Court Opinion

ID: 9636838
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:44:49.583774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:50.136294
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Associate Justice.
This is a petition for a writ of mandamus to reinstate counsel in a trial. James J. Laughlin, the petitioner, is a member of the bar. Edward C. Eicher, the respondent, is Chief Justice of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia and is presiding in United States v. McWilliams et al., D.C., 54 F.Supp. 791, commonly called the sedition trial.
Until July 5, 1944, petitioner represented two of the defendants in that trial. On that day, respondent called upon the attorneys who were concerned in the matter to “explain or justify or make such showing as they see fit with regard to” the formation by them of a certain “club, as they see fit to call it,” which seemed “prima facie at least” to show contempt of the court. One attorney, Mr. Koehne, volunteered the irrelevant information that he had learned from a newspaper that petitioner had filed with the Speaker of the House of Representatives a petition for respondent’s impeachment. Mr. Koehne then read an “opposition” which he had filed, in which he stated that the impeachment petition insofar as it related to the pending trial was meritless, not in good faith, and filed for the purpose of hindering the administration of justice. Respondent made no comment and called upon other attorneys. One of them, Mr. Dilling, assumed responsibility for the “club” and its badges and assured the court that no contempt was intended. Respondent called another name and then petitioner’s.
Petitioner did not confine himself to the matter of the club. He did not even mention it specifically. After asserting generally that “there never was any attempt to be in contempt of court” and that he was “honestly and diligently trying to do [his] duty,” he proceeded to attack respondent’s conduct as a judge and to defend the impeachment petition. He said: “We have felt you have stripped from us, by your attitude on the bench, . the right to represent our defendants in accordance with the constitutional provision. They are guaranteed a fair and impartial trial ... It would seem strange that in just one trial so many attorneys would go so far astray as to incur the displeasure of your Honor . If we feel that your Honor is favoring the Government, that is, time after time, you grant every whim and every wish of theirs and at the same time deny the same request *701that we make, then, of eourse, we would be less than men if we did not in an orderly and legal way bring that to your Honor’s attention. Of course, there is the duty on all of us to maintain respect of the courts . If our courts fail, what have we left? We know in the last ten years many things have happened that [have] shaken the confidence of the people of the United States to the very foundation. Take, in the case of Judge Mantón, who was sent to the United States Penitentiary ... I say there is a duty on the part of all of us to maintain but, by the same token, the courts must merit that respect and must merit that confidence. I say that certainly all the vice cannot be on one side and all the virtue on the other side.
“That would suffice if your Honor did not permit another attorney, Mr. Koehne, to make certain statements which I cannot, as a matter of personal honor, permit to go unchallenged. I want to say this: It is true that there was an impeachment filed with the Speaker of the House of Representatives. 1 submit any citizen of the United States, if he is aggrieved has the right to petition for an impeachment of a public officer . . . So, availing myself when this thing went on day after day and week after [week] . . ., I felt it was high time that we could appeal to the only tribunal that could take care of such a situation as this, and there was an impeachment filed with the Speaker of the House of Representatives . . . Since you have permitted Mr. Koehne to read a certain portion of the petition for impeachment, I think I ought to have a right to refer to the impeachment itself. It is headed: ‘Petition for Impeachment of Edward C. Eicher, Chief Justice of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia.’ ”
At this point respondent said: “By the way, Mr. Laughlin, that has nothing to do with the subject matter that the court suggested for discussion this afternoon. The Court had no information as to what Mr. Koehne’s remarks were going to be. He was given the privilege to speak in his own defense in regard to the matter that the Court suggested.” In regard to that matter, i.e., the so-called club, respondent subsequently said: “The Court is quite happy to accept Mr. Dilling’s explanation of the matter and to end the incident in this court.”
The following colloquy then occurred:
“The Court. Now, that brings the Court to another matter the Court feels should be explored and determined before the jury returns tomorrow morning, and that is the matter arising in connection with 1 the petition for impeachment of this Court filed by one of counsel in the case, Mr. Laughlin, with the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“At this point, the Court offers for the record, a copy of said petition for impeachment, and the Court now calls upon Mr. Laughlin in open court to show cause why he should not be dismissed from further participation in this case as counsel for either of the two defendants heretofore represented by him in the case, and denied further participation in this trial as counsel for the defendant [s].
“Mr. Laughlin, you may be heard.
“Mr. Laughlin. I submit your Honor has no power to call upon me. Any citizen of the United States has a right to petition Congress for the impeachment of any officer of the United States. I exercised the constitutional right given me, and filed with the Speaker of the House, and I am prepared, when the appropriate committee of Congress calls upon me — I have asked that committee — or I have suggested to the Speaker in the petition that it make request of the Department of Justice for the transcript of proceedings in this case so that they can deal more intelligently with the subject matter of the petition. So, I say your Honor is without power at this stage to take any notice. You would be usurping the function of another branch of the Government. That is beyond your power.
