Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law - Wired

1482 University of California, Davis [Vol. 41:1403
for effective protection of all the freedoms secured by the Bill of
Rights.” 516 When a party’s conduct is so disruptive that it threatens to
obstruct justice, a judge may hold the party in contempt as a way of
maintaining order in the courtroom, preserving the integrity of the
trial, and upholding the Constitution’s promise of a fair and speedy
trial. 517 In the case of Steve Allen West, 518 for example, the defendant’s
behavior was so disruptive that the jurors were not able to remain
impartial, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial in order to protect
West’s constitutional rights. 519 The judge’s ability to enforce proper
courtroom behavior provides a safeguard to ensure fairness in the
judicial process. 520
Although it may be argued that judges should be subject to the same
standards as police officers and other elected officials, Justice
Frankfurter persuasively articulated the difference between judges and
political figures within our constitutional scheme that enables judges
to exercise the contempt power:
It will not do to argue that a state cannot permit its judges to
resist coercive interference with their work in hand because
other officials of government must endure such obstructions
. . . . Presidents and governors and legislators are political
officials traditionally subject to political influence and the
rough and tumble of the hustings, who have open to them
traditional means of self-defense. In a very immediate sense,
legislators and executives express the popular will. But judges
do not express the popular will in any ordinary meaning of the
term. The limited power to punish for contempt which is here
involved wholly rejects any assumption that judges are
superior to other officials. They merely exercise a function
historically and intrinsically different. From that difference is
516 Id. at 282 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).
517 See Int’l Union v. Bagwell, 512 U.S. 821, 831-32 (1994) (noting that court’s
contempt power is “at its pinnacle . . . where contumacious conduct threatens a
court’s immediate ability to conduct its proceedings, such as where a witness refuses
to testify, or a party disrupts the court”); see also U.S. CONST. amend. VI (“In all
criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by
an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been
committed.”).
518 West v. State, 610 S.E.2d 159, 160 (Ga. Ct. App. 2005). For further discussion
of this case, see supra notes 507-09 and accompanying text.
519 West, 610 S.E.2d at 160-61.
520 See Clarke, supra note 514, at 965 (arguing that courtroom etiquette rules
remove impediments to proper “collection of information and discovery of the truth”).