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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1293', '§ 3', '§ 1293', '§ 33', '§ 1293', '§ 2108', '§ 2352']

In re Sawyer, 260 F.2d 189 | Casetext
260 F.2d 189 (9th Cir. 1958)
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth CircuitNov 17, 1958
June 9, 1958. Certiorari Granted November 17, 1958. See 79 S.Ct. 153.
John T. McTernan, Los Angeles, Cal., Myer C. Symonds, Honolulu, Hawaii, A.L. Wirin, Los Angeles, Cal., for petitioner.
A. William Barlow, U.S. Atty., Honolulu, Hawaii, Edward N. Sylva, Atty. Gen., Territory of Hawaii, Morio Omori, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., Honolulu, Hawaii, for respondent.
Harriet Bouslog Sawyer became a member of the Territorial Bar of Hawaii in 1941. Since then, except for four World War II years when she was in Washington, D.C., she has been engaged in the active practice of law at Honolulu. A large part of her work has been in the courtroom. Prior to 1941 she had been admitted to practice in Indiana and Massachusetts.
The Honolulu Smith Act case went to trial on November 5, 1952. Eventually the trial was concluded and a jury verdict was returned on June 19, 1953, finding the defendants guilty. It is definite that throughout the extended trial she was representing one or more defendants. Sometimes she missed sessions; if so, she was busy on legal research incident to the case.
The convictions were reversed by this court on January 16, 1958, upon the authority of Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, 77 S.Ct. 1064, 1 L.Ed.2d 1356. See Fujimoto v. United States, 251 F.2d 342.
On Sunday, December 14, 1952, during the period of the trial, she went to the town of Honokaa on the Island of Hawaii and with the defendant Hall addressed a public meeting primarily attended by members of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union. Some segment or segments of that union were financing in whole or in part the defense of the seven. The exact purpose of the meeting does not seem to be clear. Hall and Mrs. Sawyer were apparently the main speakers, although there were others. Based on their own subsequent testimony, it would be fair to characterize the gathering as some kind of an old fashioned "indignation meeting." The speeches of the two resulted in publicity throughout the Islands. The newspaper stories caused the trial judge, Honorable Jon Wiig, to suspend temporarily the trial and question Mrs. Sawyer in open court about her speech at Honokaa. When the colloquy was done, Judge Wiig announced he was not satisfied with her explanation and he instructed the U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii to make an investigation. (Mrs. Sawyer's explanation and colloquy with the court is set forth as Appendix C.) No proceedings in the district court were ever brought.
A. William Barlow was the United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii during the Smith Act trial at Honolulu and an active participant in the trials. He left the office on September 2, 1954. He appears to have been active in the preparation of the case. He presented it to the legal ethics committee at its hearings which began November 24, 1954. Then, on July 8, 1955, he and the attorney general were appointed to present the case to the court. Barlow's representation in behalf of the complaint, and now the judgment, has continued on appeal.
Within a day or so after the verdict, a juror, David P. Fuller, Jr., suffered a nervous breakdown and generally became most incompetent. The case was "on his mind;" how much is disputed as is his rationality at the times of various conversations. Visits from Mrs. Sawyer and from Mrs. Sawyer and Hall to Fuller followed. A sister-in-law, Mrs. Ellen Fuller Cabreros, was present as well as Mrs. Fuller and one or more of the Fuller children. As a consequence of these visits and in support of the motion for a new trial Mrs. Fuller, Mrs. Cabreros and Hall all made affidavits as to statements made to them by Fuller, the effect of which, if admissible, would be to prove by Fuller's statements to Mrs. Sawyer and Hall what went on in the jury room in the secret deliberations. The purpose was to impeach the verdict. Parenthetically, such affidavits ought to have been stricken from the file of the Smith Act case. (They were merely not considered.) It is hard to believe that counsel did not know of their inadmissibility.
Mrs. Fuller refused to sign an affidavit prepared for her by Mrs. Sawyer.
This resulted in the association filing on July 8, 1954, with the Supreme Court of Hawaii one complaint with the two charges of misconduct in it against Mrs. Sawyer. One charge dealt with the Honokaa speech; the other with the manner of presentation and preparation (the surrounding conduct) of the affidavits. The second charge did not assert falsity, per se, of the affidavits.
Prior to April 21, 1954, under its Rule 19, charges against an attorney were authorized to be filed by the attorney general of Hawaii or "any person aggrieved." By an amendment made on April 21, 1954, charges were authorized to be filed by the attorney general, the Bar Association of Hawaii, or any person aggrieved.
"`[Seal] /s/ J.D. Marques,
After a return on the order to show cause, the Supreme Court determined that the hearing before it should be one de novo. However, it was stipulated that the court should make its determination on the record before the committee. No new evidence was received and that court saw no witnesses as such. The court on April 6, 1956, sustained the charges and entered judgment the same day. The judgment suspended Mrs. Sawyer from practice for the period of one year. The judgment has not yet become effective. The Supreme Court's opinion is reported at 41 Haw. 270. Express reference is made to that decision. Therein many of the procedural events are listed which are not herein listed.
A division of this Court, Circuit Judge Lemmon dissenting, on May 23, 1956, granted a stay pending the outcome of the appeal herein.
That court's opinion, which is supported by the record, shows that at every step of the proceedings Mrs. Sawyer was accorded procedural due process. To inquire into procedural due process may well be the limit of the scope of any review that this court of appeals is entitled to make on this type of an appeal. Indeed, one finds in appellant's specifications of error a canting of them in the language of procedural due process, as if counsel were well aware of this possibility.
