Court Opinion

ID: 9442933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:04:36.286604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:46:52.958623
License: Public Domain

SOPER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Chief Justice White pointed out in Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States, 247 U.S. 402, 419, 420, 38 S.Ct. 560, 564, 62 L.Ed. 1186, that the federal courts in the exercise of their rights of self preservation have the power to restrain acts tending to obstruct and prevent the untrammelled and unprejudiced exercise of the judicial power by summarily treating such acts as contempt and punishing them accordingly. He said that the test is the character of the act done and its direct tendency to prevent and obstruct the discharge of the judicial duty; and that the power of an appellate court in reviewing a conviction of contempt by the trial judge “is not to test divergent contentions as to the weight of the evidence but simply to consider the legal question whether the evidentiary facts found had any reasonable tendency to sustain the general conclusions of fact based upon them by the courts below.”
In the pending case the evidence had a reasonable tendency to establish the following facts which led the District Judge to conclude that the appellant was endeavoring to set up a friendly relationship with one of the jurors so as to influence his verdict in the case on trial. Annie Hawkins was a woman 38 years of age, of more than ordinary intelligence and experience. She had been educated in Allen University in South Carolina and had taught school in -that state for eight years. Subsequently she worked in the Veterans Hospital at Swannanoa, North Carolina, and later purchased two automobiles and operated a taxicab business in Asheville. She had been personally attached to Fred Simpson, *786the defendant in the criminal case on trial, and regarded him as her sweetheart; hut there had been a falling out between them and she had turned against him and called the government agents and made statements which were taken down in shorthand to the effect that Simpson was engaged in illegal liquor traffic. Accordingly she was summoned as a witness for the United States in the case before the court; but in the meantime and unknown to the government she had made up her differences with Simpson and was willing to testify in his behalf. She was actually put on the stand as a witness for the defendant, after Tier attentions to the juror had been noticed and after she had been questioned by the United States Attorney and had repudiated her former statements. As a witness for the defendant she falsely swore that she had never made these statements.
This was the setting in which the woman struck up an acquaintance with a member of the jury of her own race whom she had not known before. Although there were many colored people in the courtroom, she found a seat next to the juror’s wife and made her acquaintance. Although there was only one place in the city convenient to the courtroom where colored persons could purchase food at lunch time, and a number of them went to this place at recess ■on the second day of the trial, she went in company with the juror and his wife, and returned with them to the courtroom. The next day, under like conditions, the juror’s wife being absent, Annie Hawkins again went to the same store with the juror and .returned with him taking a round about route from the store to the courthouse. On this occasion she addressed him by his name. Arriving there she sat with him on .a bench in the corridor and engaged him in .a conversation. Although the conversations between them on these two days were not overheard, her actions and her posture ■on the second day indicated to the government agents and convinced the judge that •she was endeavoring to ingratiate herself with the juror.
These circumstances and the inadequacy of her explanations when examined as a witness produced a most unfavorable impression upon the judge so that he felt it necessary to declare a mistrial in an important criminal case and to adjudicate the woman in contempt. She said that when she sat down beside the wife of the juror in the courtroom she was unaware of the relationship of her new acquaintance to the juror; that when she went out to lunch with the juror she did not know that he was a member of the jury; and when she took the stand she failed to identify the juror as her luncheon companion, although she had eaten lunch with him on two successive days and had addressed him by his name. She gave no account of the subject of her several conversations with the juror except to say that she told him about an accident to her sister who had burned her hand and on the second day talked to him about his wife. ' The testimony of credible witnesses tended strongly to show that she perjured herself in repudiating her earlier statements to the revenue agents and in denying any knowledge of the identity of the juror who sat upon the panel throughout the two days of the trial during which she was constantly present. The judge not unreasonably rejected her explanations of her conduct as incredible and concluded that she was not merely maintaining a friendly attitude towards a casual stranger, but was engaged in a sinister attempt to curry favor with one who had a voice in the verdict in order to aid the defendant.
In my opinion, the behavior of the appellant, when viewed in the light of her obvious motive for making contact with the jury, had a direct tendency to prevent and obstruct the administration of justice, and therefore the order of the District Court should be affirmed. Higgins v. United States, 81 U.S.App.D.C. 372, 160 F.2d 223; Gridley v. United States, 6 Cir., 44 F.2d 716; Murphy v. Wright, 167 Iowa 75, 148 N.W. 985. See Kelly v. United States, 9 Cir., 250 F. 947; Annotation, 63 A.L.R. 1269, 1277. Cf. State ex inf. Kimbrell v. Clark, 134 Mo.App. 55, 114 S.W. 536.