Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/356/363/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:36:13+00:00

Document:
Petitioner was tried and convicted for conspiracy to violate the Smith Act, but the conviction was reversed by this Court. 354 U. S. 354 U.S. 298. For contempts and other subsidiary matters in the course of these proceedings, petitioner served over seven months' imprisonment on the basis of actions by the District Court, several of which were set aside on appeal. One contempt action resulted in petitioner's conviction for eleven contempts, and she was sentenced to eleven concurrent terms of one year's imprisonment. Finding that there was only one contempt, this Court remanded the case to the District Court for appropriate resentencing. 355 U. S. 355 U.S. 66. The District Court resentenced petitioner to imprisonment for one year for the single contempt.
Held: certiorari granted, judgment vacated, and cause remanded to the District Court with directions to reduce the sentence to the time petitioner has already been confined in the course of these proceedings. Pp. 356 U. S. 363-367.
252 F. 2d 568, judgment vacated and cause remanded to District Court with directions.
writ of habeas corpus seeking a reduction of bail was dismissed. The district judge who had fixed bail was disqualified, see Connelly v. United States District Court, 191 F.2d 692, and the district judge whose sentence is now under review was assigned to the case. On motion of the Government, the court increased bail to $50,000 on August 30; petitioner's motion to reduce bail and her petition for a writ of habeas corpus were denied; on review of the denial of habeas corpus, the Court of Appeals affirmed, Stack v. Boyle, 192 F.2d 56. This Court, however, found that bail had "not been fixed by proper methods," and remitted the case for the proper remedy of a motion to reduce bail, Stack v. Boyle, 342 U. S. 1, 342 U. S. 7. The District Court denied such motion by petitioner, United States v. Schneiderman, 102 F.Supp. 52; on appeal, the Court of Appeals ordered bail set at $10,000. Stack v. United States, 193 F.2d 875. Shortly thereafter, on December 10, 1951, petitioner, having been found to have been improperly confined since August 30 of that year, was released on bail.
States v. Schneiderman, 106 F.Supp. 941. The Court of Appeals then fixed bail at $20,000, and, on August 30, petitioner, upon furnishing that amount, was released from custody, having been in jail since June 26. The conspiracy conviction was later affirmed by the Court of Appeals, 225 F.2d 146, but reversed by this Court, 354 U. S. 354 U.S. 298. The indictment was eventually dismissed on motion of the Government.
Petitioner had, in the meantime, on August 8, 1952, been adjudged guilty of eleven criminal contempts for her eleven refusals to answer on June 30, and she was sentenced by the District Court to eleven one-year terms of imprisonment, to run concurrently and to commence upon the completion of petitioner's imprisonment for the conspiracy. It is as to this sentence that review is sought here today.
to give any notice that it intended to regard the June 26 refusals as criminal contempts, 227 F.2d 848.
Petitioner appealed her conviction of criminal contempt for the eleven refusals to answer on June 30; the Court of Appeals affirmed. 227 F.2d 851. This Court held that there was but one contempt, not eleven, and that a sentence for only one offense could be imposed. Accordingly, we vacated the one-year sentence for that one conviction and remanded the case to the District Court for determination of a new sentence appropriate in view of our setting aside of the punishment for eleven offenses when in fact only one was legally established. 355 U. S. 355 U.S. 66. On remand, the District Court, after hearing, resentenced petitioner to one year's imprisonment. The court denied petitioner bail pending appeal; the Court of Appeals ordered her admitted to bail in the amount of $5,000, 252 F.2d 568, and she was released after fifteen days' confinement. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the District Court, noting that the sentence was "severe." Ibid.
the lower federal courts by setting aside the sentence of the District Court.
Although petitioner's conviction under the Smith Act, the substantive offense out of which this subsidiary matter arose, was reversed on appeal, and the indictment itself dismissed on motion of the Government, she has, in fact, spent seven months in jail in the course of these proceedings. Not unmindful of petitioner's offense, this Court is of the view, exercising the judgment that we are now called upon to exercise, that the time that petitioner has already served in jail is an adequate punishment for her offense in refusing to answer questions, and is to be deemed in satisfaction of the new sentence herein ordered formally to be imposed. Accordingly, the writ of certiorari is granted, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the cause remanded to the District Court with directions to reduce the sentence to the time petitioner has already been confined in the course of these proceedings.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE BLACK, and MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS concur in the result for reasons set out in their dissents in Yates v. United States, 355 U. S. 66, 355 U. S. 76, and Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165, 356 U. S. 193, but under constraint of the Court's holdings in those cases they acquiesce in the opinion here.
It is for us to say whether the one-year sentence was improper, rather than to pass on the adequacy of time already served on other judgments. Petitioner has served but 15 days on this sentence, and I therefore dissent from the judgment releasing her.

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