In Re Bradley

318 U.S. 50, 63 S. Ct. 470, 87 L. Ed. 608, 1943 U.S. LEXIS 1299

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: February 1, 1943
• Docket: 473
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Roberts

delivered the opinion of the Court.

A proceeding, instituted by the National Labor Relations Board against Delaware-New Jersey Ferry Company for enforcement of an order of the Board, was pending in the Circuit Court of Appeals. A hearing was set at which witnesses were to be heard. The petitioner was to be a witness for the Board. During the course of the trial the petitioner was summoned and, after hearing, was adjudged guilty of contempt because of his intimidation of a witness for the Ferry Company in the corridor adjoining the court room.

The court sentenced the petitioner to six months’ imprisonment, to pay a fine of $500, and to stand committed until he complied with the sentence. The sentence was erroneous. Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163, 176. Under § 268 of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. 385, the sentence could only be a fine or imprisonment. Ex parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505, 512; Clark v. United States, 61 F. 2d 695, 709; affirmed 289 U. S. 1.

The marshal was directed forthwith to execute the judgment. On September 28, 1942, the petitioner was taken into custody and committed to prison. On October 1 his attorney paid the fine in cash to the clerk of the court. Later on that day the court, realizing that the sentence was erroneous, delivered to the clerk an order amending it by omitting any fine and retaining only the six months’ imprisonment. The court instructed the clerk, who still held the money, to return it to the petitioner’s attorney. The latter refused to receive it, and the clerk has it.

The petitioner, being in jail, petitioned this Court to grant certiorari, alleging as errors the adjudication that he was guilty of contempt and the manner of sentencing him. We granted the writ and admitted him to bail pending decision.

We do not review the finding that the petitioner’s conduct was a contempt summarily punishable by the court, for we are of opinion that the errors involved in the sentence require that he shall be freed from further imprisonment.

When, on October 1, the fine was paid to the clerk and receipted for by him, the petitioner had complied with a portion of the sentence which could lawfully have been imposed. As the judgment of the court was thus executed so as to be a full satisfaction of one of the alternative penalties of the law, the power of the court was at an end.¹ It is unimportant that the fine had not been covered into the treasury; it had been paid to the clerk, the officer of the United States authorized to receive it,² and petitioner’s rights did not depend upon what that officer subsequently did with the money.³

It follows that the subsequent amendment of the sentence could not avoid the satisfaction of the judgment, and the attempt to accomplish that end was a nullity. Since one valid alternative provision of the original sentence has been satisfied, the petitioner is entitled to be freed of further restraint.

The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded with directions that the petitioner be discharged from custody.

Reversed.

1 Ex parte Lange, supra, 176.

2 In re Fletcher, 71 App. D. C. 108, 107 F. 2d 666, 668.

3 Ex parte Lange, supra, p. 176; and compare the dissenting opinion, pp. 180, 190, 199-200; Yavorsky v. United States, 1 F. 2d 169, 171; Moss v. United States, 23 App. D. C. 475, 485.