Meanwhile in 1927 the Supreme Court began to qualify its insistence upon an award of execution, holding in Fidelity National Bank and Trust Co. v. Swope[22] that an award of execution is not an indispensable adjunct of the judicial process. This ruling prepared the way for Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis R. Co. v. Wallace[23] which reversed the decision in the Grannis case, sustained an appeal from a State court to the Supreme Court in a declaratory proceeding, and effectively interred the rule that award of execution is essential to judicial power. Regardless, nevertheless, of the fate of an award of execution, the rule that finality of judgment is an essential attribute of judicial power remains unimpaired.
THE CONTEMPT POWER; THE ACT OF 1789
The summary power of the courts of the United States to punish contempts of their authority had its origin in the law and practice of England where disobedience of court orders was regarded as contempt of the King himself and attachment was a prerogative process derived from presumed contempt of the sovereign.[24] By the latter part of the eighteenth century summary power to punish was extended to all contempts whether committed in or out of court.[25] In the United States, the Judiciary Act of 1789 in section 17[26] conferred power on all courts of the United States "to punish by fine or imprisonment, at the discretion of said courts, all contempts of authority in any cause or hearing before the same." The only limitation placed on this power was that summary attachment was made a negation of all other modes of punishment. The abuse of this extensive power led, following the unsuccessful impeachment of Judge James H. Peck of the Federal District Court of Missouri, to the passage of the act of 1831 limiting the power of the federal courts to punish contempts to misbehavior in the presence of the courts, "or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice," to the misbehavior of officers of courts in their official capacity, and to disobedience or resistance to any lawful writ, process or order of the court.[27]
An Inherent Power
The validity of the act of 1831 was sustained forty-three years later in Ex parte Robinson,[28] where Justice Field for the Court propounded principles full of potentialities for conflict. He declared: "The power to punish for contempts is inherent in all courts; its existence is essential to the preservation of order in judicial proceedings, and to the enforcement of the judgments, orders, and writs of the courts, and consequently to the due administration of justice. The moment the courts of the United States were called into existence and invested with jurisdiction over any subject, they become possessed of this power." Expressing doubts concerning the validity of the act as to the Supreme Court, he declared, however, there could be no question of its validity as applied to the lower courts on the ground that they are created by Congress and that their "powers and duties depend upon the act calling them into existence, or subsequent acts extending or limiting their jurisdiction."[29] With the passage of time, later adjudications, especially after 1890, came to place more emphasis on the inherent power of courts to punish contempts than upon the power of Congress to regulate summary attachment. By 1911 the Court was saying that the contempt power must be exercised by a court without referring the issues of fact or law to another tribunal or to a jury in the same tribunal.[30] In Michaelson v. United States[31] the Supreme Court intentionally placed a narrow interpretation upon those sections of the Clayton Act[32] relating to punishment for contempt of court by disobedience to injunctions in labor disputes. The sections in question provided for a jury trial upon the demand of the accused in contempt cases in which the acts committed in violation of district court orders also constituted a crime under the laws of the United States or of those of the State where they were committed. Although Justice Sutherland reaffirmed earlier rulings establishing the authority of Congress to regulate the contempt power, he went on to qualify this authority and declared that "the attributes which inhere in that power [to punish contempt] and are inseparable from it can neither be abrogated nor rendered practically inoperative." The Court mentioned specifically "the power to deal summarily with contempts committed in the presence of the courts or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice," and the power to enforce mandatory decrees by coercive means.[33]
The Contempt Power Exalted
The phrase "in the presence of the Court or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice" was interpreted in Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States[34] so broadly as to uphold the action of a district court judge in punishing for contempt a newspaper for publishing spirited editorials and cartoons on questions at issue in a contest between a street railway company and the public over rates. A majority of the Court held that the test to be applied in determining the obstruction of the administration of justice is not the actual obstruction resulting from an act, but "the character of the act done and its direct tendency to prevent and obstruct the discharge of judicial duty." Similarly the test of whether a particular act is an attempt to influence or intimidate a court is not the influence exerted upon the mind of a particular judge but "the reasonable tendency of the acts done to influence or bring about the baleful result * * * without reference to the consideration of how far they may have been without influence in a particular case."[35] In Craig v. Hecht[36] these criteria were applied to sustain the imprisonment of the comptroller of New York City for writing and publishing a letter to a public service commissioner which criticized the action of a United States district judge in receivership proceedings.
Recession of the Doctrine