Court Opinion

ID: 9649931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:14:33.285865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:16.023152
License: Public Domain

ADKINS, Judge,
dissenting.
Although I agree with the majority that Timothy Mitchell should have been allowed to allocute before he was sentenced for criminal contempt of court, I am, nevertheless constrained to dissent. I believe that under the circumstances of this case the judge who was the object of Mitchell’s contemptuous gesture should not have conducted the summary contempt proceeding.
After a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City found Mitchell guilty of felony theft the judge presiding in that court sentenced the defendant to imprisonment for fifteen years — the maximum penalty for that offense. Maryland Code (1957, 1987 Repl.Vol., 1989 Cum.Supp.), Art. 27, § 342(f)(1). The judge announced that the hearing was over; the guards were in the process of removing Mitchell from the courtroom. Mitchell, however, managed to turn around and give the judge “the finger.”
This expression of dissatisfaction with a heavy sentence, delivered after the hearing had terminated, might, perhaps, have been overlooked without any great harm to the dignity *771of the court or the administration of justice.1 But the judge chose not to overlook it. Instead, he summarily found Mitchell in criminal contempt and imposed a sentence of five years consecutive to the 15 year theft sentence.
Mitchell’s gesture did not disrupt any proceedings, for none were then pending; his case was over and no other had been called. See State v. Sayre, 314 Md. 559, 565-566, 552 A.2d 553, 556 (1989). So far as the record shows, this act did not produce any disorder in the courtroom; indeed, we cannot tell whether it was even observed by any one except the judge who was so offended by it.
The majority believes that immediate action was necessary to maintain “dignity [and] decorum ... in the courtroom.” Mitchell v. State, 320 Md. 756, 762, 580 A.2d 196, 199 (1990). Perhaps one may be permitted to wonder just how a blatantly unconstitutional sentence2 enhances respect for a court, or promotes the cause of dignity and decorum therein. Such a sentence, indeed, may “deprive the contempt proceeding of the appearance of evenhanded justice which is at the core of due process,” Mayberry v. *772Pennsylvania, 400 U.S. 455, 469, 91 S.Ct. 499, 507, 27 L.Ed.2d 532, 542 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring), and which is one of the values the contempt power is supposed to protect. “Summary punishment always, and rightly, is regarded with disfavor and, if imposed in passion or pettiness, brings discredit to a court as certainly as the conduct it penalizes.” Sacher v. United States, 343 U.S. 1, 8, 72 S.Ct. 451, 454, 96 L.Ed. 717, 723 (1952).
But I put these ruminations aside. Under well-settled principles, what Mitchell did was a direct contempt of court, a conclusion even he does not reject. Mitchell, 320 Md. at 761, 580 A.2d at 199. The question is whether the judge who presided at trial and sentencing should have been the one to sanction him for it.
The answer to that question can best be formulated if we first examine the nature of direct contempt. Courts and commentators generally accept the necessity for power to punish for direct contempts, R. Goldfarb, The Contempt Power 4 (1963), for “a court ... should not be at the mercy of the obstreperous and uncouth.” Id. at 306. Nevertheless, the power of contempt “is, perhaps, nearest akin to despotic power of any power existing under our form of government.” State ex rel. Attorney General v. Circuit Court, 97 Wis. 1, 8, 72 N.W. 193, 194-195 (1897). Our approach to the subject should be guided by recognition of this fact, and by the wise admonition that the limit of the contempt power is “the least possible power adequate to the end proposed." Anderson v. Dunn, 19 U.S. 204, 231, 5 L.Ed. 242, 248 (1821) [emphasis in original]. As the Supreme Court has put it more recently:
The power of contempt which a judge must have and exercise in protecting the due and orderly administration of justice and in maintaining the authority and dignity of the court is most important and indispensable. But its exercise is a delicate one and care is needed to avoid arbitrary or oppressive conclusions. This rule of caution is more mandatory where the contempt charged has in it the element of personal criticism or attack upon the *773judge____ [WJhere conditions do not make it impracticable, or where the delay may not injure public or private right, a judge called upon to act in a case of contempt by personal attack upon him, may, without flinching from his duty, properly ask that one of his fellow judges take his place.
