Mays v. Willingham

• Decision Date: 13 December 1927
• Docket Number: 18475.
• Citation: 140 S.E. 789,37 Ga.App. 478
• Parties: MAYS v. WILLINGHAM, Sol. Gen.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

140 S.E. 789

37 Ga.App. 478

MAYS v. WILLINGHAM, Sol. Gen.

No. 18475.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, First Division

December 13, 1927

Syllabus by the Court.

"Questions of contempt are for the court treated with the contempt; and its decision ought to be final, except, perhaps, in the case in which the decision shows an enormous abuse of the discretion." No abuse of discretion is shown in this case.

Error from Superior Court, Butts County; G. Ogden Persons, Judge.

J. B Mays was adjudged guilty of contempt of court, and he brings error. Affirmed.

H. M Fletcher, of Jackson, for plaintiff in error.

Frank B. Willingham, Sol. Gen., of Forsyth, pro se.

BLOODWORTH J.

A rule for contempt of court was filed against two parties, who were defendants in a case in Butts superior court, and against the bailiff who had charge of the jury while the case was being tried. In some respects this rule is without a parallel in contempt cases. The bailiff had been acting in that capacity for that court from term to term for more than 30 years. One of the defendants to the case on trial, J. W. Mays, was charged with giving the jury a carton of cigarettes. The third of the trio who was ruled, Dr. J. R. Strickland, was a party to the case, and was not only a practicing dentist, but also a member of the bar. The cigarettes were delivered by Mays to the bailiff practically in the presence of the jury and this act was seen by some of them. The liquor the bailiff received from the hands of Dr. Strickland, and delivered it to the jury in their room. It is rather a coincidence that Hon. G. Ogden Persons, who presided at the trial of the contempt case, and Hon. F. B. Willingham, who represented the state in that case, and the writer of this opinion, are all residents of the little city of Forsyth in Monroe county.

In the oral judgment pronounced by Judge Persons and incorporated in the record, he said in part:

"I do not think any institution that the Anglo-Saxon race enjoys to-day is more important than the jury trial. It is the most sacred privilege that a citizen of this republic enjoys. Jury trial means that the rights which are guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Georgia shall be protected. There is no other power which decrees the enforcement of these rights, but these rights can only be procured in the courthouse, where judges are sworn to enforce the law, and where jurors are sworn to enforce the law; and it is only by a verdict of the jury that we can protect life, liberty, and property in this republic under our form of government. *** And I say to these two men who are now arraigned before this court under this rule, that whenever the time comes that the sacredness of the jury box will be invaded either directly or indirectly, or by any character

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