Opinion ID: 4448824
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Actual Obstruction

Text: Ms. Rutledge also argues that her conduct did not actually obstruct justice, because the only interference with the trial that occurred before the district court’s finding of contempt resulted from the contempt proceedings themselves. The Supreme Court has held that a district court can make a finding of criminal contempt under § 401(1) only when a person’s misbehavior causes “an actual obstruction of justice.” In re McConnell, 370 U.S. 230, 234 (1962); see also Ex parte Hudgings, 249 U.S. 378, 383 (1919) (“An obstruction to the performance of judicial duty resulting from an act done in the presence of the court is, then, the characteristic upon which the power to punish for contempt must rest. This being true, it follows that the presence of that element must clearly be shown in every case where the power to punish for contempt is exerted . . . .”). We have similarly held that “direct contempt” is permissible only to punish “contumacious conduct that may portend a threat to a court’s immediate ability to conduct its proceedings.” Contempt Order, 441 F.3d at 1268. This court has said little about the nature and extent of interference necessary to support a contempt citation. In an unpublished opinion, however, we upheld a criminal-contempt order when a defendant “delayed [a] civil trial by refusing to stand when addressing the Court and otherwise 8 refusing the instruction of the Court, and by making derogatory comments to the Court, including telling the Court ‘to hell with you.’” Parkhurst v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ., 9 F. App’x 900, 903–04 (10th Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. at 906 (Lucero, J., concurring) (the contempt order is “supported only upon the express findings that the appellant delayed the civil trial when he refused to stand when addressing the Court and that the appellant told the court ‘to hell with you.’” (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted)). Other courts have discussed more fully the degree of interference required for a finding of actual obstruction. In Seale the Seventh Circuit held that “the very delay of the proceedings occasioned by a disrespectful outburst or other misbehavior may be sufficient to constitute a material obstruction. Thus, if a not insubstantial delay is entirely unnecessary and the misconduct serves, for instance, solely to vent the speaker’s spleen, the requisite obstruction would be present.” 461 F.2d at 370. In a later case the Seventh Circuit said that “the government must prove (of course beyond a reasonable doubt) that the misbehavior actually obstructed the administration of justice—by delaying proceedings, making more work for the judge, inducing error, imposing costs on parties, or whatever.” United States v. Oberhellman, 946 F.2d 50, 52 (7th Cir. 1991). The Fifth Circuit, too, has held that “[o]bstruction can be shown by establishing that the defendant’s acts delayed the proceedings, made more work for the judge, induced error or imposed unnecessary costs on the other parties.” Ortlieb, 274 F.3d at 876 (internal quotation marks omitted). The court held that delay resulting from the need to call a bench conference or retire the jury in order to respond to a party’s remarks constituted 9 actual obstruction. See id. at 876–77. More recently, the Fourth Circuit also recognized that “[t]o satisfy the obstruction element it suffices if the defendant’s conduct interrupted the orderly process of the administration of justice by distracting court personnel from, and delaying them in, completing their duties.” Peoples, 698 F.3d at 191 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). Most in point, the D.C. Circuit has addressed an attempt to communicate with a testifying witness. In United States v. McGainey, 37 F.3d 682, 683 (D.C. Cir. 1994), courtroom deputies observed McGainey in the court’s gallery “use the forefinger and thumb of his right hand to form the shape of a gun, which he held to his head as he faced the witness stand for approximately three to five seconds.” “When [he] made eye contact with [one of the deputies], he quickly moved his hand, appeared to scratch his ear, and put his hand down.” Id. The deputies asked him to leave the courtroom, and the judge was informed. See id. The judge paused proceedings to learn more details from a deputy and then “halted [the witness’s] testimony, excused the jury, and held a bench conference to determine whether the threatening conduct had been observed by the witness, jury, or counsel.” Id. at 684. During the bench conference the witness testified that he had not seen McGainey’s hand gesture, and the judge determined it was unlikely that the jury had either. See id. After a trial before another judge, McGainey was convicted of criminal contempt under § 401(1). See id. The circuit court affirmed the conviction, rejecting the argument that the conduct at issue