Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/99476/green-vs-united-states
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 16:50:12+00:00

Document:
After petitioners were convicted of violating the Smith Act and sentenced to fine and imprisonment, they were enlarged on bail pending appeal. After this Court affirmed their convictions in Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494 , the United States Attorney served their counsel with copies of a proposed order on mandate requiring petitioners to surrender to the Marshal on July 2, 1951, for execution of their sentences and with notice that such order would be presented to the District Court for signature on July 2. Petitioners were informed by their counsel that their presence in court would be required on July 2, but they disappeared from their homes, failed to appear in court when the surrender order was signed on July 2, and remained fugitives for more than 4 1/2 years. After they finally surrendered to the Marshal, they were tried in the District Court without a jury for criminal contempt, under 18 U.S.C. § 401 and Rule 42 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, for willful disobedience of the surrender order, and were convicted and sentenced to three years' imprisonment, to commence after service of the five-year sentences imposed for violations of the Smith Act.
Held: their convictions of criminal contempt and the sentences therefor are sustained. Pp. 356 U. S. 167 -189.
1. Under 18 U.S.C. § 401, the power of federal courts to punish for criminal contempts, viewed in its historical perspective, includes the power to punish for disobedience of surrender orders. Pp. 356 U. S. 168 -173.
(a) Section 17 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 attributed to the federal judiciary powers possessed by English courts at common law to punish for contempts of court. P. 356 U. S. 169 .
(b) The Act of 1831 was intended to curtail the powers of federal courts to punish under the contempt power for certain conduct, not, however, of the kind involved here. It represented an effort by the Congress to define independently the contempt powers of federal courts. Pp. 356 U. S. 170 -173.
2. The evidence was sufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt petitioners' knowing violations of the surrender order. Pp. 356 U. S. 173 -179.
3. The District Court had power to sentence petitioners to imprisonment for more than one year. Pp. 356 U. S. 179 -187.
(a) Section 24 of the Clayton Act of 1914 (now found in amended form in 18 U.S. C. § 402), providing that contempts other than those referred to in § 24 were to be punished "in conformity to the usages at law . . . now prevailing," did not freeze into contempt law the sentencing practices of federal courts up to 1914, but means that contempts (including that involved in this case) other than those specified in § 24 were to be tried by normal contempt procedures, such as trial without jury. Pp. 356 U. S. 179 -182.
(b) Under 18 U.S.C. § 401, as under its statutory predecessors, the term of imprisonment is not subject to a one-year limitation, but is within the discretion of the court. Pp. 356 U. S. 182 -183.
(c) Criminal contempts need not be prosecuted by indictment, since they are not "infamous crimes" within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment's provision 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." Pp. 356 U. S. 183 -185.
(d) This conclusion follows from the long line of cases in this Court to the effect that criminal contempts are not subject to jury trial as a matter of constitutional right under Article III, § 2 or the Sixth Amendment. Pp. 356 U. S. 183 -187.
4. Although federal courts, in dealing with criminal contempts, have a duty to exercise special care in applying their discretion to length of sentences imposed for commission of contempts, the three-year sentences here did not constitute an abuse of discretion on the part of the District Court. Pp. 356 U. S. 187 -189.
Petitioners are two of eleven defendants who were convicted in the Southern District of New York in 1949 of conspiring to teach and advocate the violent overthrow of the Government in violation of the Smith Act, 54 Stat. 670, 671, 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 2385. Their convictions, each carrying a $10,000 fine and five years' imprisonment, were affirmed by this Court on June 4, 1951, in Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494 . After their convictions, petitioners had been enlarged on bail, and, following the affirmance, the United States Attorney served counsel for the petitioners on June 28, 1951, with copies of a proposed order on mandate requiring petitioners to surrender to the United States Marshal on July 2 for the execution of their sentences, and with a notice that such order would be presented to the District Court for signature on the indicated day of surrender. Petitioners were thereupon informed by their counsel that their presence in court would be required on July 2. Both, however, disappeared from their homes, failed to appear in court when the surrender order was signed on July 2, and remained fugitives for more than four and a half years. Ultimately both voluntarily surrendered to the United States Marshal in New York, Green on February 27, 1956, and Winston on March 5, 1956.
