Court Opinion

ID: 9474437
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:57:13.412308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:05.014982
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority articulates the “critical inquiry” in its review of appellants’ conviction for criminal contempt as “whether the appellants were aware that they were disobeying a lawful court order” in refusing to testify before the federal grand jury. Finding that appellants were so aware, the majority affirms their convictions. The majority thus fails to make the critical determination that is required in order to sustain a conviction on any charge of criminal contempt: that the appellants acted willfully in disobeying the court order. Such a determination entails finding beyond a reasonable doubt that appellants knew that their refusal to testify was wrongful. Equally important, the facts of this case foreclose any such finding. Because the majority affirms appellants’ conviction under an improper legal standard, and in so doing ignores the facts of appellants’ case, I respectfully dissent.
Appellants were subpoenaed in October 1981 to appear before a special grand jury investigating alleged diversion of funds from casino properties. Prior to their scheduled appearance, appellants filed a Gelbard motion under 18 U.S.C. § 3504 (1982) and Gelbard v. United States, 408 U.S. 41, 92 S.Ct. 2357, 33 L.Ed.2d 179 (1972), for disclosure of any illegal electron*709ic surveillance to which they were or had been subject.1 The government consented to a continuance of the grand jury appearances until the court had ruled on appellants’ motion.
In opposition to the Gelbard motion, the government stated that appellant Sammar-co’s conversations had been intercepted pursuant to court-authorized electronic surveillance in 1978, but that, according to the FBI, appellants Armstrong and Williams’ conversations had never been intercepted in Nevada. The government opposed any further disclosures of electronic surveillance searches.
The district court held an evidentiary hearing on appellants’ motion, and on April 5, 1982, entered an order denying the motion for failure to make a ‘prima facie demonstration of illegal electronic interception.
Eight months later, the government again requested appellants to appear before the special federal grand jury. On December 27, 1982, the district judge signed immunity and compulsion orders for appellants pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 6001 (1982). Appellants and their counsel appeared before the grand jury on January 4, 1983, and filed a second Gelbard motion. This motion alleged the occurrence of specific instances of electronic surveillance during the eight month period subsequent to the evidentiary hearing on the first Gel-bard motion. At the grand jury, the prosecution informed appellants of the December immunity and compulsion orders. Appellants refused to testify, however, pending disclosure of the alleged illegal electronic surveillance.
The district court denied the second Gel-bard motion on March 7, 1983, for failure to make a prima facie showing of illegal surveillance.
Appellants appeared before the grand jury on March 28, 1983. Though again informed by the prosecution of the immunity and compulsion orders, appellants refused to answer the jury’s questions on the ground that the questions were the product of illegal electronic surveillance.
Upon the government’s motion, the district court issued an order on April 21,1983 to show cause why the appellants should not be held in civil contempt pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1826 (1982). Appellants responded to the order with, inter alia, a request that the court reconsider its denial of the second Gelbard motion. In their motion, appellants plainly stated their position that in order to contest the court’s adverse ruling, they must refuse to testify, be cited for contempt, and raise the Gelbard issue on their appeal from the contempt citation.
The district court entered an order on August 31,1983, denying appellants’ motion for reconsideration of its Gelbard ruling and ordering appellants to reappear and testify before the grand jury. The court did not then, nor did it subsequently, rule on the government’s civil contempt motion. The order did not state that appellants would be in contempt should they refuse to testify. Nor did the district judge so advise them by any other means.
Appellants appeared before the grand jury on September 20, 1983. The prosecution reminded them of their respective compulsion orders and read the court’s order of August 81, 1983. The prosecution warned appellants that a refusal to testify could result in civil and/or criminal contempt sanctions. Appellants again refused to testify on the advice of counsel.
The grand jury indicted appellants on January 10, 1984, for criminal contempt under 18 U.S.C. § 401(3) (1982) and Fed.R. Crim.P. 42(b), for willfully refusing to testify on September 20, 1983. Appellants were then tried before a different district judge and were convicted of criminal contempt on August 31, 1984. Each was fined $500.
