Court Opinion

ID: 9696372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:46:10.998394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:21.809544
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(dissenting).
During the course of his closing argument to the jury, appellant, A. Benjamin Johnson, Esquire, accused the trial judge of acting in collusion with the assistant district attorney, accused the assistant district attorney of withholding evidence, injected his own credibility as well as that of the assistant district attorney into the case, and rudely responded to the trial judge’s attempt to as*562certain how long Mr. Johnson’s already lengthy summation would continue. On the basis of these comments and in accordance with the statutory authorization set forth in subsection I of the Act of July 16, 1836, P.L. 784, § 23, 17 P.S. § 2041 (1962) [hereinafter “subsection I” or “the Act of 1836”], appellant was adjudged in contempt of court. The Court today (1) concludes that subsection I does not authorize a court to hold in contempt a lawyer whose misconduct during trial brings the authority of the court into disrespect; (2) holds instead that such conduct may be punished, if at all, only under the standards set forth in subsection III of the Act of 1836; and (3) decides that the challenged comments of appellant may not properly be punished under that subsection. Because I believe that the majority has misconstrued subsection I, has misapplied subsection III and has reached an incorrect result, I am compelled to dissent.
The Act of 1836 serves as a restriction on the inherent power of the courts to uphold the dignity and authority of their proceedings through punishments for contempt. Snyder’s Case, 301 Pa. 276, 284, 152 A. 33 (1930). See also Appeal of Levine, 372 Pa. 612, 95 A.2d 222, cert. denied 346 U.S. 858, 74 S.Ct. 72, 98 L.Ed. 371 (1953); Schlesinger v. Musmanno, 367 Pa. 476, 81 A.2d 316 (1951). The language of the Act does not purport to grant to courts a new power, but rather acts to restrict the power courts inherently possess:
The power of the several courts of this commonwealth shall he restricted to the following cases
Any construction of the Act must be undertaken with this in mind.
I
Subsection I of the Act restricts the contempt power of the courts to instances of “official misconduct of officers *563of such courts respectively.” The majority construes this language as permitting courts “to compel their officers properly to perform their ministerial duties. For example, sheriffs must serve process, court reporters must record and transcribe testimony and prothonotaries must receive, date and file documents.” Opinion of the Court, ante at 741.1 Presumably because a lawyer does not engage in ministerial duties when he tries a case before a court, courtroom misconduct by a lawyer may not, in the majority’s view, properly be punished under this subsection.
This construction, however, ignores the fundamental relationship which exists between a lawyer and the court and is in derogation of the historical power of the court to regulate that relationship. See e. g., McLaughlin v. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., 465 Pa. 104, 348 A.2d 376, 380 (1975); Office of Disciplinary Counsel v. Campbell, 463 Pa. 472, 345 A.2d 616, 679 (1975); In re Shigon, 462 Pa. 13, 329 A.2d 235, 241 (1974); In re Schofield, 362 Pa. 201, 204 n. 1, 66 A.2d 675, 677 n. 1 (1949). In my view, the restrictions of the Act of 1836 were never intended to alter the inherent power of a court to supervise the conduct of a lawyer who appears before it.
It is axiomatic that lawyers “are officers of the court admitted to office on taking the statutory oath, inter alia, to behave ‘with all good fidelity’ to the court as well as to the client.” In re Schofield, supra; Scouten’s Appeal, 186 Pa. 270, 279, 40 A. 481 (1897). See also Preamble to The Rules of Disciplinary Enforcement, Rule 17 of The Rules of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, adopted March 21, 1972, effective July 1, 1972, 446 Pa. xxiii (1972) (later extended to November 1, 1972); ABA Special Committee on Evaluation of Disci*564plinary Enforcement, Problems and Recommendations in Disciplinary Enforcement, 11 (1970). Among the responsibilities owed to the court by a lawyer is the duty to refrain from “ [engaging] in undignified or discourteous conduct which is degrading to the tribunal.” Code of Professional Responsibility, DR 7-106(6), 42 Pa.C.S. Indeed “[a]s an officer of the court the lawyer should support the authority of the court and the dignity of the trial courtroom by strict adherence to the rules of decorum and by manifesting an attitude of professional respect towards the judge, opposing counsel, witnesses and jurors.” ABA Standards, The Defense Function § 7.-1(a) (1971). When a lawyer consciously departs from these standards he engages in official misconduct which, in my view, is punishable by contempt under subsection I of the Act of 1836.2
II
Furthermore, even were I to adopt the reasoning of the majority that the conduct in question is punishable only under subsection III of the Act of 1836, I still could not subscribe to the analysis employed by the Court in its application of that subsection to the facts of this case.
