John Shields Daschbach v. United States of America, Terry Pettus v. United States of America, Herbert J. Phillips v. United States

254 F.2d 687, 1958 U.S. App. LEXIS 4095
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedApril 21, 1958
Docket14321-14323
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 254 F.2d 687 (John Shields Daschbach v. United States of America, Terry Pettus v. United States of America, Herbert J. Phillips v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
John Shields Daschbach v. United States of America, Terry Pettus v. United States of America, Herbert J. Phillips v. United States, 254 F.2d 687, 1958 U.S. App. LEXIS 4095 (9th Cir. 1958).

Opinions

HAMLEY, Circuit Judge.

These criminal contempt proceedings are an outgrowth of United States v. Huff, a Smith Act, 18 U.S.C.A. § 2385, case in which judgments of conviction were recently reversed.1

John Shields Daschbach and Terry Pettus, defendants in the principal case, [688]*688took the witness stand, but refused to answer certain questions on cross-examination. Herbert J. Phillips was called as a witness for the defendants in the principal action. He likewise refused to answer certain questions on cross-examination.

In each instance, the trial judge held the witness to be in contempt as soon as the refusal occurred. Each was then immediately remanded to the custody of the marshal until the end of the Smith Act trial. At the close of the trial, all three were adjudged guilty of criminal contempt. In each case, a penitentiary sentence of three years was imposed.

Each has appealed. Daschbach and Pettus filed joint briefs. We consolidated dhe three appeals for purposes of argument and disposition.

Several questions are presented on appeal. The first of these is whether, by imprisoning appellants during the course of the trial, the court exhausted its summary power and was without jurisdiction to impose the further sentences which gave rise to this appeal.

Determination of this question requires us to consider some additional facts. The Huff Smith Act trial commenced on April 15, 1953, and ended on October 10, 1953. On July 21, 1953, while under cross-examination as a witness for the defendants, Phillips was asked to name the chairman of the club to which he then belonged.2 Phillips refused to answer the question. He did so because of the hardship he believed it would cause persons who had not previously been publicly associated with the Communist Party. The witness did not invoke the Fifth Amendment.

The trial court directed Phillips to answer the question, but he still refused. The court then announced: “The court finds the witness in contempt of court and the record will so show.” After the jury had been excused for the noon recess, the court placed Phillips under the custody of the marshal “until he purges himself from contempt.” 3

Phillips did not thereafter offer to answer the question which had led to his commitment. He therefore remained in the custody of the marshal until the case went to the jury on October 9, 1953 — a total of eighty days.

Appellant Pettus, a defendant in the Smith Act case, took the witness stand in his own defense. On August 14, 1953, while under cross-examination, he was asked to name those who had been elected to the executive committee of the Northwest District of the Communist Party at the convention held in 1950. Pettus partially answered the question by giving the names of Huff, Bowen, and Van Lydegraf.

He declined, however, to name any other persons who had been elected to this committee. His reason, as in the case of Phillips, was that he deemed it dishonorable to involve persons other than codefendants or others whose status had already been dealt with publicly. The Fifth Amendment was not invoked.

Upon the suggestion of the court, the question was not pursued to conclusion on that day, but was renewed on the next day of the trial- — -August 18, 1953. Pet-tus still refused to give a complete answer to the question, though directed by the trial court to do so. The court then said: “The court finds the witness and the defendant in contempt of court.”

[689]*689At the end of the day, and after the jury had been excused, the court committed Pettus to the custody of the marshal “until he purges himself of contempt.” Pettus did not thereafter offer to answer the question which had led to his commitment. He therefore remained in the custody of the marshal until the case went to the jury on October 9, 1953 —a total of fifty-two days.

Appellant Daschbach, a defendant in the Smith Act case, took the witness stand in his own defense. On September 10, 1953, while under cross-examination, he was asked to name the members of the District Committee of the Communist Party while he was on the “review commission.” Daschbach named Huff, Bowen and Pettus, as members of this committee. He declined, for the same reasons given by Phillips and Pettus, to name any other members of the committee. Again the Fifth Amendment was not invoked.

The court thereupon directed Dasch-bach to answer the question. He refused. The court then said: “It is the court’s finding at this time that the witness, the defendant Mr. John Daschbach, is in contempt of court.” After the jury had been excused for the day, Daschbach was remanded to the custody of the marshal.

Seven days later, while Daschbach was still under cross-examination, he was asked what two persons, in addition to himself, were on the “review commission, Northwest District.” Daschbach declined to answer, though directed by the court to do so. Later in the morning of that day, in the absence of the jury, the court stated: “ * * * The court finds the defendant and witness, Mr. Daschbach, in contempt for refusing to answer the question. * * * ” Since Daschbach had previously been remanded to the custody of the marshal, no further commitment was entered at that time.

Daschbach did not, after his commitment on September 10, 1953, offer to answer either of the questions which led to the contempt adjudications referred to above. He therefore remained in the custody of the marshal until the case went to the jury on October 9, 1953 — a total of twenty-nine days.

On October 9, 1953, immediately after the jury had retired to consider its verdict, counsel for defendants moved that Phillips, Pettus, and Daschbach be released from custody. The court indicated that it would grant this motion, but that it would, at the same time, file specifications of criminal contempt against each of them. The court thereupon called forward, one at a time, Phillips, Pettus, and Daschbach, and advised each of them that a certificate of contempt conforming with Rule 42(a), Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C.A., was being filed.

Each such certificate sets out, verbatim, the portion of the trial proceedings during which the contempt occurred. Each also states that the person named has been convicted and adjudged guilty of contempt (two convictions in the case of Daschbach), in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 401, committed in the presence of the court, “by wilful disobedience of the order of the Court * *

Imposition of sentence in each case was continued for a week. Each was ordered released from the order of contempt entered during the trial, and was authorized to be released from custody under the conviction for criminal contempt upon the posting of bail.

Sentences of three years imprisonment were imposed upon each appellant on October 16, 1953. In the case of Pettus and Daschbach, these sentences were made to run consecutively to, and begin with the expiration of, the sentences imposed against them in the Smith Act case.4

[690]

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Bluebook (online)
254 F.2d 687, 1958 U.S. App. LEXIS 4095, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/john-shields-daschbach-v-united-states-of-america-terry-pettus-v-united-ca9-1958.