Court Opinion

ID: 9650857
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:53:32.534893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:08.681867
License: Public Domain

RIDDICK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In a summary proceeding in the court from which this appeal comes, the appellants were found guilty of contempt of court. There is no question here of the enormity of the crime of the appellants, nor does any one contend that they do not deserve punishment, nor doubt the importance in the due administration of justice of their prosecution as the law directs. But no one will deny the greater importance of the strict observance by federal courts of the limits of their authority fixed by the Congress which created them. The real question on this appeal is the very power of the lower court to proceed in the manner followed in this case. In the words of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Nye case, the question of the power of the federal courts to punish con-tempts raises matters of grave importance.
The Congress has carefully limited the power of the lower federal courts in cases like the one here. The applicable statutes follow:
“(Judicial Code, section 268.) Administration of oaths; contempts. The said courts shall have power to impose and administer all necessary oaths, and to punish, by fine or imprisonment, at the discretion of the court, contempts of their authority. Such power to punish contempts shall not be construed to extend to any cases except the misbehavior of any person in their *688presence, or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice, the misbehavior of any of the officers of said courts in their official transactions, and the disobedience or resistance by any such officer, or by any party, juror, witness, or other person to any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of the said courts (R.S., § 725; Mar. 3, 1911, c. 231, § 268, 36 Stat. 1163.)” 28 U.S.C.A. § 385.
“(Criminal Code, section 135.) Attempting to influence witness, juror, or officer. Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, shall endeavor to influence, intimidate, or impede any witness, in any court of the United States or before any United States -commissioner or offic.er acting as such commissioner, or any grand or petit juror, or officer in or of any court of the United States, or officer who may be serving at any examination or other proceeding before any United States commissioner, or officer acting as such commissioner, in the discharge of his duty, or who corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, shall influence, obstruct, or impede, or endeavor to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice therein, shall be fined not more than $1,000, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both (R.S. §§ 5399, 5404; Mar. 4, 1909, c. 321, § 135, 35 Stat. 1113.)” 18 U.S.C.A. § 241.
The statutes, in their present form, derive from an Act of Congress passed in 1831 for the specific purpose of limiting the power of the federal courts to deal with contempts. As originally adopted in 1831, 4 Stat. 487, 488, the Act was entitled “An act declaratory of the law concerning contempts of court.” Its legislative history and the cause which inspired its adoption by the Congress are set out in the Nye case and in the authorities mentioned in that opinion. In its original form the Act was in two sections, the first of which, without substantial change, is now § 268 of the Judicial Code. The second section, also without change pertinent to the present case, is now § 135 of the Criminal Code.
The mandate of the Congress as expressed in § 268 of the Judicial Code is that the summary power of the lower federal courts in respect to contempts “shall not be construed to extend to any cases except the misbehavior of any person in their presence, or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice.” This would seem direct and plain enough standing alone. But the language must be construed in connection with the provision of § 135 of the Criminal Code, historically a part of the same Act,, which is that one “who corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or -communication, shall influence, obstruct, or impede, or endeavor to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration.of justice” in a federal court “shall be fined not more than $1,000, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” The plain command of § 135 of the Judicial Code is that one guilty of corruptly obstructing or attempting to obstruct justice in a court of the United States shall be tried as criminals are commonly tried, that is, before a jury upon indictment. The section of the criminal code and the section of the judicial code under consideration being derived from the same Act, must be construed together, and so construed § 135 o-f the Criminal Code sharply delimits the powers of the federal courts under § 268 of the Judicial Code summarily to punish contempts. Beyond question the appellants here were guilty o'f corruptly obstructing the due administration of justice in a court of the United States, and they were subject to trial and punishment as provided by § 135 of the Criminal Code. But were they also liable to punishment summarily under the provisions of § 268 of the Judicial Code as held in the majority opinion? That they were not is clearly established by the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Nye case, 313 U.S. 33, 61 S.Ct. 810, 85 L.Ed. 1172, construing the statutes under discussion.
In the Nye case, Elmore, an illiterate who was feeble in mind and body, as administrator of the estate of his son, brought an action in the federal District Court against Council and Bernard to recover damages for the death of his son. Nye, a son-in-law of Council, and Mayers, a tenant of Nye, neither being a party to the case, fraudulently induced Elmore to ask dismissal of the action. Through the use of liquor and by fraud, they procured from Elmore letters addressed to the district judge and to Elmore’s counsel, requesting that the case be dismissed. The letters in question were prepared by a lawyer employed by Nye for the purpose. The same attorney prepared for Elmore a final accounting in the administration of his *689son’s estate. Nye took Elmore to the state probate court where the final accounting was approved and Elmore was discharged as administrator. Nye paid the costs of this proceeding and transmitted the order of discharge to counsel for the defendants in the case. Elmore’s request for dismissal of the case was made on April 19, 1939, and on June 20, 1939, Nye and Elmore’s son were examined under oath before the court concerning the circumstances surrounding Elmore’s request that his case be dismissed. Doubtless attorneys for the parties were present in the court on .this occasion. On August 29, 1939, the defendants moved to dismiss Elmore’s action on the ground that he had been discharged as administrator. A hearing was held on that motion at which counsel were present. It is stated in the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals (4 Cir., 113 F.2d 1006), and in Note 2 of the opinion of .the Supreme Court of the United States, that the citation for contempt issued against Nye and Mayers was caused by the motion to dismiss presented by defendants’ counsel. Action on the motion to dismiss was postponed by the court on the request of Elmore’s counsel, who conducted an investigation revealing the facts upon which Nye and Mayers were summarily tried and found guilty of contempt.
