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CHEFF V. SCHNACKENBERG, 384 U. S. 373 (1966) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
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(a) Petitioner's contention that contempt proceedings stemming from administrative law enforcement proceedings are civil, rather than criminal, is irrelevant, since a jury trial is not required in civil contempt proceedings. Shillitani v. United States, ante, p. 384 U. S. 364. P. 384 U. S. 377. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
2. The prevailing opinion's new supervisory power rule may generate difficulty for federal courts seeking to implement locally unpopular decrees and create an administrative problem for the trial judge, who in deciding whether to proffer a jury trial must anticipate the sentence, which in turn depends on the evidence revealed in the trial. P. 384 U. S. 382. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Upon petition of the Federal Trade Commission, Cheff was charged, along with Holland Furnace Company and 10 other of its officers, with criminal contempt of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The alleged contemnors were tried before a panel of three judges of the Court of Appeals without a jury. The corporation and three of its officers, including Cheff, were found guilty of violating a previous order of that court. Cheff, a former president and chairman of the board of Holland, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment; the other two officers were fined $500 each; and the corporation was fined $100,000. The remaining eight individuals were acquitted. 341 F.2d 548. Cheff and Holland petitioned for certiorari. We denied Holland's petition, Holland Furnace Co. v. Schnackenberg, 381 U.S. 924, and granted Cheff's, limited to a review of the question whether, after a denial of a demand for a jury, a sentence of imprisonment of six months is constitutionally permissible under Article III and the Sixth Amendment. Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 382 U.S. 917. We hold that Cheff was not entitled to a jury trial, and affirm the judgment. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
There can be no doubt that the courts of appeals have the power to punish for contempt. 18 U.S.C. § 401 chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
(1964 ed.). See e.g., cases cited in United States v. Barnett, 376 U. S. 681, 376 U. S. 694, n. 12 (1964). And it matters not that the contempt arises indirectly from proceedings of an administrative agency. Cheff was found in contempt of the Court of Appeals, not of the Commission. The sole ground for the contempt proceedings is stated in the initial order served on Cheff and the other parties to show cause why they should not be adjudged in criminal contempt of that court, for violations of that court's pendente lite order. Indeed, Cheff's answer itself verified that he had not violated, disobeyed, and failed and refused to comply with "an order of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit entered on August 5, 1959. . . ." (Italics added.) In addition, the Court of Appeals itself was quite specific in limiting the contempt charges to "cover the period from August 5, 1959, to the entry of the final judgment [in October, 1961] by this court." 341 F.2d 550. As the court clearly had the authority to enter its interlocutory order, Federal Trade Commission Act, § 5, 38 Stat. 719, as amended, 15 U.S.C. § 45(c) (1964 ed.), it follows that the court has the power to punish for contempt any disobedience of that order.
Cheff's next and chief contention is that criminal contempt proceedings are criminal actions falling within the requirements of Article III and the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution. 384 U. S. 694, n. 12. Cheff, however, would have us hold that the right to jury trial attaches in all criminal contempts and not merely in those which are outside the category of "petty offenses."
According to 18 U.S.C. § 1 (1964 ed.), "[a]ny misdemeanor, the penalty for which does not exceed imprisonment for a period of six months" is a "petty offense." chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
By the opinions in these cases, two new limitations on the use of the federal contempt power are inaugurated. In Cheff, it is announced that prison sentences for criminal chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The decision to extend the right to jury trial to criminal contempts ending in sentences greater than six months is the product of the views of four Justices who rest that conclusion on the Court's supervisory power and those of two others who believe that jury trials are constitutionally required in all but "petty" criminal contempts. The four Justices who rely on the supervisory power also find the constitutional question a "difficult" one. Ante at 384 U. S. 356. However, as recently as 1958, this Court, in Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165, unequivocally declared that the prosecution of criminal contempts was not subject to the grand and petit jury requirements of Art. III, § 2, of the Constitution and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. This doctrine, which was accepted by federal judges in the early days of the Republic [Footnote 1] and has been steadfastly adhered to in chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The prevailing opinion's new supervisory power rule seems to me equally infirm. The few sentences devoted to this dictum give no reason why a six-month limitation is desirable. Nor is there anything about the sentences actually imposed in these instances that warrants reappraisal of the present practice in contempt sentencing. In Cheff itself, the sentence was for six months. Shillitani and Pappadio involved two-year sentences, but each was moderated by a purge clause, and seemingly in neither case were there disputed facts suitable for a jury. Among the prominent shortcomings of the new rule, which are simply disregarded, is the difficulty it may generate for federal courts seeking to implement locally unpopular decrees. Another problem is in administration: to decide whether to proffer a jury trial, the judge must now look ahead to the sentence, which itself depends on the precise facts the trial is to reveal. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Without arguing about which purpose was primary, obviously a fixed sentence with a purge clause can be said to embody elements of both criminal and civil contempt. However, so far as the safeguards of criminal contempt proceedings may be superior to civil, the petitioners have not been disadvantaged in this regard, nor do they chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
I adhere to the view expressed in the dissents in Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165, 356 U. S. 193, and United States v. Barnett, 376 U. S. 681, 376 U. S. 724, 376 U. S. 728, that criminal contempt is a "crime" within the meaning of Art. III, § 2, of the Constitution and a "criminal prosecution" within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment, both of which guarantee the right to trial by jury in such cases. [Footnote 2/1] Punishment for contempt was largely a minor affair at the time the Constitution was adopted, the lengthy penalties of the sort imposed today being a relatively recent innovation. [Footnote 2/2] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Thus the Attorney General, in an advisory letter dated January 26, 1966, to Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus R. Vance, concluded that a conviction for criminal contempt could properly be applied to exclude an Army veteran from burial in Arlington National Cemetery. Exclusion was based on a regulation (30 Fed.Reg. 8996) which denies burial in a national cemetery to a person chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The prevailing opinion today suggests that a jury is required where the sentence imposed exceeds six months, but not when it is less than that period. This distinction was first noted in a footnote in the Barnett case, where the Court drew an analogy to prosecutions for "petty offenses," which need not be tried by jury. [Footnote 2/4] The prevailing opinion today seeks to buttress this distinction by reference to 18 U.S.C. § 1, which declares that an offense the penalty for which does not exceed six months is a chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
held that the offense charged -- conspiracy -- was not among them. Id. at 127 U. S. 555. In Natal v. Louisiana, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The most recent case is District of Columbia v. Clawans, 300 U. S. 617, where the offense charged was chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Resolution of the question of whether a particular offense is or is not "petty" cannot be had by confining the inquiry to the length of sentence actually imposed. That is only one of many factors. As the analysis of the Court in Clawans demonstrates, the character of the offense itself must be considered. The relevance of the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The dictum in Barnett errs, further, because it looks to the length of sentence actually imposed, rather than the potential sentence. The relevance of the sentence, as we have seen, is that it sheds light on the seriousness with which the community and the legislature regard the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Constitution, as I see it, thus requires a trial by jury for the crime of criminal contempt, as it does for all other crimes. Should Congress wish it, an exception could be made for any designated class of contempts which, all factors considered, could truly be characterized as "petty." [Footnote 2/10] Congress has not attempted to isolate and chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It would be a project more than faintly reminiscent of declaring "common law crimes," a power which has been denied the federal judiciary since the beginning of our republic. See 11 U. S. 485. It is, of course, true that, in the [email protected] case itself, the Court -- while holding the judiciary powerless to exercise a common law criminal jurisdiction -- set contempt apart from this general restriction:
Id. at 11 U. S. 34. [Footnote 2/11] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary