel that are more suggestive of an undisciplined debating society than of the hush and solemnity of a court of justice. Too often counsel were encouraged to vie with the court in dialectic, in repartee and banter, in talk so copious as inevitably to arrest the momentum of the trial and to weaken the restraints of respect that a judge should engender in lawyers. Counsel were not made to understand that in a criminal case not merely the liberty of individuals is at stake. Law itself is on trial as the "stern daughter of the voice of God." Throughout the proceedings, even after the trial judge had indicated that he thought defense counsel were in conspiracy against him and were seeking thereby to subvert the trial, he failed to exercise the moral authority of a court possessed of a great tradition. He indulged them, sometimes resignedly, sometimes playfully, in lengthy speeches. These incontinent wrangles between court and counsel were punctuated by occasional minatory intimations from the Bench. As in the case of parental warnings to children, feckless repetition deprived them of authority.
To call counsel officers of the court is no idle phrase. Our whole conception of justice according to law, especially [343 U.S. 1, 39] criminal justice, implies an educated, responsible, and independent Bar. Counsel are not freed from responsibility for conduct appropriate to their functions no matter what the encouragements and provocations. Petitioners must be held to strict accountability for the contempts they committed. But until the inherent authority that should radiate from the Bench is found ineffective in securing seemly conduct by counsel, there is no need for drastic peremptory procedure in bringing contemnors to book even during a trial. History records too many abuses to look indulgently upon the exercise of such arbitrary power. And when the trial in fact goes to completion, as here, without invoking summary convictions, that in itself proves that there was no occasion for departure from the historic method of trying criminal charges, that is, after notice and an opportunity for defense before a disinterested judge.
It only remains to point out the differences between this case and two other cases now before this Court on petitions for certiorari. (As to the desirable disposition of these petitions no view is intended to be indicated.) In Hallinan v. United States, 182 F.2d 880, and MacInnis v. United States, 191 F.2d 157, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed convictions for contempt committed by two lawyers in a trial in the Northern District of California which lasted some twenty weeks, from November 14, 1949, to April 4, 1950. The contempt charge in the Hallinan case was for conduct which occurred during Thursday, Friday and Monday of the first two weeks of the long trial and consisted in disobedience of the court's order to limit the opening statement and the cross-examination of a Government witness. The complained-of conduct did not at all bring the judge personally into controversy. On Tuesday morning after the time necessary for preparation of the contempt certificate the judge [343 U.S. 1, 40] found Hallinan in contempt and sentenced him to six months' imprisonment. On the face of the record it would require even more than the boldness of hindsight to say that the trial judge could not have reasonably believed that immediate vindication of the disobedience of the court's order was necessary to secure respect for his authority during the remainder of the trial.
Later, on February 1, 1950, the other defense attorney - MacInnis - thus addressed the court after one of its rulings: "I think you should cite yourself for misconduct. . . . I have never heard anything like that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself." Soon after this remark the court recessed until the next day. After overnight consideration, the judge informed the lawyer that his remark constituted contempt and that a certificate of contempt in accordance with Rule 42 would be filed. Here again, the judge took prompt action in order, as he concluded, to assure the orderly continuance of a trial which still had many weeks to go.
The Hallinan and MacInnis cases disprove the Government's claim that prompt citation for contempt, if the circumstances warranted it, would have caused delay and disruption in the New York trial. In the California case Hallinan remained as defense counsel by virtue of a stay in the execution of his sentence; and MacInnis, by a postponement of his sentence until after the verdict in the principal case. MacInnis evidently abstained from further misconduct in the principal trial because of the certainty of punishment, though he did not know its magnitude. Either device was available to the trial judge in New York had he felt that only by a prompt judgment of contempt could he keep control of the proceedings. In fact he did keep order by measures short of those used in the California case. At the end of the trial the only question was whether he or another judge, not personally involved, should pass on issues of contempt that had [343 U.S. 1, 41] arisen during a trial that had ended, and impose punishment if guilt was found.
It is suggested, however, that a judge should be allowed to punish contempt peremptorily, as did the judge here, long after the contempt occurs. Otherwise he might be impelled, so it is surprisingly argued, to act on the inflamed impulse of the moment for fear of losing the opportunity to punish the offender himself. The Hallinan and MacInnis cases suggest the answer: power to cite for contempt summarily is not lost by taking a reasonable, brief time for judicious consideration whether such drastic action is necessary in a pending trial. Moreover, the guides to right conduct which Mr. Chief Justice Taft laid down in the Cooke case, and on which I rely, rest on the assumption that federal judges are not undisciplined creatures whose feelings are their masters. Presumably they are responsible beings with cool heads. In any event, this Court sits to correct a rare occurrence of irresponsible action. Finally, the Government urges that a hearing before a different judge would give petitioners another opportunity for harassing tactics, and that to subject the trial judge to cross-examination and refutation by witnesses drawn from court-room spectators would embroil the federal judiciary in damaging controversy. Once more the Government depreciates the status of federal judges. It derogates from the high conception which one should have of them not to attribute to the judge who would preside in the contempt hearing those capabilities by which federal judges, especially in non-jury cases, conduct proceedings in an effective, expeditious and dignified manner, with appropriate control over the scope of cross-examination and the offer of witnesses.