At the contempt trial, both appellants and their counsel testified as to appellants’ *710refusal to answer the grand jury’s questions. There is no dispute as to the facts. The testimony at trial reveals that counsel advised appellants prior to each grand jury appearance that the district court had incorrectly denied their Gelbard motions, and that the procedure for challenging that denial required that they refuse to testify before the grand jury, be cited for contempt, and ask for a stay of the contempt citation pending appeal of the Gelbard motion. Counsel further told them that if the court granted the stay, they would take the appeal; if the court denied the stay, they would then be obligated to testify. Counsel also advised appellants that if his advice were followed appellants would not at any point be in contempt of court. He told them that if the court granted the stay, they would not be in contempt while the appeal was pending; if the court denied the stay, they would testify, thus avoiding any act of contempt; and while their request for a stay was pending before the trial court, their refusal to testify would not be contumacious, since such refusal was a prerequisite to appellate review of the Gel-bard motions:
I told appellants that disobedience of the August 31, 1983 order would not be an illegal act and that it was a necessary predicate to even asking the judge to let me go to the Court of Appeals, because otherwise we didn’t get there.
Appellants’ testimony indicates that they understood counsel’s explanation of the appeals procedure, and that their refusal to testify was undertaken pursuant to that explanation. Most importantly, appellants’ testimony shows that they believed that their refusal to testify was lawful:
Q: As you were reading [the statement explaining your refusal to testify] to the grand jury, did you believe that you were committing a criminal act?
A: No, I didn’t.
Q: What did you think you were doing, sir?
A: It seemed to be very legal to me, not being a lawyer.... I didn’t believe that we were breaking the law at any time. I just thought that counsel knew more than I did. The way he explained it to us, we just had to follow one step and another. He said in order for us to get a ruling on this, that we would have to refuse to answer.
Q: Did you believe when you read the statement to the grand jury on September 20th, 1983, that Mr. Sherman had prepared for you, that you were violating the law when you did that?
A: Not per se. I just believed what he told me, that the only way we can have this resolved — he says, we have to get charged with contempt before he can take it to the Ninth Court of Appeals [sic].
On the basis of the evidence presented at trial, the district court below found that appellants followed counsel’s advice in “complete good faith.” The court also found credible appellants’ testimony that they would have testified before the grand jury had the trial court ruled against them on the contempt motion. Nevertheless, he found them in criminal contempt.
Title 18 U.S.C. § 401(3) gives a federal court the power to punish as a crime “[disobedience or resistance to its lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command.” “[Cjriminal contempt requires a contemnor to know of an order and willfully disobey it_ Willfulness and awareness of the order must be shown beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Baker, 641 F.2d 1311, 1317 (9th Cir.1981) (citations omitted); see also United States v. Powers, 629 F.2d 619, 627 (9th Cir.1980); Chapman v. Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co., 613 F.2d 193, 195 (9th Cir.1979).
We have defined “willfulness” as “a volitional act done by one who knows or should reasonably be aware that his conduct is wrongful.” Baker, 641 F.2d at 1317.
Appellants’ understanding, however incorrect, that their refusal to testify was lawful, negates the willfulness element of criminal contempt. “Good faith pursuit of a plausible though mistaken alternative is antithetical to contumacious intent, how*711ever unimportant it may be in the context of eivil contempt.” In re Brown, 454 F.2d 999, 1007 (D.C.Cir.1971).
The district court never corrected appellants’ misunderstanding of the legal character of their refusal to testify. The court did not, in its August 31, 1983 order, instruct appellants on their legal duty to testify, nor did it inform them, in that order or otherwise, that they would be in contempt of court if they refused to comply. Although the prosecution advised appellants at the September 20, 1983 grand jury proceedings that their refusal to testify would be contumacious, appellants were justified in relying on the advice of their own, rather than opposing, counsel, absent an indication from the court that their counsel’s advice was erroneous or based on an incorrect construction of the law.
Contrary to the majority’s view, I believe the proper rule to be the following: A defendant may not be convicted of willfully disobeying an order to testify, where he relies in good faith on counsel’s advice that such disobedience is lawful and the court has not instructed him as to his duty to obey its order.2 The principle on which I rely was initially set forth in Williamson v. United States, 207 U.S. 425, 28 S.Ct. 163, 52 L.Ed. 278 (1908):
[I]f a man honestly and in good faith seeks advice of a lawyer as to what he may lawfully do ... and fully and honestly lays all the facts before his counsel, and in good faith and honestly follows such advice, relying upon it and believing it to be correct, and only intends that his acts shall be lawful, he could not be convicted of a crime which involves willful and unlawful intent; even if such advice were an inaccurate construction of the law.
Williamson, 207 U.S. at 453, 28 S.Ct. at 173.
