Seymour v. United States

• Decision Date: 06 March 1967
• Docket Number: No. 23526.,23526.
• Citation: 373 F.2d 629
• Parties: William SEYMOUR, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

373 F.2d 629 (1967)

William SEYMOUR, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 23526.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

March 6, 1967.

Charles W. Tessmer, Dallas, Tex., for appellant.

B. H. Timmins, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Melvin M. Diggs, U. S. Atty., Dallas, Tex., Marshall Tamor Golding, Atty., Crim. Div., Dept. of Justice, for appellee.

Before GEWIN, THORNBERRY and DYER, Circuit Judges.

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge:

Seymour, a television news photographer, appeals from a judgment of the district court finding him guilty of criminal contempt for violating a standing order of the court which prohibits the taking of photographs in connection with any judicial proceeding on or from the same floor of the building on which courtrooms are located.¹ On March 11, 1966, appellant took television photographs of a defendant and his attorney in the hallway outside a courtroom as the defendant was being led from the courtroom at the termination of his arraignment proceedings. Cited for contempt for violation of the standing order, appellant waived his right to notice and time for preparation of his defense,² and the cause was heard summarily before the court.³ Appellant was found guilty of contempt and assessed a fine in the amount of $25.

Appellant initially attacks the standing order for vagueness and further asserts that it fails to bear a sufficient relationship to the maintenance of orderly judicial administration. He urges that such order must of necessity derive its justification from 18 U.S.C. § 401(1), which empowers the court to punish misbehaviour "in its presence or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice * * *."⁴ Relying upon the rule that a court can punish conduct prohibited by § 401(1) only when it is in session, see Ex Parte Savin, 1889, 131 U.S. 267, 9 S.Ct. 699, 33 L.Ed. 150, appellant contends that the order is fatally vague because of its failure to define whether or not it applies to a terminated judicial proceeding, and if so, when such proceeding terminates. He further asserts that because the arraignment proceedings had terminated when he took the photographs, any reasonable relation the order may have had to the maintenance of orderly judicial administration was negated. It is apparent, however, that while the court's order might well encompass conduct proscribed by § 401 (1), appellant's contempt conviction cannot appropriately be viewed as resting upon that subsection but rather was entered pursuant to § 401(3), which extends the contempt powers of the court to "disobedience of its lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command." The plain wording of the order under attack prohibits the taking of photographs on or from a floor on which courtrooms are located in connection with any judicial proceeding. Clearly, the prohibition is not restricted to the taking of photographs only while a proceeding is in process or while the court is in session. It rather extends to the taking of photographs attendant to any judicial proceeding, whether in process, recessed, or terminated. If conduct which would be punishable under § 401(1) were all that the court had sought to prohibit, there would have been no necessity for the order since the contempt power under § 401(1) is self-implementing. It must therefore be concluded that in promulgating the standing order, the court sought to proscribe conduct which, except for such order, might have otherwise been permissible. Accordingly, in defining the scope of the order here involved it is wholly unnecessary to determine at what stage a judicial proceeding terminates or whether conduct transpiring subsequent to such termination is in the "presence" of the court or "so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice." There is therefore simply no merit to appellant's contention that the order is vague because it might encompass conduct which is not proscribed by § 401(1) when such conduct is precisely what the order is intended to reach.

The critical inquiry remains, however, whether enforcement of the order as promulgated is violative of appellant's First Amendment freedoms. More specifically, as presented by appellant, the issue resolves itself into that of whether the order represents an unconstitutional prior restraint upon the liberty of the press. Even were we to assume that First Amendment protections from unreasonable restraints upon the dissemination of news information⁵ extend by implication to the gathering of such information as well, it still could not be successfully urged that the right to gather news is unconditional. It is beyond argument that a trial court must be afforded ample latitude to insure that an accused receives a fair trial comporting with fundamental due-process requirements — a proceeding conducted in an atmosphere of procedural decorum and as free as possible from the threat of prejudicial publicity. A defendant in a criminal proceeding should not be "forced to run a gantlet of reporters and photographers" each time he enters or leaves the courtroom. See Sheppard v. Maxwell, 1966, 384 U.S. 333, 354, 86 S.Ct. 1507, 1518, 16 L.Ed.2d 600, 616. The Supreme Court has recently observed that

Due process requires that the accused receive a trial by an impartial jury free from outside influences. Given the pervasiveness of modern communications and the difficulty of effacing prejudicial publicity from the minds of jurors, the trial courts must take strong measures to ensure that the balance is never weighed against the accused. * * * Reversals are but palliatives; the cure lies in those remedial measures that will prevent the prejudice at its inception. The courts must take such steps by rule and regulation that will protect their processes from prejudicial outside interferences.

Sheppard v. Maxwell, supra, 384 U.S. at 362-363, 86 S.Ct. at 1522, 16 L.Ed.2d at 620. (Emphasis added.) Similarly, in Estes v. State of...