The petitioner, Genevieve A. Clark, has been adjudged guilty of a criminal contempt, in that with intent to obstruct justice she gave answers knowingly misleading and others knowingly false in response to questions affecting her qualifications as a juror (D.C.) 1 F.Supp. 747.
The conviction by the District Court was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; the proceeding being remanded, however, to correct an error in the sentence. 61 F.(2d) 695. A writ of certiorari brings the case here. 287 U.S. 595, 53 S.Ct. 314, 77 L.Ed. --.
In September, 1931, there came on for trial in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota an indictment which had been returned against William B. Foshay and others charging them with the use of the mails in furtherance of a scheme to defraud. The petitioner was one of the panel of jurors summoned to attend. She did not know when the summons came to her for what case she had been called, and telephoned a sister, Mrs. Brown, that she would like to be excused. She was advised by her sister, who had made inquiry of the clerk of the court, that excuses, if there were any, would have to be presented to the judge. At the same time she was informed that the trial for which she had been summoned was the Foshay trial, and that she would probably not be accepted as a juror since she had been employed by the Foshay Company, a corporation with which the indicted men had been connected as officers.
On the day appointed for the trial, the petitioner, in company with her husband, reported at the courtroom. The District Judge examined the members of the panel as to their qualifications for service. While the examination was going on, the petitioner stated to several women on the panel that she wished to serve on the jury, that for this she had a special reason, and that she was afraid her former employment by the Foshay Company would disqualify her; that she had worked for the company as a stenographer and typist for about two weeks in the summer of 1929, but did not know or come in contact with any of the defendants personally.
Her service as stenographer and typist was not the only tie of friendliness that linked her to the ,.foshay firm. There were other contacts or relations that are not without significance, though less direct and personal. Until her marriage in 1922, she had been employed with the title of assistant cashier in a bank at St. Paul, of which Mr. Clark was then the president. Foshay in those years was a customer of the bank as depositor and borrower. Mr. Clark resigned as president in 1925, but his business relations with Foshay continued in the years that followed. Letters that passed between them are printed in the record. The tone is cordial and almost intimate. True, there is nothing to show that the friendly relations had spread to the petitioner. She denies that she had any acquaintance with Foshay or his associates, and the District Court by its findings has accepted her denial. It is next to impossible, however, that her husband, who was with her in the courtroom, had refrained from telling her of his own friendship for one of the prisoners at the bar.
The petitioner, upon being called to the jury box, was questioned under oath by the judge presiding at the trial. She was asked whether she had ever been in any business of any kind. She answered, 'I have been a stenographer before my marriage, yes.' She was asked in what kind of business she had worked. She answered, 'Well, I did some banking and some real estate and insurance, and I was with an automobile concern, with a Nash agency.' Finally she was asked whether she felt that her mind was free from bias, and whether if accepted as a juror she would be able and willing to base her verdict on the evidence and the law as given to her by the court. To those inquiries she answered that her mind was clear of bias, and that the law and the evidence would govern her in arriving at a verdict.