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conduct in office, and containing the statement that "we must decline to assume the functions of a grand jury, or attempt to perform the duty of the court in investigating the conduct of its own officers," was held to be contemptuous. (Utah, 21 Pac. 519.)

In Re Terry (C. C.), 36 Fed. 419, an extreme case, for charging the court with having been bribed, resisting removal from the courtroom by the marshal acting under an order from the bench, and using abusive language, one of the defendants was sent to jail for thirty days and the other for six months. Judge Terry, who had not made any accusation against the court, sought release and to be purged of the contempt by a sworn petition in which he alleged that in the transaction he did not have the slightest idea of showing any disrespect to the court. It was held that this could not avail or relieve him, and it was said: "The law imputes an intent to accomplish the natural result of one's acts, and, when those acts are of a criminal nature, it will not accept, against such implication, the denial of the transgressor. No one would be safe if a denial of a wrongful or criminal intent would suffice to release the violator of law from the punishment due to his offenses."

In an application for a writ of habeas corpus, growing out of Re Terry, supra, Harlan, speaking for the Supreme Court of the United States, said: "We have seen that it is a settled doctrine in the jurisprudence, both of England and of this country, never supposed to be in conflict with the liberty of the citizen, that for direct contempts committed in the face of the court, at least one of superior jurisdiction, the offender may, in its discretion, be instantly apprehended and immediately imprisoned, without trial or issue, and without other proof than its actual knowledge of what occurred, and that according to an unbroken chain of authorities, reaching back to the earliest times, such power, although arbitrary in its nature, and liable to abuse, is absolutely essential to the protection of the courts in the discharge of their functions. Without it, judicial tribunals would be at the mercy of the disorderly and violent, who respect neither the laws enacted for the vindication of public and private rights, nor the

Opinion of the Court-Talbot, J.

officers charged with the duty of administering them." (128 U. S. 313, 9 Sup. Ct. 83, 32 L. Ed. 405.)

In Re Woolley, 74 Ky. 95, it was held that to incorporate into a petition for rehearing the statement that "your honors have rendered an unjust decree," and other insulting matter, is to commit in open court an act constituting a contempt on the part of the attorney; and that, where the language spoken or written is of itself necessarily offensive, the disavowal of an intention to commit a contempt may tend to excuse, but cannot justify the act. From a paragraph in that opinion we quote:, "An attorney may unfit himself for the practice of his profession by the manner in which he conducts himself in his intercourse with the courts. He may be honest and capable, and yet he may so conduct himself as to continually interrupt the business of the courts in which he practices, or he may, by a systematic and continuous course of conduct, render it impossible for the courts to preserve their self-respect and the respect of the public and at the same time permit him to act as an officer and attor

An attorney who thus studiously and systematically attempts to bring the tribunals of justice into public contempt is an unfit person to hold the position and exercise the privileges of an officer of those tribunals. An open, notorious, and public insult to the highest judicial tribunal of the state for which an attorney contumaciously refuses in any way to atone may justify the refusal of that tribunal to recognize him in the future as one of its officers."

In Re Cooper, 32 Vt. 262, the respondent was fined for ironically stating to a justice of the peace: "I think this magistrate wiser than the supreme court." Redfield, C. J., said: "The counsel must submit in a justice court, as well as in this court, and with the same formal respect, however difficult it may be either here or there. We do not see that the relator has any alternative left him but the submission to what he no doubt regards as a misapprehension of the law, both on the part of the justice and of this court. in that respect he is in a condition very similar to many who have failed to convince others of the soundness of their own views, or to become convinced themselves of their fallacy."

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In Mahoney v. State (Ind. App.), 72 N. E. 151, an attorney was fined $50 for saying: "I want to see whether the court is right or not. I want to know whether I am going to be heard in this case in the interest of my client, or not"-and making other insolent statements.

In Redman v. State, 28 Ind. 205, the judge informed counsel that a question was improper, and the attorney replied: "If we cannot examine our witnesses, he can stand aside." This language was deemed offensive, and the court prohibited that particular attorney from examining the next witness.

In Brown v. Brown, 4 Ind. 627, 58 Am. Dec. 641, the lawyer was taxed with the cost of the action for filing and reading a petition for divorce which was unnecessarily gross and indelicate.