Public respect for the federal judiciary is best enhanced by exacting high standards of judicial competence in the conduct of proceedings and by discouraging an assertion [343 U.S. 1, 42] of power which is not restricted by the usual demands of Due Process and which too often manifests a failure of moral mastery.
Mr. Gladstein: I think Mr. Sacher was referring to the question of the hours that you want to sit today, the [343 U.S. 1, 43] time. That is why he asked. I was getting a little hungry myself. And you look a little peaked I think.
Mr. Gladstein: . . . Standing behind me here are two men who are attaches of this court, they are bailiffs.
The Court: . . . I think you have squeezed all the juice out of that particular orange.
The Court: Now all this time I am thinking, where is the bias? Where is the prejudice? What kind of a judge must you have specially? I am think[ing] about that, and doubtless you have got it in mind.
Mr. Gladstein: . . . You as a practicing attorney stood before the Supreme Court of the United States and spoke about the necessity of having a democratic jury system in the State of New York.
Mr. Sacher: . . . I heard your Honor say a few minutes ago that the witness did not look like a banker.
The Court: Yes, much better than Mr. Sacher and Mr. Isserman who have been - well, shall I say, prolix and vociferous and repetitious, but all in good taste, and I have listened, although I must say, as I said a few moments ago, that the thought has finally entered my mind that all this business that has been going on is just a series of wilful and deliberate maneuvers for delay.
Mr. McCabe: Your Honor told us to saw wood the other day.
The Court: . . . But you have made so many challenges of bias and prejudice and said that every time I ruled against you there is something about it that is abnormal, so I have been disposed to let you go on. But I think the record has indicated an amount of repetition that is utterly unprecedented.
Mr. McCabe: Your Honor, when the demonstration of the bias is repeated the objections to it must [by] necessity be repeated.
The Court: Now a little incident occurred this morning about which I will have no mystery. Due to the numerous communications of one kind or another that have been arriving up at my home my wife came down here this morning. I suppose I should have told her not to, and it is my fault, but she did. And, then, there was a little disturbance here due to a woman who saw the empty seats over on the side where the press have their location and she felt she was entitled to go there and made a little, slight disturbance with the bailiffs. And so my wife sent this note to the police which reads, "Tell Detective Mitchell to guard the Judge at lunch hour." And as the messenger proceeded with the note one of the alert reporters was able to get a hold of the note, and so the rumors started around the building, and goodness knows where else they have gone.
The Court: Now (that [sic] is a strange accusation, Mr. Gladstein, because your voice is very penetrating and pleasant.
The Court: I wish you would not use that expression "insist upon."
Mr. Sacher: I don't do it all the time. I think the record should indicate that "all the time" to your Honor in this instance means once.
The Court: Perhaps when I used the expression "all the time" I used it in a rhetorical sense. But, anyway, I would like to have you understand that you will insist upon nothing.
Mr. Gladstein: Well, I am going to remain serious, regardless of what your Honor tells me.
The Court: I am very quick to catch on, and I thought when you said "anybody who does not prejudge," it was just another way of telling me again what you have told me so many times, and your colleagues have told me so many times: that I have prejudged it all; that I am [343 U.S. 1, 58] biased and prejudiced and unfit to sit here. Now, I am familiar with that, and if you think you are going to get me excited saying that over again, you are making a big mistake.
The Court: Well, you see, you and your colleagues have apparently adopted a new technique in criminal [343 U.S. 1, 59] cases by which instead of the defendants who are indicted being tried, the Court and all the members of the court are the ones who must suffer the excoriations and accusations of counsel. But I think, perhaps, with patience there will be an end. So you will please let the matter drop there, and Mr. Isserman will proceed with his questions.
The Court: Now I won't have it.
Mr. Sacher: . . . There is really nothing funny about this.
Mr. McCabe: I just want to give you the citation. It is Farnsworth vs. Sanford in 115. Fed. (2d) 375.
Mr. Sacher: I just want to say that your conduct at all times - you see, you are doing it again.
Mr. Gladstein: . . . There is nothing unusual about that request and we make it, and we ask the Court to really give some consideration to it.
The Court: You may claim that I have been guilty of judicial misconduct of every name, nature and description, that is your right - and I shall take no offense at it.
Mr. Gladstein: No, I am not talking about your inflection.
The Court: But I am not taking any umbrage at all.
Mr. Gordon: Mr. Sacher thinks that this is very funny.
Mr. Gladstein: Your Honor, my assignment of misconduct was at the remarks of the Court, and I therefore submit it was improper for the Court in making - in giving any instruction to the jury on that subject, to do so in the manner that your Honor just did, and I assign therefore your remarks as misconduct.