The District Court found that the acts of Nye and Mayers were done for the express purpose of preventing the prosecution of a civil action in the court and that they intended to and did “obstruct and impede the due administration of justice.” Upon appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals, the judgment of the District Court was affirmed. On certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States, the judgment was reversed, the Court saying [313 U.S. 33, 61 S.Ct. 812, 85 L.Ed. 1172]: “We granted the petition for certiorari because the interpretation of the power of the federal courts under § 268 of the Judicial Code to punish contempts raised matters of grave importance.” In reaching this result, the opinion of the Court in Toledo Newspaper Company v. United States, 247 U.S. 402, 38 S.Ct. 560, 565, 62 L.Ed. 1186, 1187, a case which had been universally accepted for more than twenty years as the leading authority upon the question of the power of the federal courts to deal summarily with contempts, was expressly overruled, and the Court returned to the earlier construction of the Act of Congress which limited the summary power of the lower federal courts in matters of contempt to those instances which occurred in the actual presence of the court, or so near thereto as to interrupt or disturb the orderly discharge of the judicial function.
Of the conduct of Nye and Mayers the Court said: “The acts complained of took place miles from the District Court. The evil influence which affected Elmore was in no possible sense in the ‘presence’ of the court or ‘near thereto’.” and “The fact that in purpose and effect there was an obstruction in -the administration of justice did not bring the condemned conduct within the vicinity of the court in any normal meaning of the term. It was not misbehavior in the vicinity of the court disrupting to quiet and order or actually interrupting the court in .the conduct of its business.” The Court cited with approval the case of Ex parte Poulson, 19 Fed.Cas. page 1205, 1208, No. 11,350, decided by a District Court in 1835, in which it was held that the power of the federal courts to deal summarily with contempts was limited “to that kind of misbehavior which is calculated to disturb the order of the court, such as noise, tumultuous or disorderly behavior, therein or so near to it, as to prevent its proceeding in the orderly dispatch of its business”; and to its earlier decision in Ex parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505, 511, 22 L.Ed. 205, in which the Court expressly held that the power of the lower federal courts to punish summarily for contempts “can only be exercised to insure order and decorum in [court].” And it said “meticulous regard for those separate categories of offenses must be had, so that the instances where there is no right to jury trial will be narrowly restricted.”
I perceive no distinction between the Nye case and this case. None is drawn by the majority opinion. The crime of Nye and Mayers was trivial when compared with the crime of the appellants in this case, but that fact alone is not sufficient to change the law applicable to the defendants in both cases. It is conceded in the majority opinion that none of the acts of the appellants which resulted in a dismissal of the insurance rate litigation occurred in the presence of the court within the meaning of the statute, but importance is attached to the.fact that counsel representing the parties appeared in court and defended the settlement of the case which the court *690was asked to prove. This appearance of counsel and their laudatory remarks concerning the settlement, in the view of .the majority, brought the contempt into the presence of the court. But counsel were present in court in the Nye case, advocating a disposition of a suit there pending, which had been arranged by fraud. I cannot conceive that the Supreme Court of the United States overlooked the appearance of counsel in court in the Nye case, if any importance could have been attached to it, when in the words of the Court, it took the case for review because “of grave importance” of the issues involved, and when in deciding those issues, the Court overruled its leading opinion upon the question involved, of more than twenty years’ standing. The arguments of counsel were not of consequence in the crime of contempt since by the mere filing of the motion requesting the court’s approval of the fraudulent settlement, counsel asserted their belief in its integrity as emphatically as it might be asserted.
The second distinction between the Nye case and the present case attempted by the majority opinion is based on the assertion that in the Nye case, Elmore, a feeble-minded person, was deceived, while here the court itself was deceived. But Nye and Mayers were not punished for deceiving. the incompetent Elmore. They were convicted under § 268 of the Judicial Code for attempting to obstruct justice in a federal court. The court had no jurisdiction of Nye and Mayers on a charge of criminally defrauding Elmore, and it did not attempt to exercise such a jurisdiction. The matters involved there, like the matters involved here, concerned the administration of justice in a court of the United States. In the Nye case the attempt was discovered before the court acted. In the present case it was not discovered until after action by the court. But in both cases the parties were equally guilty of the same crime under the same statute. Success is not a necessary element in the crime of obstructing justice. The statute denounces the attempt as well as its accomplishment.
The question of the power of a federal court to act in any case is always a question of importance. It is never, as intimated in the opinion of the District Court, a mere .technicality. But in cases in which the question is of the power of the court to punish a criminal summarily in a manner different from that commonly and ordinarily provided for criminal trials, the question of the court’s power must be of the gravest importance. The gravity of the crime only adds to the gravity of the question with which the court is confronted. In the administration of justice the courts are in duty bound to exercise the full jurisdiction conferred upon them, and equally bound not to exceed it.
In view of my opinion that the lower court was without jurisdiction to proceed summarily, it is not necessary to discuss other points raised by the appellants. I think the judgment of the lower court should be reversed.