McCourtney v. United States

• Citation: 291 F. 497
• Decision Date: 09 July 1923
• Docket Number: 6286.
• Parties: McCOURTNEY et al. v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

291 F. 497

McCOURTNEY et al. v. UNITED STATES.

No. 6286.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

July 9, 1923

Clif. Langsdale, of Kansas City, Mo., for plaintiffs in error.

Charles C. Madison, U.S. Atty., of Kansas City, Mo. (Byron H. Coon Asst. U.S. Atty., of Kansas City, Mo., on the brief), for the United States.

Before LEWIS and KENYON, Circuit Judges, and TRIEBER, District Judge.

TRIEBER District Judge.

The plaintiffs in error on a trial to a jury were found guilty of contempt of court on an information charging a violation of an injunction granted by the District Court of the United States for the Western Division of the Western District of Missouri, in a cause pending in that court, entitled St Louis San Francisco Railway Company, complainant, against International Association of Machinists et al., defendants. The injunction contained provisions similar to those set out in No. 6285, Winkle et al. v United States (C.C.A.) 291 F. 493, opinion filed this day, and need not be set out herein. The information charges that the respondents, plaintiffs in error, with full notice of the injunction and its provisions, and while it was in full force, did on August 6, 1922, in Thayer, Oregon county, state of Missouri, in the Western District of Missouri, commit the contempt in violation of the injunction, by stopping a number of employees of the said railway, named in the information, upon their going home from their work for said railway and by artifice inveigle said employees into an automobile, took them to a place remote, and unlawfully assaulted, beat, and bruised said employees of the railway company, by beating them on their naked backs with switches, and further threatened, abused, and applied to them vile and indecent epithets, with intent to frighten, intimidate, and coerce them and cause them to leave the employment of said railway company, with intent to disobey, resist, and violate the injunction decree of the court.

While there are a number of errors assigned, the only ones relied on in the brief and oral argument of counsel for plaintiffs in error are:

(1) That the court was without jurisdiction, as the alleged violation of the injunction was committed in another division of the district, viz. in the county of Oregon, state of Missouri, in the Southern Division of the Western District of Missouri, and that therefore the District Court for the Western Division of that district was without jurisdiction to try them in that division.

(2) That the evidence failed to establish that the respondent McCourtney took any part in the alleged violation of the injunction. The sufficiency of the evidence concerning the other plaintiffs in error is not questioned.

In Binkley v. United States, 282 F. 244, this court, in a contempt proceeding of a similar nature, in which Binkley had been found guilty of a violation of an injunction granted by the District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, the violation having been committed in the Western District of Arkansas, held, Judge Kenyon delivering the opinion of the court, all the judges concurring, that 'the offense, if offense at all, was a contempt of the court of the Eastern District, even though the acts constituting the contempt took place in the Western District,' and sustained the jurisdiction of the trial court. This case was followed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in McGibbony v. Lancaster, 286 F. 129.

Counsel ingeniously attempt to distinguish that case from the case at bar, contending that as the violation of the injunction in the instant case, if there was one, was in the same district, but in another division, the only court having jurisdiction of the cause is the court of the division in which the violation was committed, as section 53, Judicial Code (Comp. St. Sec. 1035), provides that--

'All prosecutions for crimes or offenses shall be had within the division of such districts where the same were committed.'

It is claimed that this proceeding being a criminal contempt, as distinguished from a civil contempt, the court erred in retaining jurisdiction against the protests of the respondents; relying on Gompers v. United States, 233 U.S. 604, 610, 34 Sup.Ct. 693, 58 L.Ed. 1115, Ann. Cas. 1915D, 1044, and Creekmore v. United States, 237 F. 743, 753, 150 C.C.A. 497, L.R.A. 1917C, 845, decided by this court.

It is true that in both of these cases the courts speak of such contempts as offenses, but strictly speaking they should be denominated as quasi crimes or offenses, or proceedings in the nature of a criminal proceeding. Middlebrook v. State, 43 Conn. 257, 21 Am.Rep. 650; Jones v. Mould, 151 Iowa, 599, 132 N.W. 45.

That they are not crimes or offenses within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution is conclusively apparent from the fact that prior to the enactment of the Clayton Act, 38 St. 730, 739, no parties charged with criminal contempt were entitled to a trial by jury. In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564, 595, 15 Sup.Ct. 900, 39 L.Ed. 1092. That act, section 22 (Comp. St. Sec. 1245b), provides:

'In all cases within the purview of this act (referring to contempts arising in actions under that act) such trial may be by the court, or, upon demand of the accused, by a jury, * * * and such trial shall conform, as near as may be, to the practice in criminal cases prosecuted by indictment or upon information.'

It will be noticed that the act does not require such a trial, to be conducted as a trial for a violation of a penal law, but 'shall conform, as near as may be, to the practice in criminal cases. ' A party charged with a criminal contempt in disobeying an injunction not granted under that act is still not entitled, as a right, to a trial by jury.

In the Gompers Case the question before the court was whether a criminal contempt...