SAM W. KLEINFELD, APPELLANT,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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The court held that the attorney's conduct constituted a direct criminal contempt of court, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding him guilty and imposing a fine.
[1] An attorney's repeated disregard of a judge's orders and repeated interruptions constitute direct criminal contempt.
[2] A trial court does not abuse its discretion in finding an attorney in direct criminal contempt for persistent misconduct after repeated warnings.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAn attorney repeatedly filed repetitive motions, made intransigent arguments, and disregarded the judge's assurances, requests, and verbal orders duri…
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Proceeding “not wisely but too well”, Othello, Act V, Sc. 2, appellant, an attorney, forgot in his probably otherwise commendable zeal for his client that “any breach of an attorney’s duty to maintain the respect due by him to the court is a contempt of court,” 6 Fla.Jur., Contempt, Sec. 12, p. 569; he was undeterred by the admonition of Florida Civil Trial Practice, 2d Ed., Sec. 25.11, 8., that one of the “remedies for misconduct” on the part of “the trial lawyer” is a “contempt citation for misconduct continued after warning”; and he embarked upon a well-nigh unintermit-tent series of repetitive motions, intransigent arguments, and disregard of the repeated assurances, requests, and, even, verbal orders 1 of the judge trying the case.
*23In a carefully explanatory and detailed (pp. 145-148 of the transcript of the record) judgment, the beleaguered jurist found appellant “guilty of a direct criminal contempt” and fined him $1,000.00; “in default of the payment of which” he was required “to serve a term of 72 hours in the Dade County Jail.”
The instant appeal ensued.
Although there are eighteen assignments of error, each of which has been carefully considered and with deference found to be without merit, appellant’s chief thrust is capsulated in the assertion that what he did was not “a direct criminal contempt;” a position we respectfully hold is unsupported by the facts which all too unfortunately demonstrate a course of conduct by appellant “calculated to embarrass, hinder, or obstruct the court in the administration of justice, or which is calculated to lessen its authority or its dignity,” Anderson v. Gerstein, etc., Fla.App. 3, 1964, 164 So.2d 891, 893; the statements, rulings and orders of the judge having been “properly made in the course of the administration of the cause by the trial court,” Vernell v. State ex rel. Gerstein, State Attorney, Fla.App. 3, 1968, 212 So.2d 11, 13.
And so: With heavy heart2 and regretful compulsion, trustful and optimistic that appellant will in futuro acquit himself with unassailable decorum before all future Benches, we hold, as we did in Vernell, that “the judgment in contempt did not present an abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court. Due process was observed”- — and the judgment, therefore, is
Affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By (11 total)
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State ex rel. Joseph T. Garlovsky v. The Honorable E. L. Eastmoore, 393 So. 2d 567 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981)…expected to know that if he is a lawyer. He should also know, without being told, that persistence in disregarding a trial court’s rulings, in an effort to place improper matters before the jury, can lead to a contempt citation. Kleinfeld v. State, 270 So. 2d 22 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972), cert. denied, 275 So. 2d 251 (Fla.1973); Saunders v. State. The second issue raised on appeal is more troublesome. The trial judge, prior to the oral adjudication of contempt, did not follow the formal format implicit in Rule 3.…
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In re Weinstein, 518 So. 2d 1370 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988)…g or a despising the authority, justice, or dignity thereof,” South Dade Farms, Inc. v. Peters, 88 So. 2d 891 (Fla. 1956) (quoting Oswald, Contempt of Court, page 5). See also Krathen v. State, 310 So. 2d 381 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975); Kleinfeld v. State, 270 So. 2d 22 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972), [*1373] cert. denied, 275 So. 2d 251 (Fla.1973). In Kleinfeld, a contempt judgment was upheld where counsel, in disregard of numerous requests and orders of the trial court, had continued to engage in a series of repetitive motio…
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Litus v. McGREGOR, 381 So. 2d 757 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980)…n improper questioning of a witness and the trial court found him guilty of criminal contempt. The appellate court reversed holding that the trial judge failed to warn him that if he persisted he would be cited for contempt. See Kleinfield v. State, 270 So. 2d 22 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972). In the case before us, no order requiring counsel’s attendance had been entered nor was there anything to reflect Appellant had ignored or disregarded previous instructions or warnings of the court. While there is no doubt that a…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Vernell v. State of Fla. ex rel. Richard E. Gerstein, 212 So. 2d 11 (Fla. 3d DCA 1968)
- Andersen v. Gerstein, 164 So. 2d 891 (Fla. 3d DCA 1964)