concluding that the same judge who was subject to a trial lawyer's insults that were "apt to strike at the most vulnerable and human qualities of a judge's temperament" was precluded from deciding the criminal contempt charges against the lawyer in order for "justice [to] satisfy the appearance of justice"
How later courts described this case
- concluding that the same judge who was subject to a trial lawyer's insults that were "apt to strike at the most vulnerable and human qualities of a judge's temperament" was precluded from deciding the criminal contempt charges against the lawyer in order for "justice [to] satisfy the appearance of justice"
- holding that Due Process requires that a defendant in a criminal contempt proceeding be tried before a judge other than the judge who had determined in an earlier proceeding that contempt charges should be brought against the defendant because of the high potential for bias against the defendant
- holding that due-process principles prevent a judge from waiting until the end of a trial to render a summary contempt conviction when the individual makes “highly personal aspersions” that “are apt to strike at the most vulnerable and human qualities of a judge’s temperament”
- holding that a judge who charged a litigant with contempt for salacious personal attacks could not preside over the litigant’s contempt proceedings because “[n]o one so cruelly slandered is likely to maintain that calm detach- ment necessary for fair adjudication”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Harlan,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of reversal solely on the ground that these contempt convictions must be regarded as infected by the fact that the unprecedented long sentence of 22 years which they carried was imposed by a judge who himself had been the victim of petitioner’s shockingly abusive conduct. That circumstance seems to me to deprive, the contempt proceeding of the appearance of evenhanded justice which, is at the core of due process. For this reason I think the contempt convictions must be set aside, leaving the State free to try the contempt specifications before another judge or to proceed otherwise against this petitioner.
It is unfortunate that this Court’s decision in Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337 (1970), was not on the books at the time the criminal case against this petitioner was on trial. The courses which that decision lays open to trial judges for coping with outrageous courtroom tactics of the sort engaged in by this petitioner would doubtless have enabled Judge Fiok to deal with .the petitioner in a manner that would have obviated the regrettable necessity for setting aside this contempt conviction.