State v. Cameron

• Decision Date: 31 July 1926
• Docket Number: 19835.
• Citation: 140 Wash. 101,248 P. 408
• Parties: STATE ex rel. DYSART v. CAMERON, Police Judge.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

248 P. 408

140 Wash. 101

STATE ex rel. DYSART v. CAMERON, Police Judge.

No. 19835.

Supreme Court of Washington

July 31, 1926

Department 1.

Appeal from Superior Court, Lewis County; W. A. Reynolds, Judge.

Prohibition by the State on the relation of Lloyd B. Dysart, against W H. Cameron, Police Judge of the City of Centralia. From an order denying the writ, relator appeals. Affirmed.

Fullerton J., dissenting.

J. H Jahnke, Grimm & Grimm, B. H. Rhodes, J. A. Kavaney, Dysart &amp Ellsbury, and C. D. Cunnigham, all of Centralia, Floyd M. Hancock, of Winlock, and W. W. Langhorne, A. E. Rice, C. A. Studebaker, H. E. Donohoe, Gus L. Thacker, O. A. Tucker, Hull & Murray, D. G. Abel, R. L. Ponder, W. E. Bishop, H. H. Sieler, and Forney & Ponder, all of Chehalis, for appellant.

Delos Spaulding and W. N. Beal, both of Centralia, and J. A. Stinson, of Chehalis, for respondent.

HOLCOMB J.

Respondent, police judge of Centralia, a city of the second class, during the trial of a case proceeding before him, summarily fined relator $25 for an alleged contempt of court committed in the presence of the court, and caused relator to be committed. Relator is an attorney at law. Without appealing the order of contempt, he sued out a writ of prohibition to the superior court of the county, in which he alleged that respondent summarily fined him without cause, without an opportunity to be heard, and that he, as police judge, had no jurisdiction or authority to punish for contempt. He also alleged that respondent filed a false statement and finding, which was attached to his petition, as to the nature of the alleged contempt.

As to the truth or falsity of the statement and finding, that is immaterial, because of the nature of this proceeding.

In the lower court respondent moved to quash the writ, which motion was treated as a demurrer, and the court sustained it, and dismissed the proceeding. This appeal results.

As to the jurisdiction of the trial court to grant a writ of prohibition in case an inferior tribunal is without jurisdiction, that has been well settled in State ex rel. Egbert v. Superior Court, 9 Wash. 369, 37 P. 489; State ex rel. Martin v. Superior Court, 101 Wash. 81, 172 P. 257, 4 A. L. R. 572; State ex rel. Maurer et al. v. Superior Court, 122 Wash. 555, 211 P. 764. Hence, if respondent had no jurisdiction as such police judge to punish for contempt, a writ of prohibition should have been granted. If he had such jurisdiction it should be denied.

The sole question to be determined is the power or jurisdiction of a police court in such cities to punish for contempt. Police courts were first established in the state by statute in 1890 (Laws of 1889-90, p. 172, § 92 et seq.). Section 91 of that act gave them power 'to punish persons guilty of contempt of court' without defining what should constitute contempt of court. The Legislature of 1913 (Laws of 1913, p. 303, § 9) repealed section 94 of the act of 1890. Appellant therefore asserts that the power to punish for contempt has been expressly taken away by the Legislature, and has never been restored since the repeal of 1913.

Appellant also vigorously contends that there are only two existing statutes capable of being construed to grant the power to police courts to punish for contempt, to wit, c. 5, title 1, § 52 et seq., and c. 3, title 7, § 1049 et seq., for Rem. Comp. Stats., being acts of 1891 and 1869, respectively.

Section 52, supra, Act of 1891, provides that every court of justice has power to preserve and enforce order in its immediate presence, then enumerating six other powers. Section 53, supra, provides:

'For the effectual exercise of the powers specified in the last section, the court may punish for contempt in the cases and the manner provided by law.'

Section 1049 (Laws of 1869), supra, provides:

'The following acts or omissions, in respect to a court of justice or proceedings therein, are deemed to be contempts of courts.' Here follow twelve specifications, including insolence, disorder, and others.

Section 1050 provides:

'Every court of justice and every judicial officer has power to punish contempt by fine or imprisonment, or both.'

