Farr, In re, Cr. 22815

• Decision Date: 08 January 1974
• Docket Number: Cr. 22815
• Citation: 111 Cal.Rptr. 649,36 Cal.App.3d 577
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: In re William T. FARR, on Habeas Corpus.

Page 649

111 Cal.Rptr. 649

36 Cal.App.3d 577

In re William T. FARR, on Habeas Corpus.

Cr. 22815.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 1, California.

Jan. 8, 1974.

Marc S. Hurwitz, Los Angeles, for petitioner.

John D. Maharg, County Counsel, and William F. Stewart, Deputy County Counsel, Los Angeles, for respondents.

THOMPSON, Associate Justice.

In this petition for habeas corpus, petitioner William T. Farr seeks further review of an adjudication of contempt ordered by the Los Angeles Superior Court. The matter has previously been before us on writ of review from the contempt adjudication. In that proceeding, we affirmed the trial court's order. (Farr v. Superior Court, 22 Cal.App.3d 60, 99 Cal.Rptr. 342.) A petition for hearing by our Supreme Court was denied March 20, 1972. The United States Supreme Court refused certiorari.

Most of the record pertinent to the petition which is now before us is recited in our opinion in Farr v. Superior Court, Supra. So far as pertinent to this proceeding, that record and a subsequent hearing in the trial court disclose the following. In a sensational trial involving multiple charges of first degree murder against Charles Manson and several codefendants, the Los Angeles Superior Court issued an order prohibiting attorneys for the parties, court attaches and witnesses from releasing for public dissemination the content or nature of any testimony to be given at trial or any evidence the admissibility of which might have to be determined by the court. Petitioner was, and now is, a newspaper reporter. The order was violated at petitioner's instigation, and a highly inflammatory statement of a prospective witness was published in a newspaper over petitioner's by-line. Much of the statement was barred from evidence. At the conclusion of the Manson trial, the trial court, acting through a judge who had not issued the original order re publicity, conducted a hearing to determine the source of the violation of the order for the purposes of supplementing the Manson record on appeal and of determining the possible participation by court attaches and officers in the violation. At the hearing, petitioner stated in effect that the order had been violated by two attorneys of record in the case included in a list of six named by him, and by one other person whose status as an attorney of record he declined to confirm or deny. Petitioner refused also to identify the two attorneys of record as being for the defense or prosecution. Over petitioner's objection that it was without power to do so because of the reporter's shield statute encompassed in Evidence Code section 1070, the trial court ordered him to complete his identification of the partially identified sources of the violation of the order. When petitioner refused, he was adjudged in contempt and ordered incarcerated until he complied with the court's order to disclose the specific identities of the persons who had supplied him with the statement. The trial court, however, stayed execution of its order to permit petitioner to seek appellate review.

Petitioner attacked the adjudication and order re contempt in a petition for writ of review directed to this court. He claimed that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to proceed against him because the Manson trial had terminated and because of the provisions of Evidence Code section 1070. He argued also that compulsory disclosure of his sources of the statement was precluded by the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of press. In Farr v. Superior Court, Supra, 22 Cal.App.3d 60, 99 Cal.Rptr. 342, we held against petitioner and affirmed the action of the trial court.

After its order was affirmed, the trial court conducted a further hearing at which it gave petitioner an opportunity to purge himself from the contempt and thus relieve himself from the judgment. Each attorney of record included in the list of six originally named by petitioner to the court was examined under oath. Each denied that he was the source of disclosure of the statement to petitioner and each released petitioner from any obligation to maintain his source secret. Petitioner nevertheless refused to disclose the identity of the two attorney officers of the court who had furnished him the statement. Rather, he claimed a continuing obligation to maintain confidentiality of his sources because of a commitment to do so requested by the two culpable attorneys of record in anticipation of a hearing at which they would be questioned and asked to waive any moral or ethical obligation of petitioner to keep their identities secret.

The trial court ordered execution of its prior adjudication of contempt. Petitioner was incarcerated in the county jail. He subsequently attacked the adjudication in the federal district court which also refused to overturn it. Petitioner appealed the district court determination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Both federal courts denied petitioner release on bail pending the appeal. Subsequently, Mr. Justice Douglas of the United States Supreme Court ordered petitioner's release from custody until decision of the United States Court of Appeals. Petitioner was in custody approximately 45 days.

In this petition for habeas corpus, and a supplement to it, petitioner contends: (1) he was denied due process of law because the Court of Appeal held unconstitutional as applied to the facts of Farr v. Superior Court, Supra, the reporter's exemption from contempt contained in Evidence Code section 1070; (2) he was not afforded a hearing before an impartial judge on the citation for contempt; (3) the trial court's order restricting counsel, court attaches and witnesses from publicity releases is a void restraint upon First Amendment rights; and (4) the imposition of a judgment incarcerating petitioner until he complies with the order to identify further the persons who furnished him the statement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Petitioner's contention that he has been denied due process of law by an unexpected constitutional interpretation adopted by this court and left standing by higher courts is not supported by the record or by the factual allegations of his petition. After our decision in Farr v. Superior Court, Supra, was filed and had become final by refusal of the Supreme Courts of California and the United States to vacate it, petitioner was afforded the opportunity of complying with what had become the law of the case. He refused to do so. It was only after that refusal, at a time when there could no longer be any question of petitioner's legal obligation, that the trial court ordered execution of the order which petitioner here attacks.

Petitioner seeks to avoid the impact of the legal effect of the chronology in the trial court, arguing that his mistaken belief that Evidence Code section 1070 immunized him from contempt for refusing to reveal his sources of publicity caused him to incur a moral and ethical obligation of silence to those who had violated the earlier order of the court. In support of the argument he notes an in-chambers discussion with the trial judge in which the judge stated that as the facts then stood petitioner seemed immune from contempt. The argument lacks substance in the context in which it is presented. We are required to deal with the law and legal obligations regardless of what our personal views of petitioner's nonlegal moral and ethical obligations may be. Good intentions cannot excuse a legal obligation. (United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 306--607, 67 S.Ct. 677, 91 L.Ed. 884.) The trial judge's comment to petitioner could not have induced any promise of confidentiality to petitioner's sources since the comment was made after petitioner had obtained and published the information. Moreover, the factual setting changed materially after petitioner's discussion with the trial judge. Petitioner, at a subsequent proceeding, disclosed for the first time that the source of the potentially prejudicial publicity was relevant to the pending appeals of the...