Entirely apart from the historical argument, there are no reasons of policy suggesting a need for limitation of the contempt power in this situation. As the present cases evidence, the issuance of a bench warrant and the forfeiture of bail following flight have generally proved inadequate to dissuade defendants from defying court orders. See Willoughby (1929), Principles of Judicial Administration, 561-566. At the time these contempts were committed, bail-jumping itself was not a criminal offense, and considerations in past decisions limiting the scope of the contempt power where the conduct deemed to constitute a contempt was also punishable as a substantive crime are not here relevant. Cf. Ex parte Hudgings, 249 U. S. 378 , 249 U. S. 382 . There is small justification for permitting a defendant the assurance that his only risk in disobeying a surrender order is the forfeiture of a known sum of money, particularly when such forfeiture may result in injury only to a bail surety.
In this Court, petitioners interpret the District Court's opinion to rest the contempt convictions on alternative theories: (a) that the petitioners had actual knowledge of the issuance of the July 2 surrender order, or (b) that they at least had notice of its prospective issuance, and hence were chargeable with knowledge that it was in fact issued. But we find no such dual aspect to the District Court's decision, which rested solely on findings that, beyond a reasonable doubt, Green "knowingly disobeyed" the surrender order and Winston absented himself "with knowledge" of the order. Since we are satisfied that the record supports these findings, we need not consider whether mere notice of the prospective issuance of the order, cf. Pettibone v. United States, 148 U. S. 197 , 148 U. S. 206 -207, would be sufficient to sustain these convictions on the theory that petitioners were chargeable as a matter of law with notice that it was later issued.
In summary, one day after counsel was served on June 28 with the proposed order calling for petitioners' surrender on July 2, together with the notice stating that the order would also be presented for the court's signature on that day, petitioners were unequivocally notified by counsel that their presence in court was required on July 2. From these undisputed facts, coupled with petitioners' disappearance, it was certainly permissible for the District Court to infer that petitioners knew of the proposed surrender order, of the failure of counsel's efforts on June 29 to postpone the surrender date, and of the court's intention to sign the order on July 2. We need not decide whether these facts alone would sustain the finding that petitioners knew of the issuance of the surrender order on July 2 as planned, for unquestionably, as background, they furnished significant support for the District Court's ultimate finding that petitioners' statements to the press at the time of their eventual surrender in 1956 ( see note 7 supra ) indicated their knowledge of the issuance of the order, a finding strengthened by the fact that the recognizance admitting the petitioners to bail obligated petitioners to surrender for service of sentence only when so directed by the District Court.
than six months. [ Footnote 8 ] Section 24 of the Act made these provisions inapplicable to other categories of contempts, including the contempt for which the petitioners here have been convicted, [ Footnote 9 ] and provided that such excluded categories of contempts were to be punished "in conformity to the usages at law and in equity now prevailing. " (Italics added.) In the recodification of 1948, the foregoing provisions of the Clayton Act were substantially reenacted in § 402 [ Footnote 10 ] of the present contempt statute, and the above-quoted clause now reads "in conformity to the prevailing usages at law."
reflect the unarticulated belief of federal courts that criminal contempts are not infamous crimes, and hence not subject to punishment by imprisonment for over one year; [ Footnote 12 ] this belief is said to derive from the constitutional considerations to which we shortly turn. In view of this suggested effect of § 24, petitioners would have us read the "discretion" vested in federal courts by § 401 as referring exclusively to the choice between sentencing to fine or imprisonment, or, in any event, as subject to the unexpressed limitation of one year's imprisonment.
