Otis

This is a petition for the writ of certiorari to bring up for review the judgment of the superior court convicting the petitioners of a contempt, alleged to have been committed by the publication in successive issues of the Daily Times, a newspaper published in Los Angeles, of a series of articles criticising the proceedings of the grand jury in respect to matters then under investigation. The petition sets out very fully all of the proceedings in the matter of the alleged contempt, and the question as to the validity of the judgment of the superior court has been submitted on general demurrer to the petition.

There are some propositions included in the case that have been so often decided and are so entirely unquestioned by counsel that they may be briefly stated without any citation of authority. Every court is the exclusive judge of its own contempts, and its judgment is subject to review only upon the point of jurisdiction. But every court in a contempt proceeding exercises a strictly limited jurisdiction, and its judgment convicting of a contempt is invalid, unless the record of the conviction shows upon its face that the matter charged was within its jurisdiction. If the…