Now, what did Mrs. Sawyer do and say at Honokaa and what did she do when she took and presented her affidavit to the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii? The Supreme Court hearing the case on the written record had the same record for investigation as we do; no more. No intendments can be given it on the ground it heard and saw the witnesses in person. But still the record tells a story and a clear story that overwhelmingly preponderates to sustain the charges.
With great deftness Mrs. Sawyer's counsel interweave the defense versions of the testimony into the bar association's evidence pointing the other way. They argue that her talk was just general, couldn't have been anything else, and specifically did not refer to the trial before Judge Wiig or to Judge Wiig. Without quoting the record extensively, we say the short way (but not the only way) to negative this contention is to quote a statement (during the course of the hearings) by Mr. J. Garner Anthony, able counsel who represented her before the committee:
Far different is this from the contempt cases of the Times-Mirror with its editorials and Bridges with his telegram. This is not a contempt case. The Times and Bridges were not court officers charged with the duty of keeping the temple clean. Nor was this a case of a lawyer unconnected with the case commenting at a public meeting or a lawyer who had carried his case past the point of decision, now carrying his cause to the people. Nor was it private grousing among friends to which we assume all lawyers are entitled when legal events are not going their way. It was a public meeting.
1. The specification that Territorial Statute (Section 9701, Re.Laws Hawaii 1945) was applied by the court below, so as to deprive appellant of liberty and property without due process of law.
These cases themselves turn on respondent. Note that Judge Soper says an attorney has the right to criticize "the decisions" of the courts in "a fair and respectful manner." Note that Ex parte Steinman says, "The acts and decisions of the courts of this state in cases that have reached final determination, are not exempt from fair and honest comment and criticism." This subdivision (b) falls entirely when one reaches the conclusion that the comment was unseemly and certainly at the wrong time.
Cf. In re Breen, 30 Nev. 164, 93 P. 997, 17 L.R.A., N.S., 572.
In all facets of this case in this court there has been the spectre of jurisdiction. This court does not have general jurisdiction to review the work of the territorial courts of Hawaii. Our only scope is narrowly defined by statute. We do not have the plenary powers here that we might naturally have in such cases as Lavine's (In re Los Angeles County Pioneer Society) 9 Cir., 217 F.2d 190.
See 28 U.S.C.A. § 1293.
If we have the jurisdiction it hangs by the narrowest thread. We think on the line of such cases as Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners of State of New Mexico, 353 U.S. 232, 77 S.Ct. 752, 1 L.Ed.2d 796, and Konigsberg v. State Bar of California, 353 U.S. 252, 77 S.Ct. 722, 1 L.Ed.2d 810, when the charge is made that respondent has been deprived of due process of law under the fifth amendment and that the result impinges on her rights under the first amendment, we are justified in taking the case to look at it to see if the claims of such deprivation have any validity. In that sense we have jurisdiction. Then we take the case and, in our view, we find that there was no deprivation of constitutional rights. Thus we complete the chain, and one can then logically argue: therefore we never had jurisdiction. On the whole, after examining the record it is our view that the respondent's position basically has little right to be more than a claim that the territorial court took a different view of the evidence than hers and the judgment is a little too harsh. Such claims we wouldn't hear. So, within the limits of permissible advocacy, we suppose, we find the claims on appeal expanded to include claims of deprivation of constitutional rights, claims which we hold are not solid.
Cf. Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 66 S.Ct. 773, 90 L.Ed. 939.
Cf. Theard v. United States, 354 U.S. 278, 281, 77 S.Ct. 1274, 1 L.Ed.2d 1342.
On the second segment of the case, the Fuller affidavit, Mrs. Sawyer's counsel meet it by ignoring it completely in their opening brief. Finally, in their closing brief they say that it is moot because the Supreme Court imposed no punishment thereon. As to that point, we cannot agree. The court at page 425 of its opinion in 41 Hawaii reports (having first announced the suspension of one year in consequence of the Honokaa speech) then proceeded to the matters incident to the Fuller affidavit and finally concluded with:
"However, in the instant matter, this court will let its hereinbefore expressed disciplinary order suspending the said respondent licensee from the practice in the territorial courts for one year and requiring her to pay costs — suffice, although also deeming gross misconduct her said repeated interviews with and interrogations of David Fuller."
If the respondent should show some genuine remorse and some appreciation of her error, it might be that the Supreme Court of Hawaii would ameliorate its decision. But so long as she conceives that she has a right to litigate in a given case by day and castigate by night (or at recess) the very court, the honored place in which she is working, berating the conduct of the trial which she will resume on the morrow, she does not deserve to practice law.
Mr. Justice Cardozo when on the New York Court of Appeals said, "Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions. Matter of Rouss, supra 221 N.Y. [81], at page 84, 116 N.E. 782. The appellant was received into the ancient fellowship for something more than private gain. He became an officer of the court, and, like the court itself, an instrument or agency to advance the ends of justice." People ex rel. Karlin v. Culkin, 248 N.Y. 465, 162 N.E. 487, 489, 60 A.L.R. 851.
Circuit Judge Denman, then Chief Judge, presided at the oral arguments of the foregoing case heard en banc. Between the date of hearing and the date of decision he retired. He now deems it inappropriate that he participate in the en banc decision. Circuit Judge Lemmon heard the oral arguments, but his death occurred on April 26, 1958.
Appendix A Report of Legal Ethics Committee
Respectfully submitted, /s/ C. Dudley Pratt, Chairman; /s/ Milton Rodes, /s/ Clifton H. Tracy, /s/ E.C. Peters, /s/ [Indistinguishable], Of the Legal Ethics Committee.
Dated: Honolulu, T.H., June 9th, 1955.