(Italics added.) Since an "infamous crime" within the meaning of the Amendment is one punishable by imprisonment in a penitentiary, Mackin v. United States, 117 U. S. 348 , and since imprisonment in a penitentiary can be imposed only if a crime is subject to imprisonment exceeding one year, 18 U.S.C. § 4083, petitioners assert that criminal contempts if subject to such punishment are infamous crimes under the Amendment.
We take this occasion to reiterate our view that, in the areas where Congress has not seen fit to impose limitations on the sentencing power for contempts, the district courts have a special duty to exercise such an extraordinary power with the utmost sense of responsibility and circumspection. The "discretion" to punish vested in the District Courts by § 401 is not an unbridled discretion. Appellate courts have here a special responsibility for determining that the power is not abused, to be exercised if necessary by revising themselves the sentences imposed. This Court has, in past cases, taken pains to emphasize its concern with the use to which the sentencing power has occasionally been put, both by remanding for reconsideration of contempt sentences in light of factors it deemed important, see Yates v. United States, 355 U. S. 66 ; Nilva v. United States, 352 U. S. 385 , and by itself modifying such sentences. See United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258 . The answer to those who see in the contempt power a potential instrument of oppression lies in assurance of its careful use and supervision, not in imposition of artificial limitations on the power.
The debates conducted in 1830-1831 by leading counsel of that period during the impeachment proceedings against Judge James H. Peck, see p. 356 U. S. 171 , infra, contained discussions of the Act of 1789, and the limitations to be imposed upon it, which were cast largely in terms of the English common law preceding its enactment. See Stansbury, Report of the Trial of James H. Peck (1833).
During the debates in 1830-1831 referred to in note 2 supra, several of the managers who argued that Judge Peck had exceeded the historical boundaries of the contempt power by the conduct which had provoked the impeachment proceedings ( see p. 356 U. S. 171 , infra ) appear to have assumed that courts were historically justified in employing the contempt power to deal with disobedience to court process. See Stansbury, supra, note 2 at 313 395-396, 436, 444.
See, e.g., In re Michael, 326 U. S. 224 ; Nye v. United States, 313 U. S. 33 , and Ex parte Hudgings, 249 U. S. 378 , all concerning the predecessor statutes to present § 401(1), which relates to misbehavior in court or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice, and Cammer v. United States, 350 U. S. 399 , arising under § 401(2), which deals with misbehavior of court officers in their official transactions.
"On Monday, February 27th at 12 noon, I shall cease being a fugitive from injustice and instead become its prisoner. At that time, I shall appear at Foley Square. . . . The course I chose five years ago was not dictated by personal considerations. In many ways, it was harsher than that of imprisonment. . . . [I]t seemed incumbent upon me to resist that trend [ i.e., to 'an American brand of fascism'] with every ounce of strength I possessed. Some could do so by going to jail; others by not. . . . I enter prison with head high and conscience clear."
Hill v. United States ex rel. Weiner, 300 U. S. 105 ; United States v. Brown, 247 F.2d 332; Lopiparo v. United States, 216 F.2d 87; United States v. Thompson, 214 F.2d 545; United States v. Hall, 198 F.2d 726; United States ex rel. Brown v. Lederer, 140 F.2d 136; Warring v. Huff, 74 App.D.C. 302, 122 F.2d 641; Conley v. United States, 59 F.2d 929; Creekmore v. United States, 237 F. 743.
The following are the major opinions of this Court which have discussed the relationship between criminal contempts and jury trial and have concluded or assumed that criminal contempts are not subject to jury trial under Art. III, § 2, or the Sixth Amendment: Ex parte Savin, 131 U. S. 267 , 131 U. S. 278 ; Eilenbecker v. District Court of Plymouth County, 134 U. S. 31 , 134 U. S. 36 -39; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U. S. 447 , 154 U. S. 489 ; In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564 , 158 U. S. 594 -596; Bessette v. W. B. Conkey Co., 194 U. S. 324 , 194 U. S. 336 -337; Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604 , 233 U. S. 610 -611; Ex parte Hudgings, 249 U. S. 378 , 249 U. S. 383 ; Michaelson v. United States, 266 U. S. 42 , 266 U. S. 67 ; United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258 , 330 U. S. 298 . Although the statements contained in these cases, with few exceptions, are broadly phrased and do not refer to particular categories of criminal contempts, several of the cases involved review of contempt convictions arising out of disobedience to court orders. See in particular In re Debs, Gompers v. United States, and United States v. United Mine Workers.
