Court Opinion

ID: 9577254
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:33:26.526845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:13.739045
License: Public Domain

Riley, Judge,
dissenting:
With deference I dissent from the result reached by the majority of the Court. In reaching this position, I am impressed by the facts that (1) at the time the Huntington Dental Society, acting through its representatives, employed and paid a professional investigator, Lloyd Wor-den, who, in turn, employed the State’s witnesses, Betty *160Gunderson, W. E. Workman, and Thomas Carr to go to the office of the defendant, Harry C. Devore, at various times for the purpose of obtaining partial plates or complete sets of false teeth, the cost of which was financed indirectly through Worden by the Huntington Dental Society, the contempt proceeding had not been instituted, and the solicitation on the part of these witnesses was necessarily for the purpose of causing the violation of the injunction; and (2) the instant proceeding is one of criminal contempt, and all the rules of criminal procedure, including the rule that the defendant’s guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, were applicable and should have been applied by the trial court.
I am fully aware that this Court in strictly criminal proceedings has held admissible the testimony of witnesses who obtained evidence by a method similar to that used by the Worden investigating agency to the effect that a defendant was engaged in the violation of a criminal law, provided the criminal intent was not conceived by the “entrapping” person and the accused “without prior intent to commit the crime was inveigled into its commission by the entrapper.” State v. Jarvis, 105 W. Va. 499, 143 S. E. 235. The distinction made by this Court in the Jarvis case, while it may be sound, is admittedly hard to follow and apply, for in every case involving the circumstances in which evidence has been obtained by a person seeking it, the crime is committed at the instance of such person. Dangerous in its application as I think the rule in the Jarvis case is, it is perhaps too late, in view of the adjudicated cases, for this Court to deviate from the rule as enunciated in the Jarvis case and quoted in the majority opinion.
But, as heretofore indicated, at the time the evidence was obtained by the three employees of the investigating agency, at the instance of the dental society, the defendant, Harry C. Devore, was under an injunction, and this record clearly shows the three witnesses, Gunderson, Workman and Carr, were employed and paid by the Huntington Dental Society, through its representatives, on whose *161behalf the injunction was sought and entered, to cause the defendant, Harry C. Devore, to violate that injunction. All of this was prior to the time that any contempt proceeding was or could have been instituted. So these parties in their activities were in a court of equity. Generally, “The party at whose instance an injunction issued, cannot have the party enjoined punished in a contempt proceeding for breach of the injunction, when the breach was committed with his consent or acquiescence, or where the breach was provoked by him.” 32 C. J., Injunctions, Section 859, page 493. In Canada Foundry Co. v. Emmett, 2 Ont. W. R. 1102, the Court said: “However, such methods may be regarded in criminal law, it is not desirable to encourage them in a court of equity. To get equitable relief one must come into court with clean hands * * * and a suitor cannot expect the extraordinary power of the court exercised by way of injunction and committal to be directed in his favor, if he himself procures or prompts the acts complained of.” See also Reed v. Reed, 149 Wash. 352, 270 P. 1028, involving the protection of a private right; and Sparkman v. Higgins, C.C.S.D. N. Y. 22 Fed. Cas., p. 879, No. 13,209, involving an injunction restraining the infringement of a patent. In short, in my opinion, the witnesses, Gunderson, Workman and Carr, were employed by the investigator, Lloyd Worden, who, in turn, was employed by the plaintiffs in the injunction proceeding, to have the defendant, Harry C. Devore, violate the court’s injunction and thus flout the jurisdiction and the dignity of the Common Pleas Court of Cabell County, and in that court they should not be heard to complain of defendant’s violation of the court’s injunction induced by their own activity.
It necessarily follows that I agree with the position attributed to the majority of the Court in the majority opinion that the testimony of Gunderson, Workman and Carr should be disregarded.
I do not agree, however, that there is in this record sufficient evidence independent of the testimony of Gun-*162derson, Workman and Carr to sustain the conviction for contempt. This being a criminal contempt, “It is a quasi criminal proceeding, and the rules of evidence in criminal trials apply thereto. In such trial the guilt of the accused [must] be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” State ex rel. Continental Coal Co. v. Van A. Bittner, 102 W. Va. 677, pt. 2, syl., 136 S. E. 202, 49 A. L. R. 968. Besides the witnesses employed by the investigating agency, Iva Webb and Wandell Tackett were the only other witnesses who testified for the State, and, unless their testimony establishes defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the judgment of conviction and sentence cannot be sustained. Iva Webb, the record discloses, went to Devore’s office on her own initiative, having no connection with the investigating agency. She testified that she had a set of upper teeth made, and paid the office girl ten dollars and later, when she received the teeth, she paid the office girl thirty-five dollars. This witness, however, was unable to identify Devore as the person who did the work for her, so that the trial court, acting in lieu of a jury, could not have found on the basis of her testimony alone beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant made and furnished the set of upper false teeth to the witness in violation of the injunction. On cross-examination the witness was asked: “Are you positive that this man took your impression and made your false teeth? I am pointing to him at the table,” to which the witness replied, “I am not positive. He doesn’t look like the same man.” (Italics supplied.) The State’s witness, Wandell Tackett, Iva Webb’s sister, testified that she had accompanied her sister to an office which had the name “Harry C. Devore” on the door; that someone came to the door and said, “Next”; that her sister’s purpose in going to the office was to have teeth made; and that her sister got a set of teeth there and that she was wearing them at the time of the trial. Likewise, this witness was unable to and did not identify the defendant. Therefore, I am of the opinion that the evidence tending to establish Devore’s guilt, while it may satisfy the rules of civil practice and procedure, does not measure up to the high standards required in a criminal case. Clearly *163the State has failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
For the foregoing reasons I would reverse the judgment of the Circuit Court of Cabell County, and dismiss the contempt proceedings.