In Re Lindsley

This is an application for a writ of habeas corpus. The petitioner was adjudged guilty of contempt of court and sentenced to pay a fine, or in default of the payment thereof to be imprisoned in the county jail. He is now so imprisoned. The petition alleges that the affidavit upon which the proceeding for contempt is based is insufficient and that no proof of the facts stated in the affidavit was produced at the hearing. It appears from the affidavit that an action against the petitioner for criminal libel was pending in the superior court of Humboldt County; that the cause had been set to be tried on the twenty-sixth day of October, 1925; that the names of sixty persons had been drawn from the trial jury box from which to impanel a jury to try the cause; that the petitioner is the editor of a newspaper published and circulated in the city of Eureka and county of Humboldt, and having a large number of subscribers in that county; that after the drawing of said names from the jury-box, in four separate issues of said newspaper, the petitioner published therein certain statements, which are set out at length, attacking the district attorney of the county and impugning his motives in…