/s/ R.G. Dodge. [Endorsed]: Filed July 1, 1955.
--------- Appendix B Matsuoka's "Notes"
She followed Samuel M. Bento, who said he wanted to say good morning to the Tribune-Herald, pointing generally toward the paper's reporter from Hilo and the paper's Honokaa correspondent who were sitting side by side. Mrs. Sawyer preceded Jack W. Hall. She began speaking at 11 a.m. and ended 11:30 a.m.
Appendix C The Sawyer Explanation to District Judge Wiig
Afternoon Session — December 16, 1952 ---------
(The Court convened at 1:15 p.m.)
The Court: Well, Mrs. Bouslog, I am not satisfied with your explanations to the Court. I think this matter requires further investigation. I am going to instruct the U.S. Attorney to make a further investigation of this matter and if he finds under the provisions of Rule 42(b) [18 U.S.C.A.], a Notice and Order to Show Cause should issue, then he will do so.
The Court: Well, in that respect, Mrs. Bouslog, if you feel that there is any partiality on the part of the U.S. Attorney, I have no reluctance whatsoever to refer the matter to an independent attorney. I think you should know that throughout this trial I have done everything that I could to assure to the defendants a fair trial. Counsel for the defendants naturally have disagreed with me on some of my rulings on evidence. That is only natural. Or the admission of documents in evidence. But in every other matter that has come up since the time the jury was selected, the matter of fair play on giving the defendants the benefit of the doubt, I have almost consistently done so. It is very surprising to me to read this article in the newspaper after one of your associate counsel, Mr. Wirin, took occasion a week or so ago to come to my chambers during a recess and state that he had been advised or had heard — I didn't ask him the source of his information — that Judge Wiig would not give the defendants a fair trial, and he wanted to state to me at that time that in his opinion the defendants were receiving a fair trial. Again, Mrs. Bouslog, I have done everything I could in this trial to prevent any outside influences from entering into the presentation of evidence and the matters that go to the jury. So when this case is in their hands it will be decided upon the evidence and what has taken place here in the courtroom.
The Supreme Court of Hawaii is not a court organized under Article III of the Federal Constitution, but rather under Article IV, section 3, clause 2 of that instrument. The power of Congress to restrict or abrogate appellate review from such a tribunal is paramount. There is doubt whether appellate courts organized under Article III can be constitutionally burdened with review of administrative functions or housekeeping regulations or determination of a legislatively controlled tribunal.
"* * * the territorial courts are `legislative' courts, created in virtue of the national sovereignty or under article 4, § 3, cl. 2, of the Constitution * * *." O'Donoghue v. United States, 1933, 289 U.S. 516, 535, 53 S.Ct. 740, 744, 77 L. Ed. 1356; Ex parte Bakelite Corporation, 1929, 279 U.S. 438, 449-450, 49 S.Ct. 411, 73 L.Ed. 789; Mookini v. United States, 1938, 303 U.S. 201, 205, 58 S.Ct. 543, 82 L.Ed. 748.
Ex parte Wilder's Steamship Company, 1902, 183 U.S. 545, 22 S.Ct. 225, 46 L.Ed. 321. Jurisdiction of this Court over certain final decisions of the Supreme Court of Hawaii is conferred by 28 U.S.C.A. § 1293.
"* * * this `Constitutional' court * * * is empowered to act only in justiciable `cases' or `controversies' within the meaning of Article III of the Constitution, and so has no jurisdiction to review `administrative or legislative issues or controversies'." Boggess v. Berry Corporation, 9 Cir., 1956, 233 F.2d 389, 392. See also Application of L.B. W. 4217, 9 Cir., 1956, 238 F.2d 163.
Even in cases where Congress has permitted review of the territorial Supreme Courts, the appellate courts of the judicial system proceed with extreme caution where local customs, practices or the subtle influences or nuances of customary local law may be present. The same caution should be employed in a parallel situation if local custom of a legislative tribunal dictated that its licentiate should not obstruct the course of justice in another court.
Waialua Agricultural Co. v. Christian, 1938, 305 U.S. 91, 108-109, 59 S.Ct. 21, 83 L.Ed. 60; De Castro v. Board of Commissioners, 1944, 322 U.S. 451, 456, 64 S.Ct. 1121, 88 L.Ed. 1384.
POPE, Circuit Judge, with whom HAMLEY, C.J., concurs (dissenting).
I have a very different view of what the facts are in this case. The majority accept the conclusion of the Hawaii court that appellant "engaged and participated in a wilful oral attack upon the administration of justice in and by the said United States District Court for the District of Hawaii and by direct statement and implication impugned the integrity of the judge presiding therein and in the said pending case, * * *" I am satisfied that there is nothing in the record to support that statement. I think this is one case in which it is peculiarly important that we scrutinize with care the proof as to just what did happen.
That we are not limited in our examination of the facts is plain since the Supreme Court heard no testimony but heard the case solely upon the written record and "made its own evaluation thereof" "unprejudiced by the report of the legal ethics committee." Our duty, as a federal court, to find the facts for ourselves in the process of determining whether appellant's claim of a federal right under the Constitution, has been frustrated by erroneous conclusions of the Territorial Court, is recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States. That Court, when reviewing a state court decision under circumstances similar to those here, insists on finding the facts on which the constitutional right turns, for itself. As stated in Stein v. People of State of New York, 346 U.S. 156, 181, 73 S.Ct. 1077, 1091, 97 L.Ed. 1522: "Of course, this Court cannot allow itself to be completely bound by the state court determination of any issue essential to decision of a claim of federal right, else federal law could be frustrated by distorted fact finding."