The majority concludes that appellant’s conviction must be reversed because the Commonwealth has failed to prove that appellant’s actions “obstructed the administration of justice” within the meaning of subsection III. *565This conclusion is said to follow from cases which have given meaning to that phrase. This meaning is gathered from four of our cases which, significantly, do not involve lawyer misconduct; rather, they are cases dealing with belligerent defendants and arrogant witnesses. This standard for lay obstruction is then superimposed upon the actions of appellant and the conclusion is reached that, so measured, appellant’s conduct is not punishable under subsection III. In this superimposition, however, the majority ignores the fact that a lawyer appears before a court in a somewhat different posture than does a lay person and that his actions must, in consequence, be judged by a different standard. See, e. g., N. Dorsen and L. Friedman, Disorder in the Court, Report of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 158 (1973).
Unlike the lay person, the lawyer is duty bound to manifest an attitude of professional respect toward the court and its processes. His conduct in the courtroom can have a great impact on the extent to which the proceedings are perceived as fair and dignified by juror, defendant, witness, and spectator. He possesses the unique capability of denigrating the proceedings through eloquently clothed charges of impropriety. Unlike the lay person, he can obstruct justice without being overtly belligerent and without taking up a great deal of the court’s time. His carefully chosen words, softly spoken and briefly put though they may be, can submerge the dignity of the proceedings in insinuations of improprieties. The impact of the lawyer’s action must, therefore, be assessed in the light of these considerations.
Ill
With these thoughts in mind I turn now to the merits of this case. It is my view that the comments of appellant constituted official misconduct within the meaning of subsection I of the Act of 1836 and impermissibly ob*566structed justice within the meaning of subsection III of the Act. Accordingly I would affirm the appellant’s conviction for contempt.
In the course of his summation appellant brought to the jury’s attention that “he had found out the judge and the assistant district attorney had signals, where when the judge didn’t understand the question [objection by assistant district attorney] . . . where the assistant district attorney understood and the judge didn’t understand it.” This accusation was not inadvertently uttered in the heat of a zealous assertion of the position of the defense. Rather it was a calculated charge of misconduct which appellant deliberately chose to argue to the jury as a factor to be weighed in its deliberation of the case. So much is clear from a review of the record.3
From my review of the record I am convinced that appellant honestly believed that the trial judge had acted in *567collusion with the assistant district attorney during the course of the trial. His decision to argue this perceived impropriety to the jury was, however, manifestly improper. The proper forum for arguing allegations of judicial improprieties is the appellate courts.
“The obligation of the lawyer to maintain a respectful attitude toward the court is ‘not for the sake of the temporary incumbent of the judicial office,’ but to give due recognition to the position held by the judge in the administration of the law. ABA Canons of Professional Ethics No. 1 (1968). The lawyer, by his attitude, communicates to the laymen in the courtroom the professional relation which exists between judge and lawyer. The appropriate way to challenge the judge’s decisions is through appropriate procedural devices, including objections and appeals designed for that purpose, not by seeking to impress the client by a show of belligerency which exceeds the need to make a record of what he believes is error in the case. A restrained, respectful attitude on the part of each advocate toward the other helps reinforce the concept that the adversary system, although based on contention, is a mechanism which depends upon evidence and the rule of law, not vituperation or personalities. See, e. g., In re Schofield, 362 Pa. 201, 66 A.2d 675 (1949); Drinker, Legal Ethics 69-70 (1953).
“ABA Standards, The Defense Function § 7.1 at 258 (Commentary) (Tentative Draft 1970).”
