Richard E. Hawk v. Al Cardoza, Sheriff of Solano County

Petitioner Richard Hawk was defense counsel for Juan Corona, who was convicted by a jury, after a month, heavily publicized trial of the murder of 25 farmworkers. During the trial, petitioner was cited under California’s summary contempt statute, Cal. Code Civ.Pro. § 1209, 19 times for statements made in the presence of the trial judge. He was convicted and sentenced shortly after each incident, with execution of sentence deferred until the conclusion of the trial. At the end of the trial, petitioner Was committed to the custody of the Solano County Sheriff without further proceedings to serve 46 days in jail and pay $2500 in fines.

Petitioner exhausted his state remedies, then filed his § 2554 habeas corpus in feder al district court, asserting constitutional claims as to 12 convictions. The district court denied his petition on all 12, and petitioner appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2253 . We affirm.

Petitioner attacks these contempt convictions on six grounds, four of which may be dealt with briefly. First, he argues that his acts at trial were not within the prohibitions of the California statute. The California trial judge found they were, the state…