The majority is unsuccessful in its attempt to dispose of the principle enunciated in Williamson. While it is true that the holding in that case did not address the advice of counsel defense, the Court nevertheless approved of the principle in the language quoted by the majority. Supra, at 706 n. 3. The Eighth Circuit has recognized that approval by citing Williamson for the proposition that an advice of counsel instruction “is warranted only where the crime charged involves willful and unlawful intent.” United States v. Powell, 513 F.2d 1249, 1251 (8th Cir.1975).
The majority’s prohibition of an advice of counsel defense in criminal contempt cases ignores the willfulness element of the crime and transforms criminal contempt into a general intent offense. The majority does not find that appellants knew their conduct to be unlawful, but rather stops short at the inquiry whether appellants knew that they were disobeying a court order.3 This case demonstrates that the two findings are not necessarily synonymous. Abiding by the willfulness element of criminal contempt requires that we inquire into appellants’ belief about the wrongfulness of their conduct; that requirement necessitates in turn that we permit an advice of counsel defense where, as here, a defendant establishes both good faith reliance on counsel and the absence of corrective instruction from the court. Permitting an advice of counsel defense under the present circumstances simply acknowledges the proposition that where a person *712acts with a reasonable good faith belief that his or her conduct is proper and lawful, he or she cannot be convicted of acting with the belief that that conduct is wrongful.
Permitting an advice of counsel defense against a criminal contempt charge would not, as the majority asserts, “make stultification of a court order impermissibly easy,” supra, at 706 (quoting Steinert v. United States, 571 F.2d 1105, 1108 (9th Cir.1978)), or “in effect do away with the judicial grant of immunity.” Id. (quoting United States v. Snyder, 428 F.2d 520, 522 (9th Cir.), cert. denied 400 U.S. 903, 91 S.Ct. 139, 27 L.Ed.2d 139 (1970)). The primary mechanism available to a court for coercing compliance with its lawful orders is the civil, rather than the criminal, contempt power. Civil contempt is remedial, whereas criminal contempt is punitive. Shillitani v. United States, 384 U.S. 364, 86 S.Ct. 1531, 16 L.Ed.2d 622 (1966). Advice of counsel is no defense to civil contempt, since civil contempt contains no willfulness element. “Where contempt consists of a refusal to obey a court order to testify at any stage in judicial proceedings, the witness may be confined until compliance.” Id., at 370, 86 S.Ct. at 1535; McCrone v. United States, 307 U.S. 61, 59 S.Ct. 685, 83 L.Ed. 1108 (1939). An appellate court must act upon an appeal from an order of confinement within 30 days from the filing of the appeal. 28 U.S.C. § 1826(b) (1982).
An expeditious procedure exists, therefore, for compelling compliance with a court order, without altering the standard for criminal contempt. That procedure would in fact have sufficed to compel compliance in the present case. The court below noted that the criminal contempt proceedings would have been avoided altogether, had the judge overseeing the casino investigations acted upon the civil contempt motion. It accepted as true appellants’ statements that they would have testified had the original judge held them in contempt and then denied their request for a stay.
There are further reasons why permitting the defense would not eviscerate immunity and compulsion orders. Few attorneys will advise their clients to disobey a court order simply in order to afford them an advice of counsel defense. The attorney-client privilege is waived when a client testifies about the advice he received, and the attorney could then be compelled to take the stand himself, either at the contempt hearing, or at some other proceeding. Moreover, the giving of such advice would subject the attorney to the possibility of contempt charges or sanctions. See Maness v. Meyers, 419 U.S. 449, 460, 95 S.Ct. 584, 592, 42 L.Ed.2d 574 (1975); In re Watts, 190 U.S. 1, 29, 23 S.Ct. 718, 725, 47 L.Ed. 933 (1903). Finally, the result proposed here places in the court that grants immunity to a witness the power to foreclose an advice of counsel defense. As long as the court instructs a witness that a refusal to testify will be contumacious, that witness may not invoke the advice of counsel defense against a charge of willfully disobeying a court order.