"But the prior State determination of a claim under the United States Constitution cannot foreclose consideration of such a claim, else the State court would have the final say which the Congress, by the Act of 1867, provided it should not have." Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 500, 73 S.Ct. 397, 443, 97 L.Ed. 469.
Our power to review decisions of the Supreme Court of Hawaii is substantially the same as that exercised by the Supreme Court of the United States in reviewing final decisions of the highest courts of the states. At least ever since Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. C.H. Albers Commission Co., 223 U.S. 573, 32 S.Ct. 316, 56 L.Ed. 556, that Court has stated the rule as follows: "In cases brought to this court from state courts for review, on the ground that a federal right set up in the state court has been wrongly denied, and in which the state court has put its decision on a finding that the asserted federal right has no basis in point of fact, or has been waived or lost, this court, as an incident of its power to determine whether a federal right has been wrongly denied, may go behind the finding to see whether it is without substantial support. If the rule were otherwise, it almost always would be within the power of a state court practically to prevent a review here. (cases cited) Another class of cases in which this court will review the finding of the court as to the facts is when the conclusion of law and findings of fact are so intermingled as to make it necessary, in order to pass upon the question to analyze the facts." Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U.S. 312, 324-325, 42 S.Ct. 124, 126, 66 L.Ed. 254. This rule has been announced on numerous subsequent occasions. It is an everyday practice in the review, by the Supreme Court, of state court decisions. Thus in Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U.S. 232, at page 239, 77 S.Ct. 752, at page 756, 1 L.Ed. 2d 796, where Schware claimed he had been denied a constitutional right, the Court examined the facts for itself, and at great length, and posed the matter for its decision as follows: "Therefore the question is whether the Supreme Court of New Mexico on the record before us could reasonably find that he had not shown good moral character." It concluded (353 U.S. at page 246, 77 S.Ct. at page 760): "There is no evidence in the record which rationally justifies a finding that Schware was morally unfit to practice law." Hence, it was held, the state had deprived him of due process of law. Other cases in which the Supreme Court, in considering claims of infringement of constitutional rights, found the facts for itself are Fikes v. State of Alabama, 352 U.S. 191, 77 S.Ct. 281, 1 L.Ed.2d 246; Leyra v. Denno, 347 U.S. 556, 74 S.Ct. 716, 98 L.Ed. 948; Konigsberg v. State Bar, 353 U.S. 252, 77 S.Ct. 722, 1 L.Ed.2d 810; and Moore v. State of Michigan, 355 U.S. 155, 78 S.Ct. 191, 2 L.Ed.2d 167.
Cf. Prensa Insular de Puerto Rico v. People of Puerto Rico, 1 Cir., 189 F.2d 1019, 1021, which examines the history of the same jurisdictional Act.
Such, for example, as Milk Wagon Drivers Union v. Meadowmoor Dairies, Inc., 312 U.S. 287, 293, 61 S.Ct. 552, 85 L. Ed. 836; and Fiske v. State of Kansas, 274 U.S. 380, 385, 47 S.Ct. 655, 71 L.Ed. 1108.
The concurring opinion, rejecting the state court's finding that petitioner was "a person of questionable character", called it "so dogmatic an inference as to be wholly unwarranted." 353 U.S. at page 251, 77 S.Ct. at page 762.
The most complete and most nearly contemporaneous account of just what appellant did say at the Honokaa meeting is found in the notes made by a newspaper reporter who attended the meeting and the following day wrote a newspaper account of it. A week later he was asked by his editor to transcribe his original handwritten notes and he did so filling them out and making them understandable to the reader. While appellant denies making some of the statements found in the notes, for the purposes of this opinion I take the version shown by the notes. The majority opinion, for the purpose of indicating what happened at the meeting, quotes the newspaper account on the ground that the Hawaii court accepted that as accurate. The reporter, at the hearing, some two years after the speech was made, did not testify that the newspaper story was an accurate statement of what transpired. He merely stated that he wrote the story "based upon the notes * * * made during the speech." My objection to its use is not because it is mere hearsay, but it could furnish an excuse for not examining the facts. No one can claim to know what this case is about unless he has read, with care, the full notes of the speech made by the newspaper reporter. They appear as Exhibit B attached to Judge Chambers' opinion.
The original handwritten notes, taken at the meeting, had been given to the FBI by the reporter. They were not produced and the record shows no serious effort by the Bar Committee to obtain them.