“The Court. Is that all you have to say?
“Mr. Laughlin. That is all I have to say.
“The Court. Very well.
“It is the order of this court, Mr. Laughlin, that you are dismissed from this court as an attorney of record for either Mr. Smythe or Mr. Noble, or for any other of the defendants for whom you have heretofore appeared as associate counsel; that you be denied further participation in this case or in the trial of it; that you are ordered to turn over to and to surrender to your successor counsel all papers, documents or matters of evidence in any way affecting the defense of the defendants that you have heretofore represented.”
*702Petitioner took exception to respondent’s order, left the courtroom, returned next day, was expelled, and applied to this court for a writ of mandamus to require respondent to reinstate him as one of counsel in the trial. By an equal division of its then sitting members, this court denied the writ and afterwards denied a petition for rehearing. Petitioner then moved for leave to file a second petition for a writ of mandamus. We now grant leave to file but deny the petition for the writ.
The petition to the House of Representatives for respondent’s impeachment, which petitioner publicly filed while the trial was pending, is in the record. It contains highly derogatory assertions, some of them fantastic, regarding respondent’s alleged relation to the trial and his alleged conduct of the trial, and is in effect a public profession of contempt for respondent’s character. An attorney who publishes such a document during the trial to which it relates should ask to be excused from the trial. His further participation would be useful neither to his client nor to the court and would seriously embarrass counsel, court, and defendants. It is immaterial in this connection whether petitioner’s publication is protected by the rights of petition and of free speech or is a criminal attempt to obstruct justice, for his continued participation in the trial would be equally harmful in either case.
Petitioner did not stop with publicly filing the petition for impeachment. He voluntarily stated in open court that he had filed it. By clear implication he asserted in open court that its charges were true. In open court he accused the respondent of gross and habitual misconduct in the trial. He invited respondent to consider the crime and punishment of Judge Mantón. All this had not even the excuse of relevance to any motion or matter before the court. All this was contempt in the court’s presence.
Respondent might, of course, have punished petitioner for this contempt. But petitioner had already been punished twice, once by respondent and once by another judge, for contemptuous conduct in this trial. Respondent turned from punishment to prevention. He might have instituted proceedings for petitioner’s disbarment or suspension from practice. He chose a more lenient2 and more promptly effective course. He exercised only the elementary right of a court to protect its pending proceedings, which includes the right to dismiss from them an attorney who cannot or will not take part in them with a reasonable degree of propriety.3
Petitioner’s attack upon the order of dismissal rests upon all of the following assumptions, each of which we think erroneous :
(1) That it was possible, as a mental operation, to dissociate Laughlin the attorney who filed the impeachment petition from Laughlin the attorney who in open court acknowledged and defended its filing and at the same time attacked respondent’s character, and who had previously committed other contempts during the trial.
(2) That respondent elected to make that abstraction and to be uninfluenced, in deciding to dismiss petitioner from the trial, by petitioner’s misconduct in the trial itself. Such a course, if at all possible, would be illogical and unlikely. We find in the entire transcript no evidence that respondent took that course or tried to take it. He gave no reason for his order of dismissal. It is evident that he was largely influenced either by the filing of the impeachment petition or by petitioner’s defense of it in court or both. There is nothing to show that he was not influenced, as we think any judge must have been in*703fluenced, by petitioner’s other misconduct in the trial.
(3) That petitioner’s public attack upon respondent in the impeachment petition, pending the trial, was not a valid reason for dismissing him from the trial. We think that attack, in itself, made it so improper for petitioner to remain in the trial that it would have justified his dismissal.
(4) That respondent’s supposed selection of a supposed invalid reason for his order would vitiate the order. The law is to the contrary. Appellate courts sustain judgments which they think were right for other reasons than those which trial courts gave.
Petition for writ of mandamus denied.

 Emphasis supplied.

 In Brown v. Miller, 52 App.D.C. 330, 333, 286 F. 994, 997, which sustained the trial court’s dismissal of an attorney from a particular trial because of his previous employment by his client’s opponent, this court said: “One contention made by appellant is that this proceeding is in the nature of a disbarment, and should, if at all, have been instituted and prosecuted as such. The rules of court upon which appellant relies provide for disbarment proceedings, but expressly state that the provisions thereof shall not deprive the court of any further power in the premises which it may possess, and the statutes cited by appellant in this connection are equally elastic. We find therein no prohibition expressed or implied against a proceeding of this character. It would indeed be singular, in a case like this, to hold that the proceedings below must come to naught because of a character more favorable to the appellant than might have been invoked against him.”

 Brown v. Miller, supra; Kelley v. Boettcher, 8 Cir., 82 F. 794, Brewer, Sanborn and Thayer, JJ.; State v. Crum, 7 N.D. 299, 74 N.W. 992.