A Slight Case of Contempt

As his part in a statewide crackdown aimed at Indiana's mounting traffic problem, Hamilton County Circuit Court Judge Edward F. New Jr. decreed last month that speeders and other "moving violators" in his jurisdiction will no longer get off with mere fines paid to a local justice of the peace.

New will personally try them in his higher court-- and motorists found guilty even of first-offense speeding will go straight to the state penal farm or the state women's prison.

"An excellent example of shotgun justice," wrote Editor James Neal of Hamilton County's Noblesville (pop. 7,600) Daily Ledger. "If the past provides a good example, what will happen is that some kindly little old lady will spend the night in jail for driving too slow while some mad motorist charged with manslaughter will stall his trial right out of court."

In an angry court order last week, Judge New blasted Editor Neal's comments as "disdainful, despicable, scur rilous and contemptuous." Nor did the order stop there: it sent the sheriff hustling to Neal's office to arrest him for criminal contempt of court -- punishable in Indiana by up to three months' imprisonment and a $500 fine. Haling Neal to his courtroom, where four mounted animal heads gaze down impassively on the accused, Judge New set bail at a whopping $50,000.

Ridiculous. Elected to a six-year term last fall, Judge New has been feeling Editor Neal's needle ever since he took office. The judge demanded publication of the names and addresses of all juvenile offenders and their parents. The Ledger (circ. 7,500) went along at first, then decided the idea was unwise. The judge also decreed that all arrested juveniles be held in the city jail without bond for as long as two weeks pending a hearing. The Ledger called that policy "terrible." Indeed, it led one 17-year-old boy to file a federal writ of habeas corpus with U.S. District Judge S. Hugh Dillin in nearby Indianapolis. For technical reasons, Dillin could not spring the boy, but he ordered New to set bond at $100 and called New's rules "ridiculous." They may be, but they are still in effect.

Editor Neal, a 1945 West Point graduate who later resigned his commission to run the family newspaper, says that he is all for a traffic crackdown, but he insists that New's method will simply clog the court with jury trials, while cops who must testify on their days off will merely stop making arrests. Judge New, who has disqualified himself for Neal's forthcoming nonjury trial, argues that, nonetheless, Neal has no right to predict future court actions. "If, in fact, I had sent a little old lady to jail for driving too slow, he could editorialize till Christmas comes, and I'd uphold his rights. I'd back him forever, 1,000%. But the point is, slurring the court as to what it will do is crystal-balling which creates disrespect for law and order."

Prized Privilege. In defining the contempt power of U.S. judges, the Supreme Court has been considerably more incisive. Outright disorder in a courtroom or its environs is undeniably contemptuous and may be summarily punished. But a judge cannot hold mere criticism in contempt, ruled the Supreme Court in 1947, unless it presents a clear and present danger to the administration of justice. "The danger must not be remote or even probable; it must immediately imperil." As the court put it in another case: "The assumption that respect for the judiciary can be won by shielding judges from published criticism wrongly appraises American public opinion. It is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind on all public institutions."

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