Citation Numbers: 16 Abb. Pr. 266
Judges: Recorder
Filed Date: 2/15/1875
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 2/4/2022
In giving, my action upon this proceeding, it is proper I should submit my views in writing. I am clear that it is contempt of court at common law for a witness or by-stander to communicate
The insinuation conveyed by this expression in the letter of Mr. Bergh, “as in the present instance they have escaped through means which 1 forbear to mention,” addressed to any officer of the court during its sitting, could not be made worse for contemptuous and insolent behavior tending to impair respect. At the commencement of the last October term of this court, I charged the then grand jury as follows :
“The minutes of some grand juries have in the past distinctly shown traces as well as evidences of considerations and of reconsiderations and preferences, which can only be explained upon the belief that grand juries have yielded to lobby pressure, either in finally finding or finally dismissing bills of indictment. The grand juror who suffers himself to be even impliedly approached upon subject-matters pending before the body of which he is a sworn member, not only violates his oath but transcends the common law
It will thus be perceived that the considerations growing out of the action of Mr. Bergh are not new and were not suggested by the attitude taken by the late grand jury; and I had determined to reprehend the first instance of grand jury lobbying or outside interference which should be submitted to my consideration. But Mr. Bergh shows that he is, for the purposes of his society, both a deputy attorney-general and, an assistant district-attorney by written appointments from Messrs. Pratt and Phelps. Mr. Bergh, in his affidavit swears: “Such letter was sent and intended to be sent, as an official communication in the interests of the people of this State, which deponent then honestly believed he was then representing, and and not to subserve any private or personal interest, or to gratify any individual spleen or malice ; and deponent firmly and conscientiously believed at the time that he was only doing his duty, and that his course
In the matter of Strong, in this court half a century since, it was held that the act of sending a scurrilous letter to the grand jury ought not to be considered a contempt, unless it clearly appeared that it was designed to interrupt the administration óf justice. The supreme court has held (Weeks v. Smith, 3 Abb. Br.j 211) that if the alleged contempt be capable of a construction consistent with innocence of the party of any intentional disrespect, there is no legal contempt. It,would seem that Mr. Bergh’s explanation that he was acting as the agent of the prosecuting officers is consistent with innocence. The court, however, trusts it may be pardoned for observing that the representative of the attorney -general and the district-attorney owes it to those gentlemen, if not to himself, to infuse into his oral or written intercourse with grand juries, rather the suavit&r in modo than the fortiter in re ; and to remember an old saying, “ that he who impugns motives, should always rigidly examine his own.”
Let the rule be discharged, and Mr. Henry Bergh stands exonerated, under his explanatory oath, from, any intentional contempt.