Beauchamp v. Cahill
| Decision Date | 12 May 1944 |
| Citation | 297 Ky. 505,180 S.W.2d 423 |
| Parties | BEAUCHAMP, Judge, et al. v. CAHILL. |
| Court | Kentucky Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County, Chancery Branch, First Division; John R. Moreman, Special Judge.
Action by Frank R. Cahill, Jr., against Mark Beauchamp, Judge, and another for writ of prohibition to prevent defendants from excluding plaintiff from the courtroom during certain trials. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal.
Affirmed.
Lawrence S. Grauman and C. Maxwell Brown, both of Louisville, for appellants.
Hebert Monsky, of Louisville, for appellee.
This action was instituted in Jefferson Circuit Court, Chancery Branch, First Division, by appellee, Hon. Frank R. Cahill Jr., a duly licensed and regularly practicing attorney of the Louisville Bar, against Hon. Mark Beauchamp, Judge of the Jefferson County Court, and Hon. Lawrence W. Weatherby, Trial Commissioner of the Juvenile Session of that court, to obtain a writ of prohibition against defendants to prevent them from excluding him from the court room during certain trials in the Juvenile Session of the Jefferson County Court. Defendants appeal from a judgment granting plaintiff the relief sought.
The petition avers that plaintiff as attorney represented one Hilton in the case of Commonwealth v. Hilton pending in the Juvenile Session of the Jefferson County Court wherein the defendant, an adult male, was charged with contributing to the delinquency of Pauline Sizemore, a girl said to be 15 years of age; that there were like charges in the same court pending against other adult males named Whitehouse and Briscoe in which Pauline was the prosecutrix. That on Feb 14, 1944, when the case against Briscoe was called the Trial Commissioner, Hon. Lawrence W. Weatherby, on motion of the Assistant County Attorney in charge of the prosecution, entered an order excluding all persons from the court room during Briscoe's trial except Pauline, the prosecuting attorney, Briscoe and his attorney the trial commissioner and a court attaché. It is further alleged that although plaintiff is a regularly licensed and practicing attorney he was excluded under such order from the court room during Briscoe's trial and unless defendants are prohibited by the chancellor he will be excluded from the trial of Whitehouse on Feb. 17, 1944, in violation of his constitutional rights as an attorney and as a citizen; that under his employment to defend Hilton, it is his duty to be present during Whitehouse's trial and observe the hearing, and he will suffer irreparable injury if excluded from the court room during that trial.
Defendants filed a special demurrer questioning plaintiff's legal capacity to sue, also a general demurrer challenging the sufficiency of the petition. Hon. John R. Moreman, Special Chancellor, in a full and well-reasoned opinion overruled both demurrers. When defendants declined to plead further, he entered a judgment denying the right of the court to exclude plaintiff from the court room during any hearings of cases wherein the Sizemore girl is the prosecutrix.
The chancellor's opinion states that while the petition recites a writ of prohibition was sought, the real relief asked was a mandamus and that the parties so practiced the case before him. As the parties and the chancellor treated this as a proceeding for mandamus, it will be so considered by us.
Defendants insist that as plaintiff did not represent Briscoe, he had no direct interest in the proceeding and on this ground they attempt to distinguish the instant case from two cases of the same style of Herr v. Humphrey, Judge, reported respectively in 258 Ky. 270, 79 S.W.2d 965 and 277 Ky. 421, 126 S.W.2d 809, 121 A.L.R. 954. Also, they ask in what respect could plaintiff suffer irreparable injury by being excluded from the court room during the trial of a defendant he did not represent?
True plaintiff did not represent Briscoe, but he...
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