But when all the notes are read, an unmistakable picture of just what kind of speech was made, and what it was about, clearly emerges. What we have here is an attack on the methods used in all Smith Act prosecutions, including the one then pending, and hence, implicitly an attack on the Smith Act itself. The notes show exactly what appellant talked about. It was as follows: (a) Men in power are trying to put men in jail for what they think and what they read; (b) the prosecutions are for conspiracy — when the Government charges conspiracy, it has no case — "conspiracy means to charge a lot of people for agreeing to do something you have never done"; (c) The FBI's special agents, widely publicized as wonderful, spend their time investigating people's minds, while hundreds of tax frauds go unprosecuted; (d) Among the agents so used were Paul Crouch and Johnson; Crouch testified what he was told by generals when he was "galloping over the plains of Russia" at a time when one of the defendants was four years old, while Johnson testified he carried some Communist books from San Francisco to Honolulu, in a duffle bag, and showed the bag to Jack Hall; (e) On the strength of this the Government "for two days reads from books supposed to have been in the duffle bag * * * so jack hall violated the smith act because he saw a duffle bag with some books on overthrowing the government in it. its silly;" (f) Crouch testified to things he couldn't possibly remember. Yet they use this kind of testimony. (g) "Some of the witnesses testified differently from what they testified previously." (h) "witnesses testify what government tells them to"; (i) "they will do anything and everything necessary to convict"; (j) "the government has carried on a barrage of propaganda" and "expects people in the jury to have hysteria just hearing about communism is enough to jail"; (k) an account of a Sears Roebuck employee who knew Hall. When he refused to testify against Hall the FBI asked his employer to fire him, — when he was not fired they went to the Los Angeles and Chicago officers of the employer and convinced them he had to be fired; (1) "the government gets away with it by making people fear that if they don't do as it wants they'll be branded red and lose their jobs, there's no such thing as a fair trial in a smith act case. all rules of evidence have to be scrapped or the government can't make a case"; (m) in the Palakiko-Majors case the court would not let a woman testify she heard a police officer say he beat the prisoner, because the officer was absent and had no chance to deny it, yet the judge permitted Crouch "to testify about 27 years ago. what was said then", at a time "when the defendant was 5 years old." (n) "there's no fair trial in the case. they just make up the rules as they go along"; (o) A reference to the New York Smith Act case: "the government can't make a case if it tells just what they did so they widened the rules and tell * * everything including the kitchen sink"; (p) "unless we stop the smith trial in its tracks here there will be a new crime. people will be charged with knowing what is included in books. ideas." (q) "mentioned los angeles trial in which someone said there was no evidence that someone had instructed persons not to read some books"; (r) "there'll come a time when the only thing to do is to keep your children from learning how to read. then not only will unions be destroyed but so will freedom of thoughts and action, there'll be dark ages of thought control when people won't be able to speak freely in taverns and other places"; (s) "urged audience to * * * explain what a vicious thing the smith act is. people are tried for books written years ago."
The Fujimoto record indicates this was not Manning Johnson but a Henry Johnson.
See Palakiko v. Harper, 9 Cir., 209 F.2d 75.
As a final step in analyzing the evidence I allude to a statement which is not listed in the complaint or the opinion, but which appellee seems to think tends to show appellant was directing her talk against Judge Wiig. This is the statement "They just make up the rules as they go along." The use of the pronoun "they" is clear enough. It is in the reporter's notes. All the witnesses who referred to this statement said "they", or "the Government" in connection with the phrase. That this "they" referred to the Government is clear from the whole context. Previous to this phrase, the notes show appellant was throughout talking of the Government. The Government "when it hasn't got enough evidence it lumps a number together"; "the government does not say advocated overthrow but says they agreed to"; "the government goes on with testimony for two weeks on what crouch did"; "the prosecution says crouch did this and that"; Government propaganda has been going on "the government says there was an agreement to violate smith act"; as to witnesses telling conflicting stories, "the government knows this but deliberately goes ahead"; "witnesses testify what government tells them to"; "then the government for two days reads from book"; "the government has carried on a barrage of propaganda"; "the government gets away with it by making people fear". When all this is followed by "They just make up the rules as they go along", it is absurd to say that appellant was now including the judge in the "they". Appellee argues that as a matter of course it is the judge who makes the rules. The trouble with this is that the evidence does not show she made any such statement. And its improbability appears from the fact that when the speech was made Judge Wiig was still reserving ruling on much of the evidence. All significant rulings were made by Judge Wiig late in the case and long after the speech.
This I develop later. See text opposite footnote 19 infra.
A proceeding of this kind cannot be founded upon such dubious evidence; — a judgment of disbarment or suspension cannot be supported by that kind of proof. The power to order disbarment "is one that ought always to be exercised with great caution; and ought never to be exercised except in clear cases of misconduct, which affect the standing and character of the party as an attorney." Ex parte Wall, 107 U.S. 265, 288, 2 S.Ct. 569, 589, 27 L.Ed. 552. See accord, In re Spicer, 6 Cir., 126 F.2d 288, 289. "It is settled that charges of unprofessional conduct on the part of an attorney should be sustained by convincing proof and to a reasonable certainty and that any reasonable doubts should be resolved in favor of the accused." Brawner v. State Bar of California, 48 Cal.2d 814, 313 P.2d 1, 3. This requirement of clear proof is insisted upon by the courts generally.
Appellant claims that in her case suspension means the same as disbarment, since Rule 15(d) of the Territorial Supreme Court, adopted October 3, 1955, requires a lawyer once suspended to start all over, proving his worthy character, and passing a new bar examination. Apart from that I see no difference, for the purposes of this case, between a disbarment and a suspension.
The cases are collected in 7 C.J.S. Attorney and Client § 33, pp. 784-785.
In my view there can be no other conclusion here than that the appellant's speech was an attack upon the Government's method of procedure in Smith Act cases including the one then on trial at Honolulu; and an attack upon the Smith Act generally.
But whether I can find reason for that speech, and my own disagreement with it are wholly irrelevant. In the words of Judge Pound: "Although the defendant may be the worst of men * * * the rights of the best of men are secure only as the rights of the vilest and most abhorrent are protected." That speech is unreasonable, exaggerated, and offensive, does not deny it freedom. Speaking for the Court in Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 310, 60 S.Ct. 900, 906, 84 L.Ed. 1213, where the words of the defendant were especially outrageous, Mr. Justice Roberts said: "In the realm of religious faith, and in that of political belief, sharp differences arise. In both fields the tenets of one man may seem the rankest error to his neighbor. To persuade others to his own point of view, the pleader, as we know, at times, resorts to exaggeration, to vilification of men who have been, or are, prominent in church or state, and even to false statement. But the people of this nation have ordained in the light of history, that, in spite of the probability of excesses and abuses, these liberties are, in the long view, essential to enlightened opinion and right conduct on the part of the citizens of a democracy."
