People ex rel. Choate v. Barrett

1. Contempt—Intrusion into Jury-Room—Publication ot Proceedings. A newspaper reporter concealed himself in the petit jury-room, before retirement of the jury in a criminal cause, and afterwards, while they were deliberating, took short-hand notes of what he heard. On being discovered, he was made to deliver his notes to the judge, but refused to promise secrecy when admonished by the judge. He was then discharged, and afterwards published bis recollections of the jury’s deliberation. The court had remained in session during the time the jury were out, the judge being part of the time on the bench, and during the rest of the time in the judge’s chambers, in the same building. Held, that the reporter was guilty of criminal contempt committed in the immediate presence and view of the court. 2. Same—Once in Jeopardy. Such action of the judge in calling the reporter before him, questioning, and then discharging him, is not such a proceeding as will entitle him to the defense of once in jeopardy, on his subsequent arrest and trial for contempt. 3. Same—Mode oe Punishment. Code Civil Proc. H. Y. § 10, providing that a contempt committed in the presence of the court may be punished summarily, does not require that it he so punished. The judge may discharge the offender, and wait until proof of the contempt is presented before him in a legal and formal manner.

Certiorari to review the commitment of Dilworth Choate for contempt of court. The opinion of Justice Barrett at oyer and terminer, on return of the order to show cause, was as follows: “ * It is a duty imposed upon all courts to preserve order in court, and see to it that its proceedings are not interrupted,’ said Judge Mason, in People v. Court of Oyer and Terminer, 27 How. Pr. 18, ‘ or that the respect and authority due to the court are not impaired; and the statute, to enable the court to discharge this duty, confers the necessary power upon the court.’ In the matter at bar there is no substantial dispute as to the character of the respondent’s act. It was undoubtedly, a contempt. The principal question is whether such contempt was committed during the sitting of the court, and in its immediate view and presence. If it was so committed, it is punishable as a criminal contempt, for it certainly tended to interrupt the proceedings, and to impair the respect due to the authority of the court. The respondent’s act was not only a contempt, but an exceedingly gross violation of professional propriety. He deliberately prepared for the invasion of the jury-room, secreted himself there in advance, and supplied himself with paper upon which to take stenographic notes of.what he might hear. He actually took such potes while the jury were deliberating; and although, upon his discovery, he delivered these notes to the court, he refused to promise secrecy, and, notwithstanding our admonition that his conduct was highly improper, and that it was his bounden duty to keep what he had heard to himself, he subsequently published his recollections of the debate. All this tended, to quote the language of Finch, J., in People v. Court of Oyer and Terminer, 101 H. Y. 249, 4 H. E. Ilep. 259, * to cast discredit upon the administration of public justice.’ In State v. Doty, 32 H. J. Law, 403, the supreme court of New Jersey held that the law directs the complete seclusion of the jury, and that any attempt to invade such seclusion is illegal, and a palpable violation of judicial authority. ‘The jury,’ said the learned and able Chief Justice Beasley, ‘cannot be isolated unless the court is prompt to punish those who infringe in the slightest degree the order directing such isolation. I think public policy requires that no one should escape punishment who is found in any respect invading the privacy of the jury-room.’ In this state, the statute expressly requires the jury, in criminal cases, while deliberating, to be kept together in some private and convenient place; and the officers are sworn not to permit any person to speak to or communicate with them, nor to do so themselves, unless it be by order of the court. Code Grim. Proc. § 421. The conduct of the respondent was a deliberate violation of the statute, and of those just principles which, from time immemorial, have been established to secure the independence and impartiality of jurors. “The question remains whether this plain contempt was committed in the immediate view and presence of the court. It certainly .was committed during the sitting of the court. The sitting of the court was continous while the jury was deliberating. There was no adjournment or suspension of the sitting. The judge was actually upon the bench in the court-room during the earlier part of these deliberations. Later on, the judge retired to the judges’ chambers, in the same building and on the same floor with both the courtroom and the jury-room. But the court was at all times in session, and remained so until after the rendition of the verdict. The contempt was not committed in the immediate view and presence of the judge. The judge, however, is not the court. A court has been well defined to be ‘ an organized body, with defined powers, meeting at certain times and places for the hearing and decision of causes and other matters brought before it, and aided in this, its proper business, by its proper officers, viz., attorneys and counsel to present and manage the business, clerks to record and attest its acts and decisions, and ministerial officers to execute its commands and secure due order in its proceedings.’ Burrill, Law Diet. Lord Coke describes it to be ‘ a place where justice is judicially administered.’ Referring to this definition, Wait, Law & Pr. 221, says that the term • place ’ must be understood figuratively, for a court is properly composed of persons consisting of the judge or judges, and other proper officers, united together in a civil organization, and invested by law with the requisite functions for the administration of justice. This is a correct view of the subject. The court is clearly an organization invested by law with certain functions for the administration of justice. A contempt committed in the immediate view and presence of any constituent part of that organization, during the sitting of the court, and tending to interrupt the proceedings of such constituent part, is a contempt in the immediate view and presence of the court. This was expressly held in Bergh’s Case, 16 Abb. Pr. (H. S.) 284. The particular act there under consideration was the delivery to the grand jury of an aspersive letter from an unofficial person. This was deemed contemptuous behavior committed during the sitting of the court. * I think,’ said the learned recorder, 1 that the term “behavior” may cover the writing and delivery to the grand jury of a contemptuous and insulting letter. It is clear, from the elementary writers, and from what the court of appeals implied in the Hacldey Case, 24 N. T. 78, that the grand jury room is an enlargement of the court-room, and part of the court sitting. Handing to the petit jury a letter containing remarks upon the case pending before them, has been, at nisiprius, adjudged a contempt; the jury, for convenience, being outside of the court-room proper, it is true, but legally and technically, nevertheless, a part of the court sitting; and both the grand and petit jury rooms were merely extensions of the court apartment, and are under equal jurisdiction.’ In Com. v. Cram, 3 Pa. Law J. 453, the court said it was ‘ clear that a grand jury are as much attached to the court as a petit jury. * * * In contemplation of law, a grand jury are supposed to be personally present in court. * * * They differ from a petit jury only in the particular that the latter hear both sides of the case, but both receive legal information from the same tribunal.’ Mr. Rapalje, in his work on Contempts, (section 67,) says that, the grand jury being merely an appendage to the court, the refusal by a witness to answer questions put by them is a contempt of the court by whose order the grand jury was impaneled. For this proposition he cites many eases in this and in other states, notably People v. Naught,on, 7 Abb. Pr. (H. S.) 421; People v. Kelly, 24 N. T. 74; and People v. Puncher, 4Thomp. &C. 476. In People v. Naughton, Mr. Justice Pratt held that the grand jury was a constituent part of the court of oyer and terminer, and that its proceedings were a part of the proceedings of that court. See page 428. In People v. Kelly, 21 How. Pr. 54, the supreme court of this department, at general term, held that the grand jury was an adjunct of the court, as well as the petit jury. It was there insisted that the commitment was illegal because the contempt did not occur in the presence of the court, but in the grand jury room, before the jury as an independent body. Leonard, J., answered this contention by saying that, ‘ when summoned, sworn, and organized, the grand jury are a constituent part of the court, for the performance of the functions and duties devolved upon the court, as much as a body of twelve petit jurors impaneled for the trial of a person charged with crime. * * * When the witness has been brought before the grand jury to testify, he is for the time in the custody, or under the control, of the court and the grand jury. He stands in the same relation to the court as a witness on the stand before the court and a petit jury.’ It will be observed that the reasoning in many of these grand jury cases proceeds upon the analogy to the petit jury. That the latter body is directly and immediately a constituent part of the court, and the petit jury room an adjunct to the court, is treated throughout as a postulate admitting of no question. This becomes entirely clear when we free our minds from the popular notion that the judge is the court. He is a constituent part of the organization, but he is not the court. Hor is the court-room the court, nor the jury-room, nor the petit jury. The court is the totality of the constituent parts. It consists of the entire judicial organization for the trial of causes, and it is immediately present w'heneverand wherever, from the opening to the adjournment of the sitting, these constituent parts are actually performing the functions devolving upon them by law. If the judge happens to leave the bench and the court-room for a few moments, while counsel is summing up to the jury, and during his absence an assault is made upon the speaker, can there be a doubt that a criminal contempt is thereby committed ? This is not because the act is done in the court-room, but because it is done in the court. The court is in session and present, though the magistrate is temporarily