Court Opinion

ID: 9730935
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:28:43.502119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:11.330198
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, dissenting: I thought it was settled that there is no direct contempt of court unless the defendant either disobeys an explicit and proper order of the court or engages in court in conduct calculated to embarrass, hinder or obstruct the court in its administration of justice, derogate from its authority or dignity, or bring the administration of law into disrepute. (12 Ill. L. & Prac. Contempt sec. 3 (1955); see, e.g., In re Estate of Melody (1969), 42 Ill. 2d 451, 452.) I see nothing in the record to indicate that there was an explicit order by the court commanding respondent not to address it until she had filed an appearance, and I do not understand the basis for the majority’s conclusion that her behavior was calculated to embarrass the court or interfere with the proceedings. The record indicates that Ms. Siegel spoke with the circuit court judge in his chambers after she learned that the judge had ordered the family of Ms. Rodriguez excluded from his courtroom. However, there was no transcript recording that conversation. The only indications in the record in this regard are the judge’s own assertions, one made the next day (April 29, 1980) when the judge addressed the respondent orally in open court and the other incorporated in a written order dated April 29, 1980, but not filed until May 2,1980, finding Ms. Siegel in contempt. As the courts of this State have consistently recognized, the power to punish for contempt is an extraordinary power (e.g., People v. Miller (1972), 51 Ill. 2d 76, 78; People ex rel. Andrews v. Hassakis (1955), 6 Ill. 2d 463, 466; People v. Loughran (1954), 2 Ill. 2d 258, 263; People v. Kuelper (1977), 46 Ill. App. 3d 420, 422). When direct criminal contempt allegations are founded on an act which occurs in court, as here, the contempt proceeding is generally a summary one, without notice, formal charges, pleas, jury, evidentiary record or significant opportunity for explanation or rebuttal such as would be required by the Federal Constitution in the context of any other criminal proceeding. (People v. Tomashevsky (1971), 48 Ill. 2d 559, 563-64; People ex rel. Andrews v. Hassakis (1955), 6 Ill. 2d 463, 466-67; People v. Loughran (1954), 2 Ill. 2d 258, 263.) This procedure is permissible in this rare instance because it is frequently the only way to effectively punish contumacious acts and maintain order in the courtroom while judicial proceedings are being conducted. (People v. Loughran (1954), 2 Ill. 2d 258, 263.) With this power must come restraint in its exercise. As we noted in People v. Loughran, “[i]t is readily susceptible of abuse and fraught with danger not only to personal liberties but to the respect and confidence which our courts must maintain. *** [I]t should be exercised with utmost caution and strictly restricted to acts and facts seen and known by the court, and no matter resting on opinions, conclusions, presumptions or inferences should be considered.” 2 Ill. 2d 258, 263. A citation for direct contempt based solely on a judge’s recollections of what he said to the contemnor in chambers, a full day after that conversation occurred and not supported by any contemporaneous memorandum or any record, does not satisfy the standard announced in Loughran. It is noted that in the appellate court as well as in this court Ms. Siegel denied that the circuit court judge gave her any order in chambers concerning the filing of an appearance and maintained she would not have spoken had she understood she was under any court order to refrain from doing so. To uphold a citation under circumstances such as these would risk compromising public confidence in the judiciary in too many ways, even if no intentional abuse ever occurs. The potential for arbitrary or vindictive action by a judge is inherent whenever his decisions are unreviewable, as they are for all practical purposes when all a reviewing court has to go on is the judge’s own version of what went on in his chambers. In addition, the possibility of honest mistake is present wherever memory must be relied on, and is a hazard to be concerned about in a case such as this where the alleged contemnor is not allowed to cross-examine the judge or present her own witnesses in support of her view that there was no order for her to disobey. The latter danger is illustrated here by the fact that the judge stated to Ms. Siegel in court on the day after their meeting in his chambers that “I stated to you when you came into my chambers, you will not be allowed to stay in this courtroom unless you file an appearance the way an appearance should be filed” (emphasis added), while in his written order dated that day, but not filed until three days later, the judge based the contempt citation on a statement he claimed to have made in chambers that she would not be allowed to address the court until she had filed her appearance. Based on the judge’s own recollection it is unclear precisely what act was prohibited by his “order” in chambers, that of remaining in the courtroom or the distinct act of addressing the court. From our perspective, this should raise substantial doubts as to whether there was any order at all that Ms. Siegel could have disobeyed, or any admonition of a type that, if disobeyed, would justify punishment for contempt. I also cannot agree with the majority that Ms. Siegel’s contempt citation can be upheld on the theory that her actions in court were inherently contumacious or were calculated to embarrass the court. There is nothing inherently disrespectful or disruptive about failing to fill out an appearance form, or even about approaching the bench from the spectator’s section and addressing the court without having one on file. I have been unable to find any case holding it to be so, in spite of the circuit court rule requiring an appearance to be filed. In this case Ms. Siegel addressed the court at an unfortunate time, only moments after a previously loud and abusive defendant had been escorted into the courtroom bound and gagged and just as the judge was about to resume a disrupted trial. However, she had been requested by her client not to file an appearance but to be in the courtroom to advise her anyway as the trial progressed. Under these circumstances it was not unreasonable, in my judgment, for Ms. Siegel to object to her client being led into the courtroom bound and gagged, a situation which itself is normally an affront to the dignity of judicial proceedings (Illinois v. Allen (1970), 397 U.S. 337, 344, 25 L. Ed. 2d 353, 359, 90 S. Ct. 1057, 1061) and was certain to cast her client in an unfavorable light. She objected briefly, and she did so as soon as her client was brought into the courtroom and her case was called, rather than waiting for the proceedings to begin and then interrupting them. The majority opinion acknowledges that a finding of contempt is inappropriate where an attorney acts in good faith and the attorney’s conduct is designed to serve the client and the court. The cases establishing that courts have the inherent power to enforce their orders by contempt citations do not go as far as to hold that any disobedience to a court rule is inherently contemptuous. My view of the record is that Ms. Siegel’s conduct was a good-faith attempt to represent her client and to serve both her client and the law by objecting to a defendant being brought into a courtroom bound and gagged, an objection which would always be a proper one for the record. I find nothing in this record which convinces me that Ms. Siegel intended to obstruct court proceedings even though she may have been overzealous in presenting her objection. I believe her citation for criminal contempt was an abuse of discretion and would affirm the judgment of the appellate court.