Cooke v. United States, 267 U.S. 517, 539, 45 S.Ct. 390, 395-396, 69 L.Ed. 767, 775 (1925).
We have expressed similar views. In State v. Roll and Scholl, 267 Md. 714, 732, 298 A.2d 867, 878 (1973), Judge J. Dudley Digges, for this Court, warned that “[t]he power to immediately and summarily hold a person in contempt is awesome and abuses of it must be guarded against.” The “magnitude of [the] force [of the contempt power] demands care and discretion in its use so as to avoid arbitrary, capricious or oppressive application of this power.” Id. at 717, 298 A.2d at 870. Judge Digges went on to observe that the
United States Supreme Court has often expressed the opinion that a summary contempt proceeding should be the exceptional case. Such proceedings are only proper in cases where the action of the alleged contemnor poses [such] an open, serious threat to orderly procedure that instant, and summary punishment ... is necessary. In other words, direct contempt procedures are designed to fill the need for immediate vindication of the dignity of the court____ And, while not required, when a judge waits until the end of the trial, it is generally wise to ask a fellow judge to rule on the nature of the conduct of the contemnor if it has in it elements of personal attack upon the judge. The judge must banish personal impulses to reprisal, or to vent his spleen. [Footnote omitted].
267 Md. at 733, 298 A.2d at 878-879.
Thus, both the United States Supreme Court and this Court are among those that have recognized the potential hazards of summary contempt power, and the need to limit its exercise with prudence, in order to avoid abuses to our system of justice at least as serious as those inflicted by *774contemnors. And both Courts have pointed out that one method of protecting against the danger of vindictive and arbitrary application of this power (or the appearance of that sort of retaliation) is to require the contempt determination be made by some judge other than one who has been vilified or attacked or who has become “ ‘personally embroiled' ” in the proceedings. Mayberry, 400 U.S. at 465, 91 S.Ct. at 505, 27 L.Ed.2d at 540. See also J. Shaman, S. Lubet & J. Alfini, Judicial Conduct and Ethics § 5.09 at 113 (1990) (“where a verbal attack upon a judge becomes particularly offensive, or where a judge becomes enraged at offensive conduct, recusal is necessary”).
The majority reads cases like Mayberry, Taylor v. Hayes, 418 U.S. 488, 94 S.Ct. 2697, 41 L.Ed.2d 897 (1974), and Sacher as holding that due process requires disqualification of the personally attacked judge only when the contempt determination is deferred until the conclusion of the trial. Mitchell, 320 Md. at 763-766, 580 A.2d at 200-201. For purposes of this dissent, I shall not quarrel with that reading. Even accepting it, however, it seems to me that under the circumstances of this case it was an abuse of discretion for the presiding judge not to step aside.
That a judge who has been personally attacked has discretion to decide whether to handle summary contempt proceedings, assuming he is not constitutionally forbidden from doing so, is clear. See, e.g., Cooke, 267 U.S. at 539, 45 S.Ct. at 395-396, 69 L.Ed. at 775; Roll and Scholl, 267 Md. at 733, 298 A.2d at 879; Maryland Trial Judges’ Bench-book, § 3-506(b) (“A judge who has become personally involved with the defendant should not preside at the hearing even if the defendant consents.”). It is also clear that the justification for summary proceeding before the offended judge is the necessity for immediate action: the exercise of “such power, although arbitrary in its nature and liable to abuse, is absolutely essential to the protection of the courts in the discharge of their functions.” Ex parte Terry, 128 U.S. 289, 313, 9 S.Ct. 77, 88, 32 L.Ed. 405, 412 (1888). In cases like Taylor, Mayberry, and Sacher, each *775of which (unlike this case) involved actually disruptive behavior, the trial judge deferred the contempt proceeding until the trial was over. By doing so, the judge implicitly recognized that there was no necessity for immediate action; thus the justification for summary action by the offended judge was removed.
