Craft v. Com.

• Decision Date: 10 February 1961
• Parties: R. R. CRAFT, Commonwealth Attorney, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 150

343 S.W.2d 150

R. R. CRAFT, Commonwealth Attorney, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Feb. 10, 1961.

J. Smith Hays, Jr., Winchester, for appellant.

John B. Breckinridge Atty. Gen., William A. Watson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

MOREMEN, Judge.

The Jessamine Circuit Court adopted rules of practice which became effective on September 1, 1960. Rule XVI reads as follows:

'16.01. Notice of Intention to Try. In any criminal case which was not tried during the term in which the indictment was returned, the commonwealth's attorney shall give notice to defendant's counsel of his intention to try said case at least ten (10) days before the trial date. Failure to seasonably give such notice shall be grounds for a continuance.

'16.02. Copy of Indictment. A true copy of each indictment returned by a grand jury shall be made by the Commonwealth for each defendant in a criminal case, and same shall be furnished by the clerk to defendant's counsel upon request.'

The commonwealth's attorney refused to comply with the requirements of the rule of practice.

The court, on its own motion, issued a rule requiring the commonwealth's attorney to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt of court. His response was, in substance, that the rules of the Jessamine Circuit Court were adopted under CR 83; that the Kentucky Rules of Civil Procedure are applicable to civil cases and since Rule XVI of the Jessamine Circuit Court attempts to regulate practice in criminal cases, it is void.

The court found the response to be insufficient and adjudged that respondent was in contempt of court. This appeal is from that judgment.

Subsection 1(c) of KRS 21.060 has been construed to mean that an appeal may be taken from a judgment punishing for contempt in order to determine whether the punishment declared was illegally imposed or was excessive--not the guilt or innocence of the one punished. Ketcham v. Commonwealth, 204 Ky. 168, 263 S.W. 725; and Adams v. Gardner, 176 Ky. 252, 195 S.W. 412.

We believe that appellant's response to the contempt rule overlooks the fact that it has generally been recognized that courts (even without express authority given by the constitution, statute, or rule of a supreme court of a state) have inherent power to prescribe rules to regulate their proceedings and to facilitate the administration of justice. 110 A.L.R. 23.

In Warfield Natural Gas Co. v. Allen, 236 Ky. 358, 33 S.W.2d 34, 35, we said:

'To accomplish the above ends, and as an aid in the orderly dispatch of litigation, courts are vested with the right to adopt and promulgate reasonable rules for the guidance of litigants and their counsel and which they are as much under duty to observe as if the rules had been created by statutory enactment in the form of a Code of Practice. Such right of adoption and promulgation inheres to an appellate court the same as it does to a trial court * * *.'

When we say that an express constitutional grant of rule-making power is unnecessary we do not mean that the rule-making power does not flow from that instrument. The fountain source of that power is in the...