Appellant urges that the territory had been granted no power, and never attempted, to create police courts among the inferior courts of the territory, which is correct, and the act of 1869 never was enacted with police courts in contemplation, and therefore such law never applied to police courts.

Appellant derives from the foregoing statutory provisions the corrollary that they apply exclusively to higher courts of record, to supreme and superior courts, and do not include police courts, did not apply to courts then nonexistent and impossible to exist by reason of the continuing provisions of the enabling act and the Constitution. In furtherance of this argument, it is shown that contempts of justice of the peace were specially treated in sections 1891 et seq., Rem. Comp. Stats., where only three matters are specified, and the penalty limited. Hence it is insisted that there is no statute existing relating to contempts of police courts.

Appellant then contends that, police courts being of limited jurisdiction, their rights to the exercise of jurisdiction must clearly appear ( McCall v. Carr, 125 Wash. 629, 216 P. 871); and that, since it clearly appears that police courts had only jurisdiction to punish for contempt as conferred by the laws of 1890, and as that jurisdiction has been repealed and abolished, there is no power in police courts to punish for contempt.

To the contrary, respondent contends:

That, since the enabling act of Congress, providing for the admission of the territory of Washington as a state into the Union, provided for the continuance of laws in force in the territory until such time as was otherwise provided by the state, and since Const. art. 27, § 2, provides that:

' Laws in Force Continue. All laws in force in the territory of Washington which are not repugnant to this Constitution shall remain in force until they expire by their own limitation, or are altered or repealed by the Legislature. * * *'

That the cited laws of 1869 of the territory of Washington continued, and still remain, in force; and, since such laws are the only laws now in force defining and regulating the punishments for contempt, they necessarily apply ex vi termini to every court of justice as the terms thereof explicitly declare, police courts included. Respondent also contends that inferior courts and courts of limited jurisdiction have inherent power to punish for contempt committed in facie curiae.

Appellant has favored us with extremely engaging, able, and interesting briefs, full of logic, and replete with legal and literary lore on both phases of this subject.

Respondent has been content to rely upon cases and texts which he insists are well reasoned, convincing, and contain the better principles for pronouncement.

We find it unnecessary to enter into the elaborate, extensive and intensive discussion of the legislation upon the subject. We have read a great many cases in which we find that on the subject of contempt of court treatises have been written in single opinions in serveral cases. A very excellent and thorough exposition of the law of contempt is found in the decision of the Supreme Court of North Caroline in Ex parte McCown, 139 N.C. 95, 51 S.E. 957, 2 L. R. A. (N. S.) 603.

A very interesting case also is Clark v. People (Breese [Ill.] 340) 12 Am. Dec. 177. That volume of American decisions was the one in which Professor A. C. Freeman, in 1879, began his long, notable, and admirable editorial work with the American Reporter System. Some observations made in his case notes to the above-cited case will be quoted. Although that was a case where a justice of the peace had punished one for contempt committed in the presence of the justice, and there was a statute authorizing such conviction and punishment for contempt by a justice court in Illinois, the court in passing upon the matter said:

'It is not pretended that the magistrate has exceeded his powers in any way, nor that the contempt was not committed in his presence. The power, however, to punish for contempt, is an incident to all courts of justice independent of statutory provisions, and the power to enforce the observance of order, punish for contumacy by fine or imprisonment, are powers which may not be dispensed with, because they are necessary to the exercise of all others. The distinction that courts of inferior jurisdiction, not having a general power to fine and imprison for contempt, are restricted to such as are committed in their presence, will not alter the rule in the present case.'

Professor Freeman thus begins his case note:

'That the power to punish for contempt is inherent in the very constitution and organization of a court, and necessary, not only to the proper exercise of its important functions, but to its very existence as a court, is a doctrine so obviously sound as hardly to admit of question. Like the right of self-defense in an individual it is an original power existing independently of any statute, from the very necessity of the case [citing 2 Bishop, Crim. Law, § 243, and many reported cases.]'

After referring to the fact that the power of inferior courts to punish contempts independently of statutes is denied in some cases, and that by inferior courts are meant those which are not courts of record, it being universally conceded that the power is inherent in all courts which are of record, he states 'Three different views seem to be entertained concerning the power of courts not of record to punish for contempts, were such power is not conferred by statute. In one class of cases it is held that...