Court Opinion

ID: 9451052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:04:25.453957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:32.846715
License: Public Domain

McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The record here clearly establishes that appellant, an attorney representing a party in the trial of a civil action, was guilty of a course of deliberate, contemptuous conduct to the trial judge which persisted throughout the seven day trial and which obstructed the administration of justice. The complete record further reveals that the court was *614most patient in dealing with the attorney. The latter constantly persisted in continuing to argue after the court had made its ruling. Appellant committed other patently contemptuous actions such as turning his back on the judge, throwing a book down and disobeying the direct order of the court by referring to a topic which the court had held was not to be discussed. Whether the judge was right or wrong in his trial rulings was for the appellate court. His authority to make them was not to be flouted simply because of petulant disappointment at his decisions.
The majority’s quoted phase of the district court proceedings unmistakably reveals that the question of witness Charles Haim being recalled to the stand had been disposed of in chambers and that the court had had the result recorded by the stenographer. With that incident closed and the record fully protecting Tauber in the event he disagreed with the court’s ruling, Tauber, under the guise of asking for counsel, was in the judgment of the court once more attempting to reopen a decided issue instead of using the proper appeal channel. The court’s comment on this was “You have deliberately come out here and started another argument.” In the light of the trial-long attitude of the attorney, the court was justified in considering the episode as part of the tactic of continuing an ill concealed defiance and contempt of the court’s rulings. The court at that time held Tauber in contempt, not for a single incident but as the court then and there stated, “It’s through your conduct all the way through this trial.”
The majority concedes that several trial acts of Tauber brought to our attention “* * * which as they occurred might have impressed the trial judge as deliberately disruptive of orderly trial.” However, this court refused to consider these because the trial court, though it based its holding upon Tauber’s conduct throughout the trial, did not detail “* * * the items or occasions of misbehavior which *615it deemed serious enough individually or cumulatively to merit punishment as contempt.” While effort was made to explain some of the trial incidents none of them was denied. In Sacher, et al. v. United States, 343 U.S. 1, 5, 72 S.Ct. 451, 96 L.Ed. 717 (1952) the certificate of contempt (the equivalent of the district court’s order in this matter) as Mr. Justice Jackson states in the opinion “* * * incorporates, by reference, the 13,000 pages of trial record.” He goes on to say “The certificate in full and summary of relevant evidence have been reported below.” That practice was accepted by the Supreme Court and is largely similar to what we have in this appeal. There, as here:
“It is relevant to the questions of law to observe that the behavior punished as a result of the Court of Appeals’ judgment has these characteristics: It took place in the immediate presence of the trial judge; it consisted of breaches of decorum and disobedience in the presence of the jury of his orders and rulings upon the trial; the misconduct was professional in that it was that of lawyers, or of a layman acting as his own lawyer. In addition, conviction is not based on an isolated instance of hasty contumacious speech or behavior, but upon a course of conduct long-continued in the face of warnings that it was regarded by the court as contemptuous. 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.”
One of the major difficulties in Sacher was that the district judge awaited completion of the trial before holding the attorneys concerned in contempt. That was for the sound reason that the court did not wish to prejudice counsel before the jury. In the present instance there was no jury and no problem of that sort to be avoided.
Plainly, Tauber’s punishment was deserved and salutary. There is no valid excuse for setting aside the conviction at this time. This court has the trial record which is not long. It is appellants conduct throughout the trial that formed the basis of the judgment of the district court. This court *616refuses to read that record and simply closes its eyes to every occurrence other than the single one noted in the majority opinion. In so acting the court is not passing on the merits of the appeal. It is consciously refusing a district judge of this circuit a fair, full hearing on his admittedly meritorious reasons for his decision. The least we should do in common justice to both parties is to retain jurisdiction and remand the appeal to the district court for the purpose of having the judge further particularize the actions of the appellant which the judge held to be contemptuous and upon which he made his order.
Judge STALEY and Judge GANEY concur in this dissent.