For more general statements of the nature of the contempt power and its indispensability to federal courts, See United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch 32, 11 U. S. 34 ; Ex parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505, 86 U. S. 510 ; Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289 , 128 U. S. 302 -304; Bessette v. W. B. Conkey Co., supra, at 194 U. S. 326 ; Myers v. United States, 264 U. S. 95 , 264 U. S. 103 ; Michaelson v. United States, supra, at 266 U. S. 65 -66.
See, e.g., Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517 , 267 U. S. 537 (compulsory process and assistance of counsel); Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604 , 233 U. S. 611 -612 (benefit of a statute of limitations generally governing crimes); Gompers v. Buck's Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418 , 221 U. S. 444 (proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and freedom from compulsion to testify).
See 18 U.S.C. § 402, supra, note 10; 18 U S.C. § 3692 (jury trial for contempts based on violation of injunctions in cases involving labor disputes); § 151, 71 Stat. 638, 42 U.S.C. § 1995 (right to jury trial under provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 in limited circumstances in cases of criminal contempts).
Whatever the conflicting views of scholars in construing more or less dubious manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century, what is indisputable is that, from the foundation of the United States, the constitutionality of the power to punish for contempt without the intervention of a jury has not been doubted. The First Judiciary Act conferred such a power on the federal courts in the very act of their establishment, 1 Stat. 73, 83, and, of the Judiciary Committee of eight that reported the bill to the Senate, five members, including the chairman, Senator, later to be Chief Justice, Ellsworth, had been delegates to the Constitutional Convention. [ Footnote 2/1 ] In the First Congress itself, no less than nineteen members, including Madison, who contemporaneously introduced the Bill of Rights, had been delegates to the Convention. And when an abuse under this power manifested itself, and led Congress to define more explicitly the summary power vested in the courts, it did not remotely deny the existence of the power, but merely defined the conditions for its exercise more clearly, in an Act "declaratory of the law concerning contempts of court." Act of Mar. 2, 1831, 4 Stat. 487. Although the judge who had misused the power was impeached, and Congress defined the power more clearly, neither the proponents of the reform nor Congress, in its corrective legislation, suggested that the established law be changed by making the jury part of the procedure for the punishment of criminal contempt. This is more significant in that such a proposal had only recently been put before Congress as part of the draft penal code of Edward Livingston of Louisiana.
Ex parte Kearney, 7 Wheat. 38; In re Chiles, 22 Wall. 157; Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289 ; In re Savin, 131 U. S. 267 ; In re Cuddy, 131 U. S. 280 ; In re Swan, 150 U. S. 637 ; In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564 ; Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591 ; In re Lennon, 166 U. S. 548 ; Bessette v. W. B. Conkey Co., 194 U. S. 324 ; Nelson v. United States, 201 U. S. 92 ; United States v. Shipp, 203 U. S. 563 , 214 U. S. 214 U.S. 386; Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 ; Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States, 247 U. S. 402 ; Blair v. United States, 250 U. S. 273 ; Craig v. Hecht, 263 U. S. 255 ; Brown v. United States, 276 U. S. 134 ; Sinclair v. United States, 279 U. S. 749 ; Blackmer v. United States, 284 U. S. 421 ; Clark v. United States, 289 U. S. 1 ; United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258 ; Rogers v. United States, 340 U. S. 367 ; Sacher v. United States, 343 U. S. 1 ; Nilva v. United States, 352 U. S. 385 ; Yates v. United States, 355 U. S. 66 .