People v. Gitlow, 234 N.Y. 132, 158, 136 N.E. 317, 327.
Freedom of speech is not absolute. It may be limited where the facts show a "clear and present danger." But most assuredly freedom of speech does not mean freedom of speech that is true, or sound, or reasonable. It means freedom of speech, period. Freedom means nothing unless it includes freedom for those we hate. Freedom of speech is only a delusion unless it means freedom for others to express what we detest. Though a speech "stirred people to anger, invited public dispute, or brought about a condition of unrest," punishment for making it violates the First Amendment. Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 5, 69 S.Ct. 894, 896, 93 L.Ed. 1131. "For the First Amendment does not speak equivocally. It prohibits any law `abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.' It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow." Bridges v. State of California, supra, 314 U.S. at page 263, 62 S.Ct. at page 194. In its broad scope it draws no line, it does not exclude lawyers, or even lawyers who represent the ILWU or persons claimed to be Communists.
In thus making an attack upon the Department of Justice, — "the Government" — for the manner in which it was prosecuting Smith Act cases, appellant listed many items of grievance. She criticized the use of the conspiracy technique; she criticized the use of "agents of FBI" generally, and of Crouch and Johnson in particular; she criticized the use of the Government's "barrage of propaganda", and charged the FBI with pressuring Sears Roebuck to "fire" a man because he would not testify against one of the defendants. She charged that the prosecution would "do anything and everything necessary to convict"; that "witnesses testify what the Government tells them to". She urged her audience to tell "what a vicious thing" the Smith Act is. "People are tried for books written years ago."
A classic discussion of that subject is that of Mr. Justice Jackson in Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 445, 69 S.Ct. 716, 93 L.Ed. 790.
As I read the newspaper reporter's notes of the speech it seems to me that the prime subject of her speech was Crouch, and other Government witnesses. She alluded to her Honolulu Labor Day speech in which she had discussed professional witnesses, former Communists now paid by the Government. She did not otherwise identify Crouch. The fact that appellant's principal complaints related to the use of Crouch and to his testimony, and similar testimony of other witnesses, sharpens up the point that there was no attack on Judge Wiig. The record in the Fujimoto case is here and is available to us. Latta v. Western Inv. Co., 9 Cir., 173 F.2d 99, 103; United States v. Pink, 315 U.S. 203, 216. Judge Wiig did not rule upon Crouch's testimony until long after the speech, indeed, nearly three months later. Then, on March 10, the court ruled on motions to strike this and other testimony which had been received subject to motion to strike. (Some of Crouch's testimony was then stricken along with that of some others.)
The record there shows that the Government's case was built largely around Crouch and his testimony. He was the lead-off witness. He was on the stand from November 12 through November 24, and his testimony covers 962 pages. As the Government briefs in that case show, the case was based upon the theory of Marxism-Leninism. The briefs emphasize the importance attached to proof of that theory by the prosecution. Crouch was the witness on whom they depended for this proof. He testified as an expert on the Communist Revolution and the theory of the Communist Conspiracy, the Comintern, the Red Army, and Red Army materials. According to the witness he himself was on an executive committee of the Communist International to draw up a plan for infiltration of the armies of the capitalist countries. The witness testified he arrived in the Soviet Union in 1927. He was asked: "Q. And while you were in Russia, what did you do and did you meet any person?" When this was objected to, upon Government counsel's statement that he would later "tie the testimony in" the witness was allowed to proceed subject to motions to strike.
The freedom of speech of the First Amendment is a peculiarly American concept. Historians have shown, and the Supreme Court has held that this amendment was not, like some other provisions of the Bill of Rights, a mere adoption of rules deeply rooted in English common law at the time of the Constitution. "No purpose in ratifying the Bill of Rights was clearer than that of securing for the people of the United States much greater freedom of religion, expression, assembly, and petition than the people of Great Britain had ever enjoyed." Bridges v. State of California, supra, 314 U.S. at page 265, 62 S.Ct. at page 194.
Zechariah Chaffee, Jr., "Free Speech in the United States", Chap. 1.
And this amendment is not only first in number but first in importance of those ten amendments. Cut off freedom of speech, or of the press, and you stop the very lifeblood of a democracy which may live and function only if knowledge and opportunity for discussion are available to all. As Madison said: "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." In United States v. C.I.O., 335 U.S. 106, 129, 144, 68 S.Ct. 1349, 1368, 92 L.Ed. 1849, Mr. Justice Rutledge, speaking for himself and three other justices concurring, said: "The most complete exercise of those [First Amendment] rights is essential to the full, fair and untrammeled operation of the electoral process. To the extent they are curtailed the electorate is deprived of information, knowledge and opinion vital to its function."
Letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822.
The three cases last mentioned also completely dispose of the suggestion that attack may not be made on proceedings in court in a pending case. The Supreme Court dealt with that question at length. Of course, the possibility of clear and present danger to the functioning of a court of justice from certain speech or publication could occur if they were directed to pending proceedings. But the facts of this case present no such situation. That a speech in a town of 1000 population, in the island most distant from Honolulu posed a clear and present danger to the administration of justice in Judge Wiig's court, is inconceivable. There is neither finding nor argument to that effect made here.
Hammond's World Atlas, 1955 ed., gives Honokaa's population as 1021.
As for the circumstance that appellant was counsel in that pending case, this is wholly irrelevant. If it were not for Cammer v. United States, 350 U.S. 399, 76 S.Ct. 456, 100 L.Ed. 474, and if appellant were being proceeded against in the United States District Court for Hawaii for contempt of that court (she was not, and Cammer says she could not be), then her connection with that case might have meaning. But that it has no significance here even the Hawaii court seems to have recognized, for this circumstance is not even mentioned in its conclusion.
