What is the legal test for contempt of a judge when a judge is accused of making disparaging statements about a pending trial?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from Crosswhite v. Municipal Court of Eureka Judicial Dist.,Humboldt County, 260 Cal.App.2d 428, 67 Cal.Rptr. 216 (Cal. App. 1968):

Recognizing that court 'trials are not like elections, to be won through the use of the meeting-hall, the radio, and the newspaper,' the court in Bridges v. California, supra, 314 U.S. 252, 271, 62 S.Ct. 190, 86 L.Ed. 192, 197, said: 'But we cannot start with the assumption that publications of the kind here involved actually do threaten to change the nature of legal trials, and that to preserve judicial impartiality, it is necessary for judges to have a contempt power by which they can close all channels of public expression to all matters which touch upon pending cases. We must therefore turn to the particular utterances here in question and the circumstances of their publication to determine to what extent the substantive evil of unfair administration of justice was a likely consequence, and whether the degree of likelihood was sufficient to justify summary punishment.'

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