In the following cases, the Court, although refusing to sustain contempt convictions for other reasons, took for granted trial by the court without a jury: Ex parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505; In re Burrus, 136 U. S. 586 ; Wilson v. North Carolina, 169 U. S. 586 ; In re Watts, 190 U. S. 1 ; Baglin v. Cusenier Co., 221 U. S. 580 ; Gompers v. Buck's Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418 ; Ex parte Hudgings, 249 U. S. 378 ; Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517 ; Nye v. United States, 313 U. S. 33 ; Pendergast v. United States, 317 U. S. 412 ; United States v. White, 322 U. S. 694 ; In re Michael, 326 U. S. 224 ; Blau v. United States, 340 U. S. 332 ; Hoffman v. United States, 341 U. S. 479 ; Cammer v. United States, 350 U. S. 399 .
233 U.S. at 233 U. S. 610 -611.
come for a fundamental and searching reconsideration of the validity of this power which has aptly been characterized by a State Supreme Court as, "perhaps, nearest akin to despotic power of any power existing under our form of government." [ Footnote 3/2 ] Even though this extraordinary authority first slipped into the law as a very limited and insignificant thing, it has relentlessly swollen at the hands of not unwilling judges, until it has become a drastic and pervasive mode of administering criminal justice usurping our regular constitutional methods of trying those charged with offenses against society. Therefore, to me, this case involves basic questions of the highest importance far transcending its particular facts. But the specific facts do provide a striking example of how the great procedural safeguards erected by the Bill of Rights are now easily evaded by the ever-ready and boundless expedients of a judicial decree and a summary contempt proceeding.
No justified expectations would be destroyed by the course I propose. There has been no heavy investment in reliance on the earlier cases; they do not remotely lay down rules to guide men in their commercial or property affairs. Instead, they concern the manner in which persons are to be tried by the Government for their alleged crimes. Certainly, in this area, there is no excuse for the perpetuation of past errors, particularly errors of great continuing importance with ominous potentialities. Apparently even the majority recognizes the need for some kind of reform by engrafting the requirement that punishment for contempt must be "reasonable" -- that irrepressible, vague and delusive standard which at times threatens to engulf the entire law, including the Constitution itself, in a sea of judicial discretion. [ Footnote 3/7 ] But this trifling amelioration does not strike at the heart of the problem, and can easily come to nothing, as the majority's very approval of the grossly disproportionate sentences imposed on these defendants portends.
U.S. 258, 330 U. S. 330 -332 (dissenting and concurring opinion). Instead, at stake here is the validity of a criminal conviction for disobedience of a court order punished by a long, fixed term of imprisonment. In my judgment, the distinction between conditional confinement of compel future performance and unconditional imprisonment designed to punish past transgressions is crucial, analytically as well as historically, in determining the permissible mode of trial under the Constitution.
In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133 , 349 U. S. 136 -137. Cf. Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227 , 309 U. S. 236 -237; Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510 ; In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257 .
sweeping and vague; it has been defined, for example, as "any conduct that tends to bring the authority and administration of the law into disrespect or disregard." [ Footnote 3/9 ] It would be no overstatement therefore to say that the offense with the most ill defined and elastic contours in our law is now punished by the harshest procedures known to that law. Secondly, a defendant's principal assurance that he will be fairly tried and punished is the largely impotent review of a cold record by an appellate court, another body of judges. Once in a great while, a particular appellate tribunal basically hostile to summary proceedings will closely police contempt trials, but such supervision is only isolated and fleeting. All too often, the reviewing courts stand aside readily with the formal declaration that "the trial judge has not abused his discretion." But, even at its rare best, appellate review cannot begin to take the place of trial in the first instance by an impartial jury subject to review on the spot by an uncommitted trial judge. Finally, as the law now stands, there are no limits on the punishment a judge can impose on a defendant whom he finds guilty of contempt except for whatever remote restrictions exist in the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments or in the nebulous requirements of "reasonableness" now promulgated by the majority.