This is the conclusion quoted in footnote 1, supra.
Finally, what of the suggestion that while a newspaper or a layman may criticize prosecuting officers, and attack courts and judicial officers, yet the constitutional free speech protections do not extend to such actions by a lawyer? I do not here refer to utterances of a lawyer which (a) threaten the judge's person or reputation, or (b) charge that the court or judge has knowingly misused its powers in a particular case, or (c), assert that the judge is corrupt or politically motivated. There is no such case here, as I have shown. Actually Judge Wiig was not even criticized, much less attacked.
Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335, 20 L. Ed. 646.
Duke v. Committee on Grievances, 65 App.D.C. 284, 82 F.2d 890.
Cobb v. United States, 9 Cir., 172 F. 641.
Rather than saying that the right of a lawyer to criticize or attack current judicial procedures is less than that of a layman, there is reason for belief that the lawyer's speaking out on such matters serves a public purpose. Court proceedings, especially criminal proceedings, have an impact on fundamental rights. It is essential that the people be informed on such rights. Lawyers are equipped to discuss them. They know, what Judge Learned Hand has said: "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it." Professor Thomas Reed Powell has been quoted as saying, "Nine men in Washington cannot hold a nation to ideals which it is determined to betray." I see no way in which it can be held that a President of a Bar Association may discuss these things but persons holding appellant's views may not.
See Chaffee, Free Speech in the United States, Chap. X.
This case bears a striking resemblance to the threatened disbarment in 1938 of one Edward Lamb, a Cleveland lawyer, said to have been a "labor lawyer". While the case never came to trial and was not reported, the part taken in it by the then Solicitor General Robert H. Jackson can be found reflected in a later decision of the Supreme Court to which I shall hereafter allude — a decision of importance here. Lamb, during the trial of a case, and in the courtroom, said directly to the judge: "We were hijacked through this court all day yesterday, and I will tell you now I don't intend to be hijacked all day today." The judge might have punished him for contempt, but did not do so. However, proceedings were brought to disbar him. The Solicitor General came to Lamb's aid, as he concluded from the record Lamb did not deserve disbarment. Jackson was criticized for going on Lamb's committee. He wrote a letter in reply to that criticism. When the letter was made public the disbarment was dropped. The letter precisely fits the situation here. Mr. Jackson noted that the court had an adequate remedy for any contempt. "For some reason this remedy was abandoned." Then followed the declaration of a rule which the author, as an Associate Justice, later wrote into an opinion: "Mere contempt of court has never been considered cause for disbarment." Mr. Jackson proceeded: "Hot words, even to a judge, do not usually deprive one of his livelihood. If you are familiar with the history of the Bar, many instances of contempt without disbarment will occur to you. Elihu Root and Willard Bartlett were, with other bar leaders, adjudged to be in contempt of court when they were defending William M. Tweed. No one suggested that either of them should be disbarred. Instead, one became a great leader of the American Bar, and the other became Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. * * * In Lamb's case, however, the Court allowed the time for appropriate remedies for Lamb's contempt to pass, and the Bar Association then proposed disbarment, which would drive Lamb from his profession for life and deprive him of a livelihood. I know of no adequate explanation of this fierce and vindicative proposal except that Lamb is a labor lawyer."
These matters were described somewhat more in detail in Mr. Justice Jackson's opinion for four of the members of the Court in In re Isserman, 345 U.S. 286, 290, 293, 73 S.Ct. 676, 97 L.Ed. 1013. The four judges were the majority who set aside the disbarment order at 348 U.S. 1, 75 S.Ct. 6, 99 L.Ed. 3.
"I do not expect a breach of conduct which would be passed, generally, with a small fine or an apology to be made the excuse for depriving a labor lawyer of his right to practice his profession, or to deprive labor of a representative who has zeal in its cause, even if the zeal is sometimes misdirected." The full text of the letter is in the margin.
In this letter Mr. Jackson suggested that the reason for that proceeding was that Lamb was a labor lawyer. Appellant here was a labor lawyer. She was also a lawyer for alleged Communists. In alluding to that I do so only for the purpose of suggesting that this circumstance is the reason I feel we should examine the facts with the greatest of caution lest our detestation of Communism obscure our vision. I make no suggestion here similar to the strictures of Mr. Jackson. I feel sure that this proceeding was instituted in good faith.
See Ackerman v. International Longshoremen's Warehousemen's Union, 9 Cir., 187 F.2d 860.
But there is one advantage we today have over the prosecutors as they stood in December, 1952. For since that time all of us have learned much about Communism, and that it is a more deadly peril than we had thought. Now we are learning that the way to fight Communism is not by aping its denial of liberty, or its suppression of freedom of speech. When this proceeding was started a generally held notion of our national peril was epitomized in the cry, "Who promoted Major Peress?" When we thought of Communist we thought only of the neighbor next door whose ideas we did not like. But today we know that the real threat comes from a different direction and it is an open one: "We'll bury you!" Free men cannot be buried. But if we insist on chipping away our heritage of liberty and freedom then indeed we shall be in danger of losing the decisive battle, — that for the minds and hearts of men. Mr. Justice Jackson put it well when he said: "I have not been one to discount the Communist evil. But my apprehensions about the security of our form of government are about equally aroused by those who refuse to recognize the dangers of Communism and those who will not see danger in anything else."
Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 227, 73 S.Ct. 625, 637, 97 L.Ed. 956 (dissenting opinion).
