Court Opinion

ID: 9700187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:15:18.526221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:02.682940
License: Public Domain

JONES, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. The law has long recognized the need for permitting a judge to summarily find a person in contempt of court where that person directly and seriously affronts the judicial process. Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970); Commonwealth v. Patterson, 452 Pa. 457, 308 A.2d 90 (1973). However, the United States Supreme Court has established a significant limitation on the use of summary contempt citations, holding that unless the finding of contempt is an immediate response to the contemptor’s conduct due process dictates that the contemptor have the right to a separate hearing on the charge of contempt. Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U.S. 455, 91 S.Ct. 499, 27 L.Ed.2d 532 (1971). This limitation is a reflection of the balance struck by the court between (1) the need to insure the integrity and decorum of (our) judicial proceedings and (2) the need to insure the Constitutional due process rights of the individual faced with a possible jail sentence.
At first glance, the case before us appears to fit within the rule established in Mayberry, supra, that is, that since the appellants were not held in contempt until the *628morning following the contemptuous conduct a summary proceeding was not permissible. A closer examination, however, reveals the fallacy of such a view.
Here, the judge was faced with a number of boisterous and profane defendants proceeding pro se and a courtroom full of their followers. Throughout the day of trial preceding the contempt finding the judge, witnesses, spectators and court employees were assaulted verbally by the defendants and their friends. The judge on numerous occasions attempted to reestablish order and finally late in the day directed the police to bind and gag the defendants. It was this final attempt by the judge which lead to a general uproar from the defendants’ followers in the audience. The judge, recognizing the danger inherent in the situation, i. e., an imminent violent outbreak, ordered the trial adjourned until the next day. Upon reconvening in the morning, a mistrial was ordered and the defendants were held in contempt.
It was the conduct of the defendants and of their followers which brought about the need for an immediate adjournment. To have cited the defendants for contempt at such a volatile point would almost certainly have touched off a small scale riot, which would have further affronted the court’s integrity and decorum, in addition to placing all of those present in physical danger. Under these circumstances, the delaying of the contempt citation until the following day was the trial judge’s only alternative. The conduct was certainly of such a nature as to warrant the imposition of summary contempt.
The majority’s holding today places all judges in the precarious position of having to bow to the physical intimidation of every large group acting in unison before the courts. That is, in every instance where a group can present sufficient physical danger as to warrant an immediate adjournment they can effectively delay indefinitely any punishment for said conduct. Each time the *629hearing on the initial contemptuous conduct is held the same conduct can be brought to bear, rendering the subsequent process impossible. The judge then is faced with citing instantly for contempt and men quelling the ensuing fracas or further delaying. This situation seems unworkable.
Here, the judge did what he felt was necessary to protect himself, the spectators, and the court employees by adjourning the trial. He delayed the contempt citation until the following morning when the group was not at such a frantic peak. The citation of contempt at that time was for all intent and purposes an immediate response to the contemptuous conduct, in that it was rendered at the next possible moment after said conduct. The fact that that moment came the following morning was a product of the defendants’ conduct rather than of the court and should therefore not serve to strip the court of its long recognized summary contempt power in this case. Therefore, I would affirm.