By choosing instead to argue these allegations to the jury, appellant impermissibly injected the impartiality of the trial judge as an issue in the case. By so doing he violated his official duty to the court and obstructed the proper administration of the trial. As three members of this Court have recently observed:
“ . . . the remarks which appellant made to the jury during his closing argument clearly ‘tended to bring the authority and administration of the law into *568disrespect,’ and were therefore properly punished by the contempt order before us. These remarks called into question the fairness of the trial proceedings and were calculated to appeal to the jury, not on the basis of the evidence presented, but on the purported unfairness of the trial they had witnessed. Arguments to the jury based upon such an indictment of the trial proceedings are, in my mind, manifestly improper and cannot be said to fall within the scope of a lawyer’s duty zealously to represent his client. A lawyer must, of course, vigorously pursue appropriate procedures to challenge errors in the proceedings; but to say that a lawyer must not allow perceived error to go uncontested is not to condone the misguided effort to argue the wisdom of the judge’s rulings to the jury.” Commonwealth v. Cherry, 467 Pa. 160,-, 354 A.2d 894, 895 (opinion in support of affirmance by Pomeroy, J., joined by Jones, C. J., and Eagen, J.).
The majority, however, argues the proposition that “[m]ere affront to the trial judge is not enough” to support a contempt conviction. Opinion of the Court ante at 743. This proposition is said to be derived from the quoted language of the Supreme Court of the United States in Craig v. Harney, 331 U.S. 367, 67 S.Ct. 1249, 91 L.Ed. 1546 (1946). The Craig decision, however, is simply not apposite to the circumstances of this case. In Craig the Supreme Court was called upon to decide the extent to which the press could be punished for contempt for critical journalistic appraisals of a trial judge’s handling of a case then before the court. It was in this context that the language relied upon by the majority was written.
It is certainly undeniable that judges should not be allowed to use the power of contempt simply to silence discomforting criticism by the press. In this sense they must, in Mr. Justice Douglas’ words, be “men of fortitude, able to thrive in a hardy climate.” [Opinion of the *569Court ante at 743. The broad protections of the First Amendment require at least this much. But to say that a judge may not wield the contempt power to throttle public criticism by the press is not to condone similar criticism of a judge uttered by a lawyer during the course of a courtroom proceeding. Citicism by the press is in the nature of public debate: it protects the integrity, of the court by exposing its processes to robust public review. Accusations of judicial impropriety made by a lawyer to a jury in the course of a judicial proceeding, however, serves only to denigrate the authority and dignity of the court. To preserve the integrity of our courts judges must accept the former types of criticism but must not tolerate the latter. For these reasons, I would affirm appellant’s contempt conviction.
JONES, C. J., and EAGEN, J., join in this dissenting opinion.

. I intimate no view as to whether sheriffs, court reporters and prothonotaries are officers of the court within the meaning of subsection I of the Act of 1836.

. That such conduct may be punished by disciplinary sanction pursuant to the Rules of Disciplinary Enforcement, see Rule 17-3 of the Rules of The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, does not preclude punishment of the same conduct through the power of contempt. As Rule 17-1 of the Rules of the Supreme Court expressly states:
“Nothing herein contained shall be construed to deny to any other court such powers as are necessary for that court to maintain control over proceedings conducted before it, such as the power of contempt, nor to prohibit bar associations from censuring, suspending or expelling their members from membership in the association.”
See also In re Schofield, 362 Pa. 201, 214, 66 A.2d 675, 682 (1949).

. Following his closing argument appellant explained his conduct to the trial judge in Chambers thusly:
“Therefore, Mr. Strauss [the assistant District Attorney] gave a signal that I wasn’t aware — he knew what was in your mind, that you did not understand — and that’s the reason he was doing that. That was something that you two would have to explain because it has never been explained satisfactorily to me.
“I still make the same statement. How Mr. Strauss knew you didn’t understand, I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with my ethnic background. Maybe the two [of] you understand through some kind of radar signal.
“THE COURT: I don’t understand Mr. Walker’s dialect. Maybe you do. . When he said he rode around in a
car, he said he ‘rid’ around in a car. Those things I don’t know. .
“MR. JOHNSON: The fact is, if you did not understand, what you should have done, as the Judge presiding at the trial, because maybe the jury doesn’t understand, you should say, ‘Speak plainer.’ That’s different from letting Strauss say, ‘When you say you rid around you mean you did such and such?’ Mr. Strauss can’t do that. The witness must give answers.
“THE COURT: This is not the first time you have instructed me on how to try a case.
“MR. JOHNSON: I am not instructing you. You asked me a question. I am answering the question. I think I have a duty and obligation to make some statement in front of the jury.”