by the usual criminal procedure . . . and that, at least in England, it seems that they still may be and preferably are tried in that way. [ Footnote 3/12 ]"
This very case forcefully illustrates the point. After surrendering, the defendants were charged with fleeing from justice, convicted, and given lengthy prison sentences designed to punish them for their flight. Identical flight has now been made a statutory crime by the Congress, with severe penalties. [ Footnote 3/13 ] How can it possibly be any more of a crime to be convicted of disobeying a statute and sent to jail for three years than to be found guilty of violating a judicial decree forbidding precisely the same conduct and imprisoned for the same term?
the safeguards included in our Constitution, neither had nor claimed power to punish contempts committed out of court by summary process. Fox, The History of Contempt of Court; Frankfurter and Landis, Power to Regulate Contempts, 37 Harv.L.Rev. 1010, 1042-1052; Beale, Contempt of Court, Criminal and Civil, 21 Harv.L.Rev. 161. Prior to this period, such contempts were tried in the normal and regular course of the criminal law, including trial by jury. [ Footnote 3/14 ] After the Star Chamber was abolished in 1641, the summary contempt procedures utilized by that odious instrument of tyranny slowly began to seep into the common law courts, where they were embraced by judges not averse to enhancing their own power. Still, for decades, the instances where such irregular procedures were actually applied remained few and far between, and limited to certain special situations.
inquiry confirmed the opinion originally formed with regard to the trial of contempt and brought to light a considerable amount of additional evidence which, with the earlier matter, is embodied in the following chapters. . . . [ Footnote 3/16 ]"
Then, in summarizing, he asserts that strangers to court proceedings were never punished except by the ordinary processes of the criminal law for contempts committed out of the court's presence until some time after the dissolution of the Star Chamber; he immediately follows with the judgment that parties were governed by the same general rules that applied to strangers. [ Footnote 3/17 ] Of course, he recognizes the antiquity of the jurisdiction of courts to enforce their orders by conditional confinement, but such coercion, as pointed out before, is obviously something quite different from the infliction of purely punitive penalties for criminal contempt when compliance is no longer possible.
"[U]ntil 1720, there is no instance in the common law precedents of punishment otherwise than after trial in the ordinary course, and not by summary process. [ Footnote 3/18 ]"
"Where the court inflicts a definite term of imprisonment by way of punishment for the violation of its orders, the case does not differ, it would seem, from the case of criminal contempt out of court, and regular process and trial by jury should be required. [ Footnote 3/19 ]"
it has undergone an incredible transformation and growth, slowly at first, and then with increasing acceleration, until it has become a powerful and pervasive device for enforcement of the criminal law. It is no longer the same comparatively innocuous power that it was. Its summary procedures have been pressed into service for such far-flung purposes as to prevent "unlawful" labor practices, to enforce the prohibition laws, to secure civil liberties, and now, for the first time in our history, to punish a convict for fleeing from imprisonment. [ Footnote 3/22 ] In brief, it has become a common device for bypassing the constitutionally prescribed safeguards of the regular criminal law in punishing public wrongs. But, still worse, its subversive potential to that end appears to be virtually unlimited. All the while, the sentences imposed on those found guilty of contempt have steadily mounted, until now they are even imprisoned for years.
Lake County v. Rollins, 130 U. S. 662 , 130 U. S. 671 . Cf. Mr. Justice Holmes in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189 , 252 U. S. 219 -220 (dissenting opinion). It is wholly beyond my comprehension how the generality of laymen, or, for that matter, even thoughtful lawyers, either at the end of the Eighteenth Century or today, could possibly see an appreciable difference between the crime of contempt, at least as it has now evolved, and other major crimes, or why they would wish to draw any distinction between the two so far as basic constitutional rights were concerned.
