Colombo v. New York (405 U.S. 9)/Opinion of the Court

[p9] PER CURIAM.

Despite a grant of immunity in response to the assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege not to be a witness against himself, petitioner refused to answer questions put to him before a Kings County, New York, grand jury. On December 7, 1965, a trial judge found that [p10] the questions put had been proper and directed petitioner to answer them. Petitioner refused; the trial court, after allowing petitioner a week's time to change his mind, signed a commitment order stating that my "his contumacious and unlawful refusal after being sworn in as a witness to answer any legal and proper interrogatories and for his willful disobedience to the lawful mandate of this Court" petitioner had "committed a criminal contempt of court in the immediate view and presence of the Court and that said contempt was willful and unlawful and in violation of Section 750 of the Judiciary Law of the State of New York..." Petitioner was sentenced to 30 days and fined $250.

Appellate proceedings proved fruitless. Petitioner then offered to testify, the offer was refused, and petitioner paid his fine and served his sentence. On October 10, 1966, petitioner was indicted under § 600, subd. 6, of the New York Penal Law of 1909 "for his contumacious and unlawful refusal, after being duly sworn as a witness, to answer legal and proper interrogatories." The trial court dismissed the indictment on double jeopardy grounds but the appellate court reversed. The reversal was sustained by the Court of Appeals, which concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment and the double jeopardy provision of the Fifth Amendment did not bar the indictment. The court reasoned that petitioner had committed two acts of contempt—one on October 14, 1965, before the grand jury, and the other on December 7 when he refused to obey the order of the judge—and that the trial judge had committed petitioner for civil, not criminal, contempt.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals must be vacated. The judgment of the New York trial court entered on December 15, 1965, was for "criminal contempt," petitioner was sentenced to a definite term in jail and ordered to pay a fine, and neither the prosecutor nor the trial court [p11] considered his offer to testify as sufficient to foreclose execution of the sentence. For purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause, petitioner was confined and penalized for criminal contempt. Yates v. United States, 355 U.S. 66 (1957); see also Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U.S. 373 (1966); Shillitani v. United States, 384 U.S. 364 (1966); Oriel v. Russell, 278 U.S. 358 (1929). To the extent that the judgment of the Court of Appeals rested on a contrary view, it must be set aside. It also appears from its supplemental response that the State considers the two acts of contempt on October 14 and on December 7 as being partially intertwined. As we understand it from the State's response, petitioner's refusal to answer on October 14 did not mature into a complete contempt until December 7 when the trial court passed on the propriety of the grand jury's inquiry and petitioner thereafter refused to obey the court's direction to return to the grand jury and answer the questions properly put to him.

In view of the New York Court of Appeals' misconception of the nature of the contempt judgment entered against petitioner for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause and in view of the substantial question of New York law that has emerged, we are disinclined at this juncture to entertain and determine the double jeopardy question presented by petitioner. The better course is to grant the petition for writ of certiorari, vacate the judgment of the New York Court of Appeals, and remand the case to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion, thus affording that court the opportunity to reconsider the validity of the indictment under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution.

So ordered.