The majority’s hyperbolic warning that “anarchy and disorder,” supra, at 707 n. 4, would follow from a reversal of appellants’ conviction is clearly unwarranted. As stated above, the court overseeing the investigations could have ruled on the government’s civil contempt motion and used its civil contempt power against the witnesses to compel compliance with its order; when the government became impatient with the court’s failure to act on its motion it took the most unusual course of resorting to criminal contempt instead of renewing its request for a ruling. Secondly, the court could have instructed appellants on the unlawfulness of their conduct, thereby eliminating any possibility that defendants could avail themselves in good faith of an advice of counsel defense. The district judge gave no such instruction and the government requested none, again apparently preferring for reasons that the record does not reveal to take its chances with the more drastic and unusual criminal contempt process. It is unlikely that the events that occurred in this case will be *713replicated with any regularity in the future. Thus, the majority’s fears of “anarchy and disorder” seem, to say the least, to be somewhat excessive.
The majority cites United States v. Snyder, supra, and Steinert v. United States, supra, for the proposition that good faith reliance on the advice of counsel to disobey a court order will not prevent a finding of willfulness. Neither case, however, justifies the majority’s refusal to follow the rule described in Williamson.
The statements on the advice of counsel defense in Snyder do not have the force of law. By the Snyder court’s own admission, the advice of counsel issue was not properly before it. Snyder, 428 F.2d at 522. Its subsequent comments on the issue were, therefore, wholly gratuitous.4
Steinert v. United States, 571 F.2d 1105 (9th Cir.1978), is inapposite on its facts. The defendant there argued that reliance on a tax accountant’s advice to disobey a court order negated the willfulness of that disobedience. The court properly rejected the argument. Tax accountants do not hold themselves out as experts on legal procedure; anyone who relies on their legal advice in that area does so at his or her own risk.
Our analysis in Steinert supports, rather than contravenes, the availability of an advice of counsel defense in the present case. We found that Steinert’s “long sustained recalcitrance in this and earlier litigation provide[d] no basis for relieving him of the[ ] ordinary risks” of “his advisor’s errors.” Steinert, 571 F.2d at 1108. The implication of the opinion is that under different circumstances a legitimate basis for relief would exist. We said in Stei-nert : “At some point the taxpayer accepts bad advice at his peril. We have no difficulty in finding that point reached here.” Id. Steinert had passed the point where he could justifiably rely on his accountant’s advice, because he had “been before [the appellate] court previously,” and had there been advised that he could not avoid a summons by a blanket claim of privilege. Id. at 1106.
Here the facts are substantially different from those in Steinert and an opposite result is required: At the September grand jury hearing, appellants had not reached the point of accepting bad advice at their peril. They had never been advised by a court that their refusal to testify would be contumacious. They unsuccessfully sought to invoke a procedure they believed would lead to an appellate determination of their claim of privilege, and reasonably expected that as a prerequisite thereto the lower court would rule on the government’s civil contempt motion. Thus, Stei-nert supports appellants’ contention that they may rebut the willfulness element of criminal contempt with an advice of counsel defense.
Because the majority improperly rejects an advice of counsel defense to criminal contempt and fails to find that appellants knew that their refusal to testify was wrongful, I respectfully dissent from Part II of the Opinion. I would reverse appellants’ convictions for criminal contempt.

. Under Gelbard v. United States, 408 U.S. 41, 92 S.Ct. 2357, 33 L.Ed.2d 179 (1972), witnesses may invoke 18 U.S.C. § 2515, which prohibits the disclosure to a grand jury of evidence obtained by an illegal wiretap, as a defense to a contempt charge.

. In a criminal proceeding, a court is required to ensure that a defendant understands the consequences of pleading guilty before accepting a guilty plea. Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(c), (d); McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969). It is no more onerous to require a court to ensure that a witness understands the consequences of disobeying a court order, especially since disobedience could lead to criminal liability.

. The majority’s characterization of appellants’ argument as "whether they realized the nature of the punishment they could receive for disobeying" the court order is both inaccurate and misleading, since it obscures appellants’ real complaint. Appellants nowhere argue that they did not understand the nature of the punishment for contempt. They challenge their convictions on the ground that they believed their conduct to be lawful, not on the ground that they believed that they could not he punished for unlawful conduct.

. Even were we to accord Snyder authoritative status, it would not resolve the issue presented in this case. The advice which the Snyder court found irrelevant to a contempt charge was simply to "disobey the court’s order." Snyder, 428 F.2d at 523. Appellants, on the other hand, were advised, without correction from the court, that disobedience of the court’s order was a lawful and necessary prerequisite to obtaining appellate review. Snyder did not purport to discuss whether such advice negates the willfullness element of a criminal contempt proceeding.