People ex rel. Field v. Turner

• Decision Date: 01 June 1850
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: THE PEOPLE, EX REL. STEPHEN J. FIELD v. TURNER, Judge of the Eighth Judicial District.

1 Cal. 152

THE PEOPLE, EX REL. STEPHEN J. FIELD v. TURNER, Judge of the Eighth Judicial District.

Supreme Court of the State of California

June Term, 1850

June 1, 1850

THIS was an application for a mandamus to the District Court Court of the Eighth Judicial District to vacate an order punishing the relator for contempt. The only facts material in the case are stated in the opinion of the Court.

Stephen J. Field, in propria persona.

By the Court, BENNETT, J. At a term of the District of the Eighth Judicial District for the County of Yuba, held on the seventh day of June last, the following order was made: "Ordered, that Stephen J. Field be imprisoned forty-eight hours and fined five hundred dollars for contempt of Court." An application is now made for a mandamus to vacate this order, "or for an order perpetually staying the execution of said order, or for such other or further order as may be just." Notice of the application has been duly given, and copies of the papers upon which it is founded, served.

We have determined, in the case of Mulford, that this Court has the power to issue the writ of mandamus to a District Court. The point for our present consideration, therefore, is whether this case be a proper one for the exercise of that power. The order now under review shows upon its face that it was intended as an adjudication for a contempt, and this raises the question of the extent of the power of punishment for contempt, and the rules which should be observed in enforcing it.

By the common law every Court has, while engaged in the performance of its lawful functions, as an incident to its judicial character, the authority to preserve order, decency and silence, without which no Court could vindicate or support the laws entrusted to its administration. The power thus vested in a Court is necessarily of an arbitrary nature, and should be used with great prudence and caution. A Judge should bear in mind that he is engaged, not so much in vindicating his own character, as in promoting the respect due to the administration of the laws; and this consideration should induce him to receive as satisfactory any reasonable apology for an offender's conduct. The case of Lining v. Bentham, in the constitutional Court of Appeals of South Carolina (2 Bay's Rep. 1), contains an accurate exposition of the light in which this power is viewed. Bentham, a Justice of the Peace, had committed Lining for a contempt for the use of insulting and abusive language in open Court. Lining sued the Justice for false imprisonment, and proved upon the trial that the facts set forth in the commitment were untrue, and a verdict was taken for the plaintiff. But the Court of Appeals set aside the verdict and determined that the commitment drawn up by the Justice was conclusive evidence in his favor, and that the Justice was not amenable in an action for a judicial act of this nature, but only on an indictment for oppressive or corrupt conduct. And the Court remark, that one general principle, incidental to all Courts, as well inferior as su- perior, was a power to commit for contempt, either by word or deed, offered in the presence of the Judge and in the face of the Court, and that this power was not against magna charta or the law of the land, but formed a part of the common law.

But whilst the power to punish for contempt is thus arbitrary and conclusive, it by no means follows that every act which a Court declares to be a contempt is in reality one. Thus, in ex parte Thatcher (2 Gil. Rep. 167), the Clerk of the Court had been removed, and another person appointed in his place, and the one removed had appealed from the order depriving him of the office. The Court thereupon made another order requiring the first Clerk to give up the books of his office to his successor. To this order obedience was refused, and the Court thereupon adjudged the offender guilty of a contempt and committed him to prison. But it was held, that the appeal taken from the order of removal operated as a supersedeas; that the second Clerk was improperly appointed; that there could have been no contempt in refusing obedience to the order requiring a delivery of...