Mr. Sacher: I object to that one too. It is highly prejudicial to the interests of all the defendants and I [343 U.S. 1, 75] think it is not observant of the due decorum of a courtroom to make these references, your Honor.
Mr. Sacher: - unless the time and place are fixed, your Honor.
Mr. Gladstein: . . . And I would say that your Honor should consider in determining the application of the law that Mr. Crockett has cited to this question the statement that this Court made in the course of this trial on this very question. Unwittingly your Honor has perhaps made a singular contribution to jurisprudence.
The Court: Mr. Sacher, I have been in a great many criminal cases. I have never been in one - and I have been in many that were very important, too - where so much time was taken by counsel on arguments on a motion to dismiss at the close of the Government's case - never one that even approximated the time taken here. Of course, if you would assume, as you gentlemen all appear to, that the Judge just sits as an automaton and does not hear all this, or notice anything, or study the matter at all, or look up any law, and that then he comes to the close of the Government's case wholly uninformed as to the law and as to the facts, then perhaps further argument might be needed, but I have given this case the closest attention; I have studied it from early morning until late at night. I have studied every authority I could lay my hands on, and I feel that the amount of argument that I have permitted here has been more than adequate.
The Court: I think I see what you are up to. You have had a good rest, and you are right back here because of that.
The Court: Object away. There is no jury present.
Mr. McCabe: . . . I say that the reason counsel - I am speaking for myself now - the reason that I have perhaps not made similar utterances is simply because of my greater training to restrain myself under great provocation.
Mr. Sacher: I will defend my honor as a member of the bar against your Honor or anybody else. I will not accept a denunciation that I am a liar. When the time comes that I don't have the mental capacity to defend [343 U.S. 1, 81] my clients on any other basis than lying I will resign from the bar. I think an idiot resorts to lying. I don't have to do it.
The Court: I see Mr. Sacher smiling.
Mr. Sacher: Your Honor takes awfully good notice about my facial expressions, but when Mr. Gladstein spoke about Mr. Gordon jumping up like a poppinjay you saw nothing.
The Court: - laughing it off.
Mr. Sacher: But it is contradictory. It speaks of a rule and it speaks of "sometimes." Now which is it? Is it sometimes or is it a general rule?
[ Footnote 1 ] See Notes of Advisory Committee on Rule 42 (a), Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
[ Footnote 2 ] Ex parte Terry, 128 U.S. 289 , presented a totally different situation and lends no support whatever to the action of the trial court in this case. As was stated in the order of commitment: "David S. Terry was guilty of a contempt of this court by misbehavior in its presence and by a forcible resistance in the presence of the court to a lawful order thereof . . . ." Id., at 298. This briefly indicates the differentiating circumstances between the Terry case and this case. While the United States Circuit Court was sitting and one member was delivering its opinion in a pending case, Mrs. Terry interrupted [343 U.S. 1, 36] the reading by a violent outburst. When the United States Marshal was ordered by the court to remove her from the courtroom, her husband, Mr. Terry, intervened to assault the Marshal. Upon the conclusion of the reading of the opinion, following this interruption, the court, having duly deliberated, found both Mr. and Mrs. Terry guilty of contempt and sentenced them for it. Plainly enough Terry's contempt did not touch the judges personally, nor implicate their attitude toward counsel. It involved simple physical actions in full view of the three judges. The judgment of contempt and sentencing followed promptly upon events that constituted a single brawl interrupting the actual administration of justice. See In re Terry, 36 F. 419; Swisher, Stephen J. Field - Craftsman of the Law, 321-341.
[ Footnote 1a ] [343 U.S. 1, 42] Since the whole certificate of contempt was published as an appendix to the opinion in the Court of Appeals and is readily available, 182 F.2d 416, 430-453, there is here not reproduced any part of the record which has already been quoted adequately in the specifications of the certificate. Each specification should be examined in connection with this Appendix, at the appropriate point indicated herein. Each specified episode involving contemptuous conduct should be placed in the trial setting as shown by the further excerpts reproduced here from the whole record.
The page references are to the printed record before this Court in Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 .
[ Footnote 2a ] [343 U.S. 1, 46] Since Specification I charged generally "a wilful, deliberate, and concerted effort to delay and obstruct the trial," Specification II charges the first specific act of contempt in the principal trial. See 182 F.2d at 431-432. The portions of the trial record reproduced in the specifications of the contempt certificate give, because of their brevity, only a mutilated picture of the trial. The places in the record where the alleged contempt occurred are indicated in order that each incident of contempt may be viewed in relation to the record excerpts set forth here.
[ Footnote 3a ] [343 U.S. 1, 80] The incident referred to by the judge - reported at pages 4228-4229 of the record-was the basis for his Specification XV. The conviction of Sacher on that specification was unanimously reversed by the Court of Appeals because that court did not think it was sufficiently clear "that Sacher was attempting to mislead the court." 182 F.2d 416, 424-425.
[ Footnote 4a ] [343 U.S. 1, 89] The judgments of contempt on all specifications were filed on October 14, 1949.

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