Court Opinion

ID: 9537761
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:22:46.793576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:57.751986
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE DAVIS
(concurring specially):
I agree that this proceeding should be dismissed, but not for the reason given by the other justices who have expressed an opinion. The contempt charged, if contempt there be in the words which the relators’ affidavit lays at the door of the attorney general, has not hindered, embarrassed, or obstructed this court in its work or in the discharge of its judicial functions. There is no occasion then for this court to act summarily that its dignity may be upheld, or its honor vindicated; and such a reason or one closely related thereto is the only justification this court can have in my opinion for moving here as the relators ask. True we have the power to punish for contempt.
But that power should be sparingly exercised and then only in a case which comes close to an emergency. Otherwise we should not sit in judgment where under any construction of the record we may be considered a party in interest. What the late Mr. Justice Holmes, sitting in the Supreme Court of the United States, in his dissent in Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States, 247 U.S. 402, 422-426, 38 S. Ct. 560, 62 L. Ed. 1186, said of another contempt closely akin to the charge here suffices to state my reasons for dismissing this proceeding, and does so more aptly than I am myself able to state my position.
I need only add that if the attorney general be in contempt upon the facts here (and as to that I express no opinion), that contempt is a misdemeanor under R.C.M. 1947, section 94-3540, to be prosecuted and punished as such. The remedy there is adequate, which makes action by us in this proceeding unnecessary.