In this case, the contempt took place, for all practical purposes, after the proceedings were over. There was nothing to disrupt (and no disruption in fact) and no need for summary action. And the judge was “personally embroiled.” The magnitude and unconstitutionality of the sentence is evidence of that. Spruell v. Jarvis, 654 F.2d 1090, 1096 (5th Cir.1981). Under like circumstances, where there was an isolated remark virtually at the end of a trial, and no actual obstruction of the proceedings, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania concluded that “the record does not show a necessity for the imposition of summary punishment [by the presiding judge and] the employment of such a procedure must be held an abuse of discretion.” Com. v. Stevenson, 482 Pa. 76, 90, 393 A.2d 386, 393 (1978) [footnote omitted]. See also Commonwealth v. Africa, 466 Pa. 603, 623-624, 353 A.2d 855, 865 (1976) and State v. Van Laarhoven, 90 Wis.2d 67, 70-71, 279 N.W.2d 488, 489 (Wis.Ct.App. 1979).
Very recently, this Court held, without dissent, “that when the asserted basis for recusal [of a trial judge] is personal misconduct of the ... judge that generates serious issues about his or her personal misconduct, then the trial judge must permit another judge to decide the motion for recusal.” Surratt v. Prince George’s County, 320 Md. 439, 466, 578 A.2d 745, 758 (1990). We were guided to that holding in large part by the admonition of Roll and Scholl, supra that “ ‘it is generally wise to ask a fellow judge to rule on the nature of the conduct of [a] contemnor if it has in it the elements of a personal attack upon the judge.’ ” Surratt, 320 Md. at 466, 578 A.2d at 758 (quoting Roll and Scholl, 267 Md. at 733, 298 A.2d at 872 (Mitchell’s conduct here had in it precisely those elements).
*776Surely, if a judge whose recusal is sought on the ground of personal misconduct cannot decide the recusal motion, a judge who is personally attacked should not decide a summary direct criminal contempt proceeding, especially when there has been no actual disruption of an ongoing trial or sentencing.
I agree with Ronald Goldfarb that “it seems ... reasonable to conclude that the impersonal authority of law is better guarded and applied by one who is not himself personally involved in a given conflict.” The Contempt Power at 255.
The trial judge abused his discretion when he conducted the summary contempt proceedings against Mitchell. I would reverse the judgment of the circuit court, and remand for a new contempt proceeding before a different judge.

. Defendants have been known to indicate unhappiness with sentences, and some of them have suffered more severely than Mitchell for making their views known to the court. In one case, for example, a prisoner condemned for felony threw a brickbat at the judge, narrowly missing the jurist. For this act of direct contempt the defendant’s right hand was "cut off and fixed to the gibbet, upon which he was himself immediately hanged in the presence of the Court.” Anonymous, 73 Eng.Rep. 416 n. 17 (1631). This case is mentioned in State v. Roll and Scholl, 267 Md. 714, 733 n. 14, 298 A.2d 867, 879 n. 14 (1973), where the venue is said to have been France, possibly because the original report is written in law French. See 2 Dyer 188b (1688). In point of fact, however, the proceedings were before Chief Justice Richardson at the Salisbury assizes in the summer of 1631. 73 Eng.Rep. 416.

. As the majority concedes, “[a] sentence for a single criminal contempt cannot exceed six months imprisonment unless the defendant has been given a jury trial or waived that right.” Mitchell v. State, 320 Md. 756, 760 n. 1, 580 A.2d 196, 198 n. 1 (1990). The judge later reduced the sentence to five months and 29 days, but that does not affect the unconstitutionality of his initial approach to vindication of the dignity of the court.