People ex rel. Choate v. Barrett

• Decision Date: 18 April 1890
• Citation: People ex rel. Choate v. Barrett, 9 N.Y.S. 321 (N.Y. Super Ct. 1890)
• Parties: People ex rel. Choate v. Barrett, Justice. In re Choate
• Court: Superior Court of New York

9 N.Y.S. 321

People ex rel. Choate v. Barrett, Justice.

In re Choate

Supreme Court of New York, General Term, First Department

April 18, 1890

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Certiorari to review the commitment of Dilworth Choate for contempt of court.The opinion of Justice Barrett at oyer and terminer, on return of the order to show cause, was as follows:

"'It is a duty imposed upon all courts to preserve order in court and see to it that its proceedings are not interrupted,' said Judge Mason, in People v. Court of Oyer and Terminer, 27 How. Pr. 18, 'or that the respect and authority due to the court are not impaired; and the statute, to enable the court to discharge this duty, confers the necessary power upon the court.'In the matter at bar there is no substantial dispute as to the character of the respondent's act.It was undoubtedly a contempt.The principal question is whether such contempt was committed during the sitting of the court, and in its immediate view and presence.If it was so committed, it is punishable as a criminal contempt, for it certainly tended to interrupt the proceedings, and to impair the respect due to the authority of the court.The respondent's act was not only a contempt, but an exceedingly gross violation of professional propriety.He deliberately prepared for the invasion of the jury-room, secreted himself there in advance, and supplied himself with paper upon which to take stenographic notes of what he might hear.He actually took such notes while the jury were deliberating; and although, upon his discovery, he delivered these notes to the court, he refused to promise secrecy, and, notwithstanding our admonition that his conduct was highly improper, and that it was his bounden duty to keep what he had heard to himself, he subsequently published his recollections of the debate.All this tended, to quote the language of Finch, J., in People v. Court of Oyer and Terminer, 101 N.Y. 249, 4 N.E. 259, 'to cast discredit upon the administration of public justice.'In State v Doty, 32 N. J. Law, 403, the supreme court of New Jersey held that the law directs the complete seclusion of the jury, and that any attempt to invade such seclusion is illegal, and a palpable violation of judicial authority.'The jury,' said the learned and able Chief Justice Beasley, 'cannot be isolated unless the court is prompt to punish those who infringe in the slightest degree the order directing such isolation.I think public policy requires that no one should escape punishment who is found in any respect invading the privacy of the jury-room.'In this state, the statute expressly requires the jury, in criminal cases, while deliberating, to be kept together in some private and convenient place; and the officers are sworn not to permit any person to speak to or communicate with them, nor to do so themselves, unless it be by order of the court.Code Crim. Proc. § 421.The conduct of the respondent was a deliberate violation of the statute, and of those just principles which, from time immemorial, have been established to secure the independence and impartiality of jurors.

