Source: https://openjurist.org/349/us/133
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 12:04:55+00:00

Document:
It would be very strange if our system of law permitted a judge to act as a grand jury and then try the very persons accused as a result of his investigations. Perhaps no State has ever forced a defendant to accept grand jurors as proper trial jurors to pass on charges growing out of their hearings.7 A single 'judge-grand jury' is even more a part of the accusatory process than an ordinary lay grand juror. Having been a part of that process a judge cannot be, in the very nature of things, wholly disinterested in the conviction or acquittal of those accused. While he would not likely have all the zeal of a prosecutor, it can certainly not be said that he would have none of that zeal.8 Fair trials are too important a part of our free society to let prosecuting judges be trial judges of the charges they prefer.9 It is true that contempt committed in a trial courtroom can under some circumstances be punished summarily by the trial judge. See Cooke v. United States, 267 U.S. 517, 539, 45 S.Ct. 390, 395, 396, 69 L.Ed. 767. But adjudication by a trial judge of a contempt committed in his immediate presence in open court cannot be likened to the proceedings here. For we held in the Oliver case (333 U.S. 257, 68 S.Ct. 501) that a person charged with contempt before a 'one-man grand jury' could not be summarily tried.
This incident also shows that the judge was doubtless more familiar with the facts and circumstances in which the charges were rooted than was any other witness. There were no public witnesses upon whom petitioners could call to give disinterested testimony concerning what took place in the secret chambers of the judge. If there had been they might have been able to refute the judge's statement about White's insolence. Moreover, as shown by the judge's statement here a 'judge-grand jury' might himself many times be a very material witness in a later trial for contempt. If the Charge should be heard before that judge, the result would be either that the defendant must be deprived of examining or cross-examining him or else there would be the spectacle of the trial judge presenting testimony upon which he must finally pass in determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant.10 In either event the State would have the benefit of the judge's personal knowledge while the accused would be denied an effective opportunity to cross-examine. The right of a defendant to examine and cross-examine witnesses is too essential to a fair trial to have that right jeopardized in such way.
In Sacher v. United States, 343 U.S. 1, 72 S.Ct. 451, 454, 96 L.Ed. 71, we upheld the power of a federal district judge to summarily punish a contempt previously committed in his presence. In that case, after a trial which had extended for some nine months, the trial judge issued a certificate summarily holding defense counsel in contempt for their actions during the trial. There were no formalities, no hearings, no taking of evidence, no arguments and no briefs. We held that such a procedure was permitted by Rule 42 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C.A., which codified the "prevailing usages at law." The Court specifically rejected the contention that the judge who heard the contempt was disqualified from punishing it and should be required to assume the role of accuser or complaining witness before another judge. In Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11, 75 S.Ct. 11, the Court simply stated an exception: when the trial judge becomes personally embroiled with the contemnor, he must step aside in favor of another judge. That decision was rested upon our supervisory authority over the administration of criminal justice in the federal courts. The Court now holds, even though there is no showing or contention that the state judge became enbroiled or personally exercised, or was in any way biased, that as a matter of constitutional law—of procedural due process—a state judge may not punish a contempt previously committed in his presence. This seems inconsistent with all that has gone before.
The Court relies heavily on Tumey v. State of Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 47 S.Ct. 437, 71 L.Ed. 749. There we held that it deprives a defendant of due process to 'subject his liberty or property to the judgment of a court, the judge of which has a direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest in reaching a conclusion against him in his case.' Id., 273 U.S. at page 523, 47 S.Ct. at page 441. It is one thing to hold that a judge has too great an interest in a case to permit the rendition of a fair verdict when his compensation is determined by the result he reaches. It is quite another thing to disqualify a state judge as having too great an interest to render a due process judgment when his sole interest, as shown by this record, is the maintenance of order and decorum in the investigation of crime—an interest which he shares in common with all judges who punish for contempt.
Sacher v. United States, 343 U.S. 1, 72 S.Ct. 451, 96 L.Ed. 717; Cooke v. United States, 267 U.S. 517, 539, 45 S.Ct. 390, 395, 396, 69 L.Ed. 767; Ex parte Savin, 131 U.S. 267, 277, 9 S.Ct. 699, 701, 702, 33 L.Ed. 150. See also In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 273—278, 68 S.Ct. 499, 507—510, 92 L.Ed. 682.
See Hale v. Wyatt, 78 N.H. 214, 98 A. 379. See also, Witnesses—Competency—Competency of a Presiding Judge as Witness, 28 Harv.L.Rev. 115.

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