Court Opinion

ID: 9425834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:56.519486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:57.844712
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
concurring in part.
I concur in the judgment of the Court, and in Parts I and III of the Court’s opinion. However, I cannot join Part II of the opinion, which suggests that the trial judge in a situation such as we have here could impose an unlimited number of separate, consecutive six-month sentences upon a defendant “for separate contemptuous acts during trial,” so long as the judge convicts and punishes summarily upon the occurrence of each contemptuous act. In my view, the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial would be equally applicable to this situation.
I
The Court’s opinion observes that “[t]he Sixth Amendment represents a 'deep commitment of the Nation to the right of jury trial in serious criminal cases as a defense against arbitrary law enforcement.’ ” Ante, at 515-516, quoting Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 156 (1968). The opinion further recognizes that it is the trial judge who in a single proceeding acts as prosecutor, “determin[ing] which and how many acts of contempt the citation will cover”; as trier of fact, “determin[ing] guilt or innocence absent a jury”; and as judge, “impos[ing] the sentences and . . . determining] whether they will run con*519secutively or concurrently.” Ante, at 515. Thus, the Court concludes, “there is posed the very likelihood of arbitrary action that the requirement of jury trial was intended to avoid or alleviate.” Ibid. I agree. But I completely fail to see how there is any less likelihood of such arbitrary action by a judge when he acts summarily to punish each allegedly contemptuous act by a defendant as it occurs, rather than awaiting the end of trial to try the contempts. Indeed, the suggestion provides an incentive for a trial judge to act in the heat of the moment, and thus encourages the very arbitrary action which it is the purpose of the Sixth Amendment to eliminate.
We have held that a six-month sentence is the constitutional dividing line between serious offenses for which trial by jury must be afforded and petty offenses, and that in contempt cases it is the sentence actually imposed rather than the penalty authorized by law which is determinative. Accordingly, the Court today holds that Codispoti and Langnes are constitutionally entitled to a jury trial because “[i]n terms of the sentence imposed, which was obviously several times more than six months, each contemnor was tried for what was equivalent to a serious offense.” Ante, at 517. The Court rejects the State's argument that the individual contempts were separate offenses for Sixth Amendment purposes by pointing out that the contempts arose from a single trial, that they were charged by a single judge, and that the individual sentences were then aggregated. With all due respect, the same would be true if the judge had imposed summary punishment as the contemptuous acts occurred. Where the contemptuous acts arose out of a single course of conduct by the defendant, I think that they should be treated as a single serious offense for which the Sixth Amendment requires a jury trial, whether the judge seeks *520to use his summary contempt power in individual instances during trial or tries the contempts together at the end of trial. See N. Dorsen & L. Friedman, Disorder in the Court: Report of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Special Committee on Courtroom Conduct 222-224 (1973).
The only justification advanced by the Court to support the contrary position is the “overriding necessity for instant action to preserve order.” Ante, at 515. But we rejected this very argument in Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 194, 209-210 (1968). There, too, it was suggested that an exception to the constitutional rule requiring jury trial in serious contempt cases should be made for contempts committed in the presence of the judge because of “the need to maintain order and a deliberative atmosphere in the courtroom.” Although we acknowledged that there was a “strong temptation” to do so, we held that the need to maintain order was not sufficient to justify an exception to the constitutional requirement.
II
Equally important, I am convinced that there is no “overriding necessity” for repeated use of the summary contempt power against a criminal defendant to maintain order in the courtroom. No clearer statement of the problem of courtroom disorder and its solution can be found than Mr. Justice Black’s statement in Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337, 343-344 (1970):
“It is essential to the proper administration of criminal justice that dignity, order, and decorum be the hallmarks of all court proceedings in our country. The flagrant disregard in the courtroom of elementary standards of proper conduct should not and cannot be tolerated. We believe trial judges confronted with disruptive, contumacious, stubbornly *521defiant defendants must be given sufficient discretion to meet the circumstances of each case. No one formula for maintaining the appropriate courtroom atmosphere will be best in all situations. We think there are at least three constitutionally permissible ways for a trial judge to handle an obstreperous defendant like Allen: (1) bind and gag him, thereby keeping him present; (2) cite him for contempt; (3) take him out of the courtroom until he promises to conduct himself properly.”
The Court in Allen set out three alternative ways of dealing with courtroom disorder. Today my Brothers single out one of these three alternatives and sanction the use of seriatim judge-imposed six-month sentences to maintain order and a deliberative atmosphere in the courtroom because of the necessity for this remedy. There is nothing in Allen, however, that approves a succession of judge-imposed six-month contempt citations in one trial, and I have been unable to find any of our cases giving such specific authorization. This is too big a step to take where such a positive declaration of law is not necessary for the decision of the case at hand.
The availability of the other remedies set forth in Allen is persuasive proof that courtroom disorder can be effectively dealt with without the use of repeated summary contempts resulting in lengthy jail terms. See N. Dorsen & L. Friedman, supra, at 235. Indeed, repeated contempt citations are probably the least effective way to deal with the problem. The very fact that a series of contempt citations has failed to check the defendant’s contemptuous acts and restore a deliberative atmosphere in the courtroom itself demonstrates that another citation is unlikely to do so. Either of the other two alternatives set forth in Allen would correct rather than prolong the disruptions of an orderly trial. Rather than permit the *522use of repeated contempt citations resulting in a sentence of over six months, Allen suggests that after an initial warning, see 397 U. S., at 350 (Brennan, J., concurring), the next disruption could be punished with a contempt citation and a six-month sentence, plus a firm warning that any further disruption will be followed by binding or gagging the defendant or removing him from the courtroom until he promises to conduct himself properly. This approach would be more effective in maintaining that “dignity, order, and decorum” of which Mr. Justice Black spoke in Allen than successive contempt citations after future disruptions, without running afoul of the Sixth Amendment’s right to jury trial.