Court Opinion

ID: 9749522
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:49:02.42988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:00.202803
License: Public Domain

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice O’Brien :
I agree with the majority that Mayberry was not entitled to a jury trial. Even if Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 194, 88 S. Ct. 1477 (1968), applies to direct criminal contempts as well as indirect criminal contempts, which question I find it unnecessary to consider, Bloom has been held not to be retroactive. DeStefano v. Woods, 392 U.S. 631, 88 S. Ct. 2093 (1968). I thus concur in the affirmance of the contempt conviction.
However, I must dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which upholds the sentence imposed on Mayberry. Although appellate courts are naturally reluctant to interfere with the sentencing procedure, a matter within the discretion of the trial court, this Court has a duty to consider whether that discretion has been abused. Commonwealth v. Edwards, 380 Pa. 52, 110 A. 2d 216 (1955). The duty is particularly crucial in direct criminal contempt cases where no statutory limit is placed upon the trial judge’s discretion. Brown v. United States, 359 U.S. 41, 79 S. Ct. 539 (1959); Green v. United States, 356 U.S. 165, 78 S. Ct. 632 (1958).
I wish to emphasize that I hold no brief whatsoever for appellant’s utterly deplorable conduct and I sympathize with the trial judge for the indignities both he and the judicial system were made to suffer as a result of appellant’s conduct, Nonetheless, I believe *488that the sentence imposed here exceeded all bounds of reasonableness: While the court below treated each of appellant’s comments as a separate contempt and imposed eleven separate one to two year sentences to run consecutively, I think that a more realistic view of what occurred was that there was only one contempt — appellant’s trial conduct as a whole — and that for this he was given a sentence of eleven to twenty-two years. Cf. Yates v. United States, 355 U.S. 66, 78 S. Ct. 128 (1957).
My research discloses no case in which the punishment meted out even approaches that here. The majority quotes, as support for the sentence here, from Sacher v. United States, 343 U.S. 1, 5, 72 S. Ct. 451 (1952) : “The nature of the deportment was not such as merely to offend personal sensitivities of the judge, but it prejudiced the expeditious, orderly and dispassionate conduct of the trial.” Yet those held in contempt in Saeher were sentenced only to terms of up to six month’s imprisonment for a course of conduct that was as flagrant a defiance of the orderly processes of court as that involved here. Saeher and his fellows, inter alia: “Insinuated that there was connivance between the Court and the United States Attorney . . . Repeatedly made charges against the Court of bias, prejudice, corruption, and partiality . . . Made a succession of disrespectful, insolent, and sarcastic comments and remarks to the Court . . . [etc.].” United States v. Sacher, 182 F. 2d 416, 431 (2d Cir. 1950).
Although there is no doubt that the dignity of our courts must be upheld, by the contempt process, if necessary, in a Commonwealth where assault and battery is punishable by a maximum of two years’ imprisonment, larceny by a maximum of five, voluntary manslaughter by a maximum of twelve, rape by a maximum of fifteen, and second-degree murder by a *489maximum of twenty, a maximum sentence of twenty-two years for interference with the courtroom process and insults to the judge is cruel and unusual. I note that in Title Three of The Penal Code of 1939, entitled “Offenses against Public Justice and Administration”, of the thirty-one crimes enumerated, only two — perjury (seven years) and prison breach (ten years) carry a maximum sentence of more than five years. No crime in the category carries with it a penalty approaching the twenty-two years given appellant, and I must dissent from the imposition of that sentence.