had not caused an actual obstruction. See id. at 684–86. The court held that although no one except court personnel had witnessed the threatening gesture, it had caused an actual obstruction of justice because it “caused a 10 significant interference with the trial proceedings, including diverting [two deputies] from their posts, and requiring [the judge] to be interrupted twice, [the witness’s] testimony to be halted, and the jury to leave the courtroom for almost 10 minutes. The judge was also obliged to engage in a colloquy with counsel at the bench in order to determine whether the threatening conduct had in any way prejudiced the trial.” Id. at 685. The court noted that the disruption was especially severe because the judge “was obliged to inquire into the matter during the trial, and, surely, the judge’s attention is the core judicial resource deployed at a crucial trial.” Id. In this case the district court found that there was an actual obstruction of justice because the court “was required to immediately stop the examination, commission a bench conference, excuse the jury, question Ms. Rutledge and [the witness] about the incident, and inquire of the attorneys how they wished to proceed, after which [the court] was required to query the jury as to whether they saw Ms. Rutledge’s actions.” Aplt. App. at 142. Ms. Rutledge does not dispute that this sort of delay might be sufficient to constitute actual obstruction, but argues that it cannot suffice in this case, because the delay and work for the district court that occurred before the finding of contempt were solely to determine whether her actions were contumacious. She points to opinions from other courts saying that the investigation into and hearing on whether a party should be held in contempt cannot themselves constitute the obstruction necessary to support a finding of contempt. See, e.g., United States v. Time, 21 F.3d 635, 641 (5th Cir. 1994) (“The time consumed by the contempt investigation itself is not considered in this [actual-obstruction] analysis.”); Oberhellman, 946 F.2d at 53 (“The requirement of 11 proving an obstruction of justice obviously cannot be satisfied by proof that the contempt proceeding itself, and such ancillary events as the complaint that touched it off, imposed costs, delay, etc. That would read the requirement of proving an obstruction of justice out of the law, for in every case of contempt the contempt proceeding itself imposes the sort of burdens that, if imposed by the act alleged to be contemptuous, would satisfy the requirement of proving an obstruction of justice.”). But see Peoples, 698 F.3d at 191 (“[W]e have held that the delay and distraction resulting from a court’s investigation of misconduct can be considered in determining if a defendant has obstructed the administration of justice.”). And though she acknowledges that some of the events the district court relied on—the court’s hearing arguments from the parties about how best to proceed with the remainder of the trial, questioning the witness as to whether she saw Ms. Rutledge’s gestures, and polling the jury as to whether they saw the gestures—were not concerned with whether she should be held in contempt, she argues that all of those events occurred after the district court’s summary contempt finding, and thus cannot support it. We can assume, without deciding, that delays related to contempt proceedings themselves cannot be the basis of a contempt finding, and that all the district court’s actions before its summary finding of contempt were focused on determining whether Ms. Rutledge had acted contumaciously. But at the time of that finding, the court surely knew that responding to her misbehavior would require some or all of the remedial steps that followed. Any attempt by a person in the courtroom to communicate with the witness on the stand for the purpose of influencing her testimony will inevitably require 12 “a judicial inquiry—which, it would seem, a trial judge would be compelled to initiate immediately—to determine whether the . . . conduct was observed by a witness or jury.” McGainey, 37 F.3d at 686. No purpose would be served by requiring the court to conduct those inquiries before expelling the offender from the courtroom and advising her of its contempt finding. Ms. Rutledge argues that a summary contempt finding was inappropriate before the actual delay and work for the judge had materialized, because the judge could not “consider all of the effects of the defendant’s misconduct,” Aplt. Br. at 45. We respectfully disagree. The full extent of the misbehavior’s effects may be an appropriate consideration for punishment, but the court here delayed determining the punishment anyway. “Whether [summary contempt] is necessary in a particular case is a matter the Rule wisely leaves to the discretion of the trial court.” United States v. Wilson, 421 U.S. 309, 316–17 (1975). Ms. Rutledge has not shown that the district court abused its discretion in this case.