"The Revolutionary War made everything connected with the law of England distasteful to the people at large. The lawyers knew its value; the community did not. Public sentiment favored an American law for America. It was quickened by the unfriendly feeling toward the mother country, which became pronounced toward the close of the eighteenth century and culminated in the War of 1812. [ Footnote 3/28 ] "
Apologists for summary trial of the crime of contempt also endeavor to justify it as a "necessity" if judicial orders are to be observed and the needful authority of the courts maintained. "Necessity" is often used in this context as convenient or desirable. But since we are dealing with an asserted power which derogates from and is fundamentally inconsistent with our ordinary, constitutionally prescribed methods of proceeding in criminal cases, "necessity," if it can justify at all, must at least refer to a situation where the extraordinary power to punish by summary process is clearly indispensable to the enforcement of court decrees and the orderly administration of justice. Or, as this Court has repeatedly phrased it, the courts in punishing contempts should be rigorously restricted to the "least possible power adequate to the end proposed." See, e.g., In re Michael, 326 U. S. 224 , 326 U. S. 227 .
"Not one of the oppressive prerogatives of which the crown has been successively stripped, in England, but was in its day, defended on the plea of necessity. Not one of the attempts to destroy them, but was deemed a hazardous innovation. [ Footnote 3/30 ]"
beyond the courtroom. [ Footnote 3/36 ] Again, I am unable to find any evidence, or even an assertion, that judicial orders have been stripped of their efficacy or courts deprived of their requisite dignity by the intervention of the jury in those States. So far as can be discerned, the wheels of justice have not ground to a halt or even noticeably slowed. After all, the English courts apparently got on with their business for six or seven centuries without any general power to try charges of criminal contempt summarily.
I am confident that, in the long run, due respect for the courts and their mandates would be much more likely if they faithfully observed the procedures laid down by our nationally acclaimed charter of liberty, the Bill of Rights. [ Footnote 3/37 ] Respect and obedience in this country are not engendered -- and rightly not -- by arbitrary and autocratic procedures. In the end, such methods only yield real contempt for the courts and the law. The classic example of this is the use and abuse of the injunction and summary contempt power in the labor field. The federal courts have still not recovered from the scars inflicted by their intervention in that area where Congress finally stepped in and preserved the right of jury trial to all those charged with the crime of contempt.
3 Bouv.Law Dict., Rawle's Third Revision, p. 3182. Of course, as the law now stands, contempts committed in the presence of the judge may be punished without any hearing or trial at all, summary or otherwise. For a flagrant example, see Sacher v. United States, 343 U. S. 1 .
Much of what is said in this opinion is equally applicable to contempts committed in the presence of the court. My opposition to summary punishment for those contempts was fully set forth in my dissent in Sacher v. United States, 343 U. S. 1 , 343 U. S. 14 .
It also seems significant that the initial decisions by this Court actually upholding the power of the federal courts to punish contempts by summary process were not made until as late as the final decades of the last century, almost a full century after the adoption of the Constitution. Since that time, the power has been vigorously challenged on a number of occasions. See, e.g., Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States, 247 U. S. 402 , 247 U. S. 425 (dissenting opinion); Sacher v. United States, 343 U. S. 1 , 343 U. S. 14 (dissenting opinion). Within the past few years, there has been a tendency on the part of this Court to restrict the substantive scope of the contempt power to narrower bounds than had been formerly thought to exist. See, e.g., Nye v. United States, 313 U. S. 33 ; Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252 ; In re Michael, 326 U. S. 224 ; Cammer v. United States, 350 U. S. 399 . Cf. In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257 . In substantial part, this is attributable to a deeply felt antipathy toward the arbitrary procedures now used to punish contempts.
Perhaps the classic example is the much criticized decision in In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564 . For some of the milder comment, see Lewis, A Protest Against Administering Criminal Law by Injunction -- The Debs Case, 42 Am.L.Reg. 879; Lewis, Strikes and Courts of Equity, 46 Am.L.Reg. 1; Dunbar, Government by Injunction, 13 L.Q.Rev. 347; Gregory, Government by Injunction, 11 Harv.L.Rev. 487.
E.g., see Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U. S. 250 ; Perez v. Brownell, 356 U. S. 44 .
A series of recent cases in this Court alone indicates that the personal emotions or opinions of judges often become deeply involved in the punishment of an alleged contempt. See, e.g., Fisher v. Pace, 336 U. S. 155 ; Sacher v. United States, 343 U. S. 1 ; Offutt v. United States, 348 U. S. 11 ; Nilva v. United States, 352 U. S. 385 ; Yates v. United States, 355 U. S. 66 .
See pp. 356 U. S. 202 -213 infra.
Of course, if the maximum punishment for criminal contempt were sufficiently limited, that offense might no longer fall within the category of "crimes"; instead, it might then be regarded, in the light of our previous decisions, as a "petty" or "minor" offense for which the defendant would not necessarily be entitled to trial by jury. See District of Columbia v. Clawans, 300 U. S. 617 ; Callan v. Wilson, 127 U. S. 540 .
New Orleans v. The Steamship Co., 20 Wall. 387, 87 U. S. 392 ("Contempt of court is a specific criminal offence."). And see Michaelson v. United States ex rel. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R. Co., 266 U. S. 42 , 266 U. S. 66 -67; Pendergast v. United States, 317 U. S. 412 , 317 U. S. 417 -418.
"[Parliament has] extended the jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty beyond their ancient limits, thereby depriving us of the inestimable right of trial by jury in cases affecting both life and property and subjecting both to the decision arbitrary decision [ sic ] of a single and dependent judge."
Although Section 17 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 73, 83, authorized the federal courts to punish contempts "in any cause or hearing before the same," it did not, as this Court has pointed out, define what were contempts or prescribe the method of punishing them. Ex parte Savin, 131 U. S. 267 , 131 U. S. 275 . Section 17, which contains a number of other provisions, appears to have been a comparatively insignificant provision of the judicial code enacted by the Congress without material discussion in the midst of 34 other sections, many of which were both extremely important and highly controversial.
Alleged contempts committed beyond the court's presence, where the judge has no personal knowledge of the material facts, are especially suited for trial by jury. A hearing must be held, witnesses must be called, and evidence taken in any event. Cf. Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517 . And often, as in this case, crucial facts are in close dispute.
The Court relates the criminal contempt charged to bail jumping by its use of § 3146 as support for the sentences imposed upon the petitioners. But bail jumping under § 3146 is proved merely by evidence that the accused willfully failed to surrender within 30 days after incurring a forfeiture of his bail. Much more, however, than evidence sustaining a conviction for bail jumping is necessary to sustain convictions for the contempts here charged of violating 18 U.S.C. § 401(3) by willful and knowing disobedience of a single provision of the Order on Mandate of July 2, 1951. The indispensable element of that offense, to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, Gompers v. Buck's Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418 , 221 U. S. 444 , is that the petitioners, who were not served with the order, in some other way obtained actual knowledge of its existence and command. Kelton v. United States, 294 F. 491; In re Kwelman, 31 F.Supp. 23; see Wilson v. North Carolina, 169 U. S. 586 .
relied upon by the Government is a dictum in Pettibone v. United States, 148 U. S. 197 , 148 U. S. 206 -207, to the effect that persons may be chargeable with knowledge of an order from notice that an application will be made for the order. But whatever its utility in civil cases, theories of constructive knowledge have no place in the criminal law. Not only is this forcefully demonstrated in Judge Biggs' opinion in United States v. Hall, supra, but the Pettibone dictum has not been followed in criminal contempt cases. Kelton v. United States, supra; In re Kwelman, supra.

References: v. 
 § 401
 § 401
 § 402
 § 24
 § 24
 § 401
 § 2
 v. 
 v. 
 § 402
 § 24
 § 401
 v. 
 § 4083
 § 401
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 401
 v. 
 § 401
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 2
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 402
 § 3692
 § 151
 § 1995
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 3146
 § 3146
 § 401
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.