The second charge in the complaint relates to appellant's alleged misconduct in interviewing the juror in the Fujimoto case after the verdict had been returned. After alluding to the fact that "it has not been uncommon, if not in fact common practice," for attorneys to interrogate jurors after rendition of verdict by them, and adding that any one who " hereafter . . . interrogates one who has been . . . a juror of a trial jury", as to any occurrence in the jury room or as to what may have been persuasive in reaching the verdict "acts at his peril", the court then concluded: "However, in the instant matter, this court will let its hereinbefore expressed disciplinary order — suspending the said respondent licensee from the practice of law in the territorial courts for one year and requiring her to pay costs — suffice, although also deeming gross misconduct her said repeated interviews with and interrogations of David Fuller." (Emphasis mine) I think it is plain that the court below simply took no action on this charge. Judge Chambers said: "To us, this is a statement that the penalty for the two charges is imposed concurrently — the same penalty for both charges." The court might have said that, but it did not.
A reading of the majority opinion indicates that the court has no doubt of its power to review such a decision for it proceeds to review it at length. I thoroughly agree that we have such power. Our jurisdiction arises under § 1293 of Title 28. Most of what I have said heretofore demonstrates that we have here a case of violation of the Constitution. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit operates under the same jurisdictional statute. It has often held that in a case which presents a federal question, the whole proceeding is reviewable, and the court has jurisdiction to decide "whatever questions of local law may be presented regardless of amounts in controversy." Riera v. Mercado Riera, 1 Cir., 152 F.2d 86, 92. Moreover, this is a case "where the value in controversy exceeds $5000 exclusive of interest and costs." It is shown here, and the fact is not controverted, that one year of appellant's practice has a value to her of more than $5000. That such facts give us jurisdiction was recognized by this court in Whittemore v. Farrington, 234 F.2d 221. That was a case in which jurisdiction depended upon the value in controversy. The court found such jurisdiction was lacking because the most it could discover by way of value was some $1600 which one Edmund Leavy would have lost in trustee's fees. But in its footnote 7, (at page 225) it recognized the general principle applicable here: "For the general principle that the measure of the value in controversy, for purposes of testing the jurisdictional amount, in suits wherein the plaintiff seeks specific relief rather than damages, is the value of such relief to the plaintiff, see Hunt v. New York Cotton Exchange, 205 U.S. 322, 27 S.Ct. 529, 51 L.Ed. 821. In First State Bank v. Chicago, R.I. P.R. Co., 8 Cir., 1933, 63 F.2d 585, 90 A.L.R. 544 the rule is applied to an action brought to abate other actions."
"1293. Final decisions of Puerto Rico and Hawaii Supreme Courts.
This proof was made by affidavit in accordance with Title 28, § 2108. See De La Torre v. National City Bank of New York, 1 Cir., 110 F.2d 381, 384, approving this procedure.
The same principle is often applied in passing upon the jurisdiction of a United States district court where it is dependent upon amount in controversy. Thus in an injunction suit designed to protect a business or property the necessary amount in controversy may exist notwithstanding there may be no prayer for damages. See Hunt v. New York Cotton Exchange, 205 U.S. 322, 336, 27 S.Ct. 529, 51 L.Ed. 821; Bitterman v. Louisville N.R. Co., 207 U.S. 205, 225, 28 S.Ct. 91, 52 L.Ed. 171; Gibbs v. Buck, 307 U.S. 66, 59 S.Ct. 725, 83 L.Ed. 1111. I see no possible excuse for saying that the right to practice law is a privilege which is priceless and beyond value and hence there cannot be a value in controversy. If disbarment is sustained, Mrs. Sawyer will lose more than $5000 and that is all there is to it.
An able discussion of the propriety of procuring post-verdict affidavits from members of a jury is that of Judge Learned Hand in Jorgensen v. York Ice Machinery Corp., 2 Cir., 160 F.2d 432, 435. That was a case in which the court considered at great length affidavits of jurors presented in support of motions for new trial disclosing the deliberations in the jury room while the case was under submission. The court held that whether a new trial should have been granted was a matter within the judge's discretion, but the court assumed the propriety of procuring the testimony of the jurors as to what happened. Citing Mr. Wigmore's work on Evidence, the court criticized, as does Mr. Wigmore, the oftquoted statement that jurors may not "impeach their verdict." The court cited McDonald v. Pless, 238 U.S. 264, 268, 35 S.Ct. 783, 785, 59 L.Ed. 1300, which discussed the propriety of the use of affidavits of jurors as to what happened in the jury room. That case stated: "Both of those decisions recognize that it would not be safe to lay down any inflexible rule because there might be instances in which such testimony of the juror could not be excluded without `violating the plainest principles of justice.'" Mattox v. United States, 146 U.S. 140, 13 S.Ct. 50, 36 L.Ed. 917, furnishes an instance in which the court held that affidavits of jurors were properly used to show overt acts in the jury room which are accessible to the knowledge of all the jurors.
The whole subject of the use of such affidavits by jurors is treated at length by Wigmore, 3d Ed., Vol. 8, §§ 2352, 2354.
Suppose appellant had done much worse things. Suppose she had even been guilty of contempt of the court. The rule established by In re Isserman, 345 U.S. 286, 290, 73 S.Ct. 676, 97 L.Ed. 1013, and 348 U.S. 1, 75 S.Ct. 6, 99 L.Ed. 3, is that a lawyer is not subject to suspension or disbarment in any court merely because he has been convicted of contempt.
"We do not recall any previous instance, though not venturing to assert that there is none, where a lawyer has been disbarred by any court of the United States or of a state merely because he had been convicted of a contempt." 345 U.S. 292, 73 S.Ct. 679. This is the opinion of the four Justices who were the majority at 348 U.S. 1, 75 S.Ct. 6. See footnote 34, supra.