Court Opinion

ID: 9418513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:28:55.243533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:47:24.533606
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Taft,
concurring.
I concur fully in the opinion of the Court. - ’
It is of primary importance that the right freely .to comment on and criticise the action, opinions and judgments of courts and judges should be preserved inviolate; but' it is also essential that courts and judges should not be impeded in the conduct of judicial business by publications having the direct tendency and effect of obstructing the enforcement of their orders and judgments; or of impairing the justice and- impartiality of verdicts.
If the publication criticises the judge or-court after the matter with which the criticism, has Ho’ do has been-finally adjudicated and the. proceedings are ended so that the carrying-out of the court’s judgment can not be thereby obstructed, the' publication'is-not contempt and can not be summarily punished by the court however false, malicious or unjust it may be.' The remedy of the judge as an individual is by" action or prosecution for libel. If, however, the publication is intended and calculated to obstruct and embarrass the court in a pending proceeding in the- matter of the rendition of an impartial verdict, or in the carrying out of its orders and judgment, the court may, and it is its duty to protect the administration: of justice by punishment of the offender for contempt. .
The federal statute concerning contempts as construed by this'Court in prior cases vests, in the trial judge the jurisdiction to decide whether, a publication is obstructive *279or defamatory only. The delicacy there is in the judge’s deciding whéther an attack upon his own judicial action is mere criticism or real obstruction, and the possibility that impulse.may incline his view to personal vindication, are manifest.. But the law gives the person convicted of contempt in such a case the right to have the whole question on facts and law reviewed by three judges of the Circuit Court of Appeals who have had no part in the proceedings, and if not successful in that court, to apply to this Court for an .opportunity for a similar review here.
The pétitioner and his counsel have made such a review impossible.- Instead of pursuing this plain remedy for injustice that may have' been done by the trial judge and securing by an appellate court a review of this very serious question on the merits, they sought by applying to a single judge of only coordinate authority for a writ óf-habeas corpus to release the petitioner on the ground that the trial judge was without jurisdiction to make the decision he did. This raised the sole issue whether the trial judge had authority to decide the question, not whether he had-rightly decided it.
Relying on a decision of this Court made'years ago when the statutory provisions were different from ¿hose which now apply,, the petitioner and his counsel thought that if they could secure a decision from a single circuit judge releasing the petitioner, no appeal would lie from his decision and that thus resort to the appellate courts could be avoided. The single judge to whom they applied released the prisoner. They were, however, mistaken in supposing that no- appeal lay from the judge’s. decision on the question of the trial court’s jurisdiction. The Government prosecuted its appeal and the only issue presented in that review is the matter of the trial court’s jurisdiction which the Circuit Court of Appeals and we uphold. In this way, the petitioner and his counsel threw *280away opportunity for a review of the case on its merits in the Circuit Court of Appeals and in this Court in their purpose to make a short cut and secure final release through the act of a single judge. This is the situation the petitioner finds himself in and we are without power to relieve him,