absent. And further, the jury may decide in the court-room, in the presence of the judge, or they may retire to another room to deliberate, or they may even be left in the privacy of the court-room itself; all persons, in the latter case, including the judge, being excluded. Wherever they may be, so long as they are deliberating, and performing the functions required of them by law, the . court is there present; and a contempt then and there committed is committed in the immediate view and presence of the court. “This conclusion is in precise accord with the view taken by the supreme court of the United States of the federal statute relating to contempts. In the Matter of Savin, 131 U, S. 267, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 699, the court examined the question as to when and where a court may be said to be present, and the opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan seems to be directly in point. ‘ We are of opinion,’ said that learned judge, ‘ that, within the meaning of the statute, the court, at least when in session, is present in every part of the place set apart for its own use, and for the use of its officers, jurors and witnesses; and misbehavior anywhere in such place is misbehavior in the presence of the court. It is true that the mode of proceeding for contempt is not the same in every case of such misbehavior. Where the contempt is committed directly under the eye or within the view of the court, it may proceed upon its own knowledge of the facts, and punish the offender without further proof, and without issue or trial in any form, {Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, 309, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 77,) whereas, in cases of misbehavior of which the judge cannot have such personal knowledge, and is informed thereof only by the confession of the party, or by the testimony, under oath, of others, the proper practice is, by rule or other process, to require the offender to appear and show cause why he should not be punished. 4 BI. Comm. 286. But this difference in procedure does not affect the question as to whether particular acts do not, within the meaning of the statute, constitute misbehavior in the presence of the court. If, while Plores was in the court-room, waiting to be called as a witness, the appellant had attempted to deter him from testifying on behalf of the government, or had there offered him money not to testify against Goujon, it could not be doubted that he would have been guilty of misbehavior in the presence of the court, although the judge might not have been personally cognizant at the time of what occurred. But if such attempt and offer occurred in the hallway, just outside of the court-room, or in the witness-room where Flores was waiting, in obedience to the subpoena served upon him, or pursuant to the order of the court, to be called into the courtroom as a witness, must it be said that such misbehavior was not in the presence of the court? Clearly not.’ “The case of People v. Court of Oyer and Terminer, 101 B. Y. 245, 4 B. E. Bep. 259, does not conflict with these views. It was there conceded that the respondent’s act was not a criminal contempt, as such contempts are defined in the Code of Civil Procedure, § 8. It was, however, an exceedingly dangerous contempt, and should be enumerated among the criminal contempts; for the act would probably -have entitled the defendant to a new trial in case of conviction. Code Crim. Proc. § 465, subd. 2.. If the verdict in that case had been the other way, the defendant, under the reasoning of the court, could doubtless have secured the juror’s punishment as for a civil contempt. But his misconduct was not committed in the presence of the court, or in the presence of any of its constituent elements. It was entirely outside of, and apart from, the court and its judicial machinery. It consisted in the juror’s visiting the scene of the affray unaccompanied by his fellows, and without the order of the court. Such an act was not enumerated among criminal con-tempts, and the statute expressly limits the power to punish expropria motu to such enumerated contempts. The court held that the act was not even a civil contempt which the people could punish, because the people had not suffered in their pecuniary interests. But, as previously observed, the defendant, if put to expense by the necessity for a new trial, might have invoked the statute as to civil contempts. The ease is certainly not in point as to the question now under consideration, and does not in any wise affect the present conclusion. That conclusion is that the respondent was guilty of a criminal contempt, and that such contempt was committed in the immediate view and presence of the court. It follows that a commitment should issue. As to the extent of the punishment, I apprehend there can be no question. The maximum authorized by statute is wholly inadequate. The offense, as we-have seen, was a grave one. It evinced a total disregard of what is due to the-people in the decent and orderly administration of justice. Bo repentance has been exhibited, no apology offered, no expression of regret vouchsafed. The determination has been to do the wrong, to do it deliberately, and to persist in it defiantly. The respondent is committed to the county jail for 30-days, and a fine is imposed of $250.”