Yates v. United States
| Decision Date | 26 July 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 13535.,13535. |
| Citation | 227 F.2d 848 |
| Parties | Oleta O'Connor YATES, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Margolis, McTernan & Branton, Los Angeles, Cal., for appellants.
Gladstein, Andersen & Leonard, San Francisco, Cal., Robert W. Kenny, Daniel Marshall, Los Angeles, Cal., amici curiæ.
Laughlin E. Waters, U. S. Atty., Norman W. Neukom, Los Angeles, Cal., Lawrence K. Bailey, Washington, D. C., Ray H. Kinnison, Assts. U. S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., for appellee.
Before STEPHENS, FEE and CHAMBERS, Circuit Judges.
The defendant Yates was on trial with others on a charge of conspiracy. She took the witness stand in her own defense. Upon cross-examination, she declined to answer four questions upon June 26, 1952, although repeatedly ordered by the court so to do. The trial of the criminal case was interrupted. A hearing was had. The trial judge committed the defendant Yates to the custody of the Marshal until she should purge herself of the contempt by answering these four questions. This Court has recently held this commitment ineffective after the trial of the criminal case had ended. Yates v. United States, 227 F.2d 844.
The criminal trial was then resumed. Defendant Yates was recalled to the stand. She thereafter, on June 30, refused to answer a series of eleven questions, although expressly directed to do so by the trial court.
Thereupon, the cause was submitted to the jury. A verdict of guilty was returned against defendant Yates and others. Judgment was pronounced on August 7, 1952. This conviction has been affirmed. Yates v. United States, 9 Cir., 225 F.2d 146.
On August 8, 1952, the court sentenced defendant Yates to a term of one year's imprisonment on each of the eleven counts: said terms to run concurrently with each other but consecutively to the sentence of five years imposed in the main case. This Court has recently affirmed this judgment in criminal contempt.
On September 8, 1952, the government presented a motion to punish defendant Yates for criminal contempt, alleging her willful disobedience to the orders of the court on June 26 in the failure to answer the four questions, in default of which she had theretofore been committed to coercive custody. The court sentenced the defendant to a period of three years for each of the four separate contempts, the terms to commence and run concurrently and commitment issued thereon. Defendant was taken into custody on September 8 and commenced service of this sentence. The court subsequently modified the judgment to provide that the terms of imprisonment were to take effect after the release of defendant from custody following service of the sentence in the main case.
Appeal has been taken from this order.
This situation is complex. To overcome the refusal of the defendant in a criminal case to answer these four questions, the court had committed her. While upon the witness stand during this confinement, Mrs. Yates had refused to answer eleven other questions of a similar nature, and was thereupon sentenced to imprisonment for a year as a punishment. This conviction has been upheld. It was expressly decided there that the two occasions were separate and distinct, and different corrective and punitive measures were within the competence of the court.
If the trial judge, at the same time and as part of the same judgment, had imposed a coercive confinement for an indefinite period and punitive imprisonment for a fixed term thereafter1 for failure to answer these four questions, perhaps the difficulty might have been dissipated. As has been heretofore pointed out, the confusion of the language, if not the underlying concepts,2 complicates the situation where, as here, there are two judgments pronounced at different times.
The purpose of the judge in the first commitment is by no means clear because of the confusion in the authorities. It seems the vindication of the power of the tribunal and necessity of an example for the enlightenment of other suitors might well have entered the consciousness if not the volition of the judge. Such factors as well as coercion of defendant might have characterized the purpose of the court when decreeing the first confinement. The judgment may well have been punitive as well as coercive.
The trial court may have conceived that defendan...
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...of mistrial necessitated a retrial at which the same issues would be litigated." Footnote 3, Court's Opinion (emphasis added). The Yates court addressed that exact proposition to the contrary in the last excerpt above set forth. The Court, I fear, mistakes the law governing coercive impriso......
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...penalty for his conduct, either prior or subsequent to his binding and gagging. Suffice it to say that his reliance on Yates v. United States, 227 F.2d 848 (9th Cir. 1955), and Daschbach v. United States, 254 F.2d 687 (9th Cir. 1958), in this regard is completely misplaced due to the entire......
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