"The question remains whether this plain contempt was committed in the immediate view and presence of the court.It certainly was committed during the sitting of the court.The sitting of the court was continuos while the jury was deliberating.There was no adjournment or suspension of the sitting.The judge was actually upon the bench in the court-room during the earlier part of these deliberations.Later on, the judge retired to the judges' chambers, in the same building and on the same floor with both the court-room and the jury-room.But the court was at all times in session, and remained so until after the rendition of the verdict.The contempt was not committed in the immediate view and presence of the judge.The judge, however, is not the court.A court has been well defined to be 'an organized body, with defined powers, meeting at certain times and places for the hearing and decision of causes and other matters brought before it and aided in this, its proper business, by its proper officers, viz., attorneys and counsel to present and manage the business, clerks to record and attest its acts and decisions, and ministerial officers to execute its commands and secure due order in its proceedings.'Burrill, Law Dict. Lord Coke describes it to be 'a place where justice is judicially administered.'Referring to this definition, Wait, Law &Pr. 221, says that the term 'place' must be understood figuratively, for a court is properly composed of persons consisting of the judge or judges, and other proper officers, united together in a civil organization, and invested by law with the requisite functions for the administration of justice.This is a correct view of the subject.The court is clearly an organization invested by law with certain functions for the administration of justice.A contempt committed in the immediate view and presence of any constituent part of that organization, during the sitting of the court, and tending to interrupt the proceedings of such constituent part, is a contempt in the immediate view and presence of the court.This was expressly held in Bergh's Case, 16 Abb. Pr.(N. S.) 284.The particular act there under consideration was the delivery to the grand jury of an aspersive letter from an unofficial person.This was deemed contemptuous behavior committed during the sitting of the court.'I think,' said the learned recorder, 'that the term "behavior" may cover the writing and delivery to the grand jury of a contemptuous and insulting letter.It is clear, from the elementary writers, and from what the court of appeals implied in the Hackley Case, 24 N.Y. 78, that the grand jury room is an enlargement of the court-room, and part of the court sitting.Handing to the petit jury a letter containing remarks upon the case pending before them, has been, at nisi prius, adjudged a contempt; the jury, for convenience, being outside of the court-room proper, it is true, but legally and technically, nevertheless, a part of the court sitting; and both the grand and petit jury rooms were merely extensions of the court apartment, and are under equal jurisdiction.'In Com. v. Crans, 3 Pa. Law J. 453, the court said it was 'clear that a grand jury are as much attached to the court as a petit jury.* * * In contemplation of law, a grand jury are supposed to be personally present in court.* * * They differ from a petit jury only in the particular that the latter hear both sides of the case, but both receive legal information from the same tribunal.'Mr. Rapalje, in his work on Contempts, (section 67,) says that, the grand jury being merely an appendage to the court, the refusal by a witness to answer questions put by them is a contempt of the court by whose order the grand jury was impaneled.For this propositionhe cites many cases in this and in other states, notably People v. Naughton, 7 Abb. Pr. (N. S.) 421;People v. Kelly, 24 N.Y. 74;andPeople v. Fancher, 4 Thomp. &C. 476.In People v. Naughton, Mr. Justice Pratt held that the grand jury was a constituent part of the court of oyer and terminer, and that its proceedings were a part of the proceedings of that court.Seepage 423.In People v. Kelly, 21 How. Pr. 54, the supreme court of this department, at general term, held that the grand jury was an adjunct of the court, as well as the petit jury.It was there insisted that the commitment was illegal because the contempt did not occur in the presence of the court, but in the grand jury room, before the jury as an independent body.Leonard, J., answered this contention by saying that, 'when summoned, sworn, and organized, the grand jury are a constituent part of the court, for the performance of the functions and duties devolved upon the court, as much as a body of twelve petit jurors impaneled for the trial of a person charged with crime.* * * When the witness has been brought before the grand jury to testify, he is for the time in the custody, or under the control, of the court and the grand jury.He stands in the same relation to the court as a witness on the stand before the court and a petit jury.'It will be observed that the reasoning in many of these grand jury cases proceeds upon the analogy to the petit jury.That the latter body is directly and immediately a constituent part of the court, and the petit jury room an adjunct to the court, is treated throughout as a postulate admitting of no question.This becomes entirely clear when we free our minds from the popular notion that the judge is the court.He is a constituent part of the organization, but he is not the court.Nor is the court-room the court, nor the jury-room, nor the petit jury.The court is the totality of the constituent parts.It consists of the entire judicial organization for the trial of causes, and it is immediately present whenever and wherever, from the opening to the adjournment of the sitting, these constituent parts are actually performing the functions devolving upon them by law.If the judge happens to leave the bench and the court-room for a few moments, while counsel is summing up to the jury, and during his absence an assault is made upon the speaker, can there be a doubt that a criminal contempt is thereby committed?This is not because the act is done in the court-room, but because it is done in the court.The court is in session and present, though the magistrate is temporarily absent.And further, the jury may decide in the court-room, in the presence of the judge, or they may retire to another room to deliberate, or they may even be left in the privacy of the court-room itself; all persons, in the latter case, including the judge, being excluded.Wher...