Court Opinion

ID: 9682017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:03:29.937127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:37.007853
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Garwood,
dissenting.
One cannot, certainly, attack the majority view as unsupported by authority or patently unsound on principle, but I think the better view, supported by respectable authority, is that contempt proceedings, such as here involved may validly rest upon a proper order to show cause quite as well as upon an affidavit. In other words, both types of proceeding are proper, and courts should accordingly not be restricted to either one. The respectable authority mentioned is reflected in the majority opinion and includes various statements of our own Supreme Court as well as unequivocal holdings by the Supreme Courts of Alabama and Florida and the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. Ex parte Landry and Ex parte Duncan decided by our Court of Criminal Appeals and relied upon by the majority, are indeed opposed to the view here expressed, but the same cannot be said of any decisions of our Supreme Court, including Ex parte Scott, which did not involve a proceeding commenced by an order to show cause. There is no specific requirement of an accusatory affidavit in the Federal or State Constitutions or in the statutes, while, as the majority opinion *160properly concedes, our own Rules of Civil Procedure are inconsistent with its existence in more than one instance.
The basic question is really one of due process of law as to the form in which a person must be accused before he can be committed for contempt perpetrated outside the presence of the court. The two important considerations involved are, first, an appropriate degree of formality and, secondly, sufficient notice-of the charge to the party accused of contempt. What I cannot understand is how we can say that these two requirements may be satisfied by the accusatory affidavit of an adverse party or a volunteer and at the same time say they cannot be satisfied by the solemn order of a district judge, making the identical accusation that would be made in a sufficient affidavit and duly served upon the accused. The effect of a proper show cause order is not, of course, to condemn the accused in advance, but simply to make the accusation as if prima facie established, to notify the accused thereof and to require him to appear and present his defense.
The instant case is one especially appropriate for the show cause type of proceeding, or “rule nisi” as it is often called, since it is an incident to a receivership and arises out of the receiver’s efforts to assemble the assets of the estate. A receivership being a continuing matter, and the court itself being in a sense the trustee of the estate, who could occupy a more reliable or respectable position for making the accusation than the court itself? And what could be a more formal or solemn type of accusation than the court’s own order? The order of March 9th, 1950, which relator was held to have violated, was in effect a show cause order accusing relator of contempt as a result of evidence presented to and considered by the court. It was quite lengthy and specific as to the charges, with which, for that matter, relator was already familiar, by' reason of the earlier proceedings narrated in the majority opinion. Relator’s attorney chose to walk out of the March 9th hearing before the order was entered, but he well knew at the time what the accusation was, deliberately chose to ignore what happened after his departure and was eventually served with a copy of the order before March 16th, the day on which the March 9th order commanded relator to appear and show cause. Relator and his attorney, with evident deliberateness, did not appear on March 16th, and the order of that date holding relator in contempt was accordingly entered. Under these circumstances, even in the absence of a sufficient affidavit of accusation, I think the relator was validly accused, amply notified of the charge against him and therefore *161properly committed, so far as we may determine in this habeas corpus proceeding. He should be remanded to the sheriff.
Opinion delivered May 17, 1950.
No motion for rehearing filed.