In McCormick v. Sheridan (Cal.), 20 Pac. 24: "A petition for rehearing stated that 'how or why the honorable commissioner should have so effectually and substantially ignored and disregarded the uncontradicted testimony, we do not know. It seems that neither the transcript nor our briefs could have fallen under the commissioner's observation. A more disingenuous and misleading statement of the evidence could not well be made. It is substantially untrue and unwarranted. The decision seems to us to be a travesty of the evidence.' Held that counsel drafting the petition was guilty of contempt committed in the face of the court, notwithstanding a disavowal of disrespectful intention. A fine of $200 was imposed, with an alternative of serving in jail."

The Chief Justice, speaking for the court in State v. Morrill, 16 Ark. 384, said: "If it were the general habit of the community to denounce, degrade, and disregard the decisions and judgments of the courts, no man of self-respect and just pride of reputation would remain upon the bench, and such only would become the ministers of the law as were insensible to defamation and contempt. But happily, for the good order of society, men, and especially the people of this country, are generally disposed to respect and abide the decisions of the tribunals ordained by government as the common arbiters of their rights. But where isolated individuals, in violation of the better instincts of human nature, and disregardful of law

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and order, wantonly attempt to obstruct the course of public justice by disregarding and exciting disrespect for the decisions of its tribunals, every good citizen will point them out as proper subjects of legal animadversion. A court must naturally look first to an enlightened and conservative bar, governed by a high sense of professional ethics, and deeply sensible, as they always are, of its necessity to aid in the maintenance of public respect for its opinions."

In Sommers v. Torrey, 5 Paige (N. Y.) 64, 28 Am. Dec. 411, it was held that the attorney who put his hand to scandalous and impertinent matter stated against the complainant and one not a party to the suit is liable to the censure of the court and chargeable with the cost of proceedings to have it expunged from the record.

In State v. Grailhe, 1 La. Ann. 183, the court held that it could not consistently with its duty receive a brief expressed in disrespectful language, and ordered the clerk to take it from the files.

Referring to the rights of courts to punish for contempt, Blackford, J., in State v. Tipton, 1 Blackf. (Ind.) 166, said: "This great power is intrusted to those tribunals of justice for the support and preservation of their respectability and independence. It has existed from the earliest period to which the annals of jurisprudence extend; and except in a few cases of party violence, it has been sanctioned and established by the experience of ages"

See, also, Lord Mayor of Landon's Case, 3 Wils. 188; opinion of Kent, C. J., in Case of Yates, 4 Johns. (N. Y.) 317; Johnston v. Commonwealth, 1 Bibb (Ky.) 598.

At page 206 of Weeks on Attorneys (2d ed.) it is said: "Language may be contemptuous, whether written or spoken, and, if in the presence of the court, notice is not essential before punishment, and scandalous and insulting matter in a petition for rehearing is equivalent to the commission in open court of an act constituting a contempt. When the language is capable of explanation, and is explained, the proceedings must be discontinued; but, where it is offensive and insulting per se, the disavowal of an intention to commit a contempt may tend to excuse, but cannot justify, the

Fitzgerald, C. J., concurring.

act. From an open, notorious, and public insult to a court, for which an attorney contumaciously refused in any way to atone, he was fined for contempt, and his authority to practice revoked."

Other authorities in line with these we have mentioned are cited in the note to Re Cary (D. C.), 10 Fed. 632, and in 9 Cyc. p. 20, where it is said that contempt may be committed by inserting in pleadings, briefs, motions, arguments, petitions for rehearing, or other papers filed in court insulting or contemptuous language, reflecting on the integrity of the court.

By using the objectionable language stated respondent became guilty of a contempt which no construction of the words can excuse or purge. His disclaimer of any intentional disrespect to the court may palliate, but cannot justify, a charge which under any explanation cannot be construed otherwise than as reflecting on the intelligence and motives of the court, and which could scarcely have been made for any other purpose unless to intimidate or improperly influence our decision. As we have seen, attorneys have been severely punished for using language in many instances not so reprehensible, but in view of the disavowal in open court we have concluded not to impose a penalty so harsh as disbarment or suspension from practice, or fine or imprisonment. Nor do we forget that, in prescribing against the misconduct of attorneys, litigants ought not to be punished or prevented from maintaining in the case all petitions, pleadings, and papers essential to the preservation and enforcement of their rights.

It is ordered that the offensive petition be stricken from the files, that respondent stand reprimanded and warned, and that he pay the costs of this proceeding.

NORCROSS, J.: I concur.

FITZGERALD, C. J., concurring:

In this matter my concurrence is special and to this extent: The language used by the respondent in his petition for a rehearing, and on which this contempt proceeding was based, was, in my opinion, contemptuous of this court, and, of