Transcript of Judge Wilkerson's finding in United States v. Capone, contempt (27 February 1931)

Part 26 of the FBI Vault’s Capone file, scans 7 to 16. This is the copy of “the official transcript of Judge Wilkerson’s announcement of finding” that the Chicago office enclosed with its letter of 27 February 1931 (serial 69-180-55). It is captioned “United States vs. Capone, Before Wilkerson, J., Friday, February 27, 1931, 10 o’clock A. M., Opinion.” The first page was read from the image stored here; the remaining pages were read from OCR, which is noisy.

The opinion begins: “This respondent was served on the 27th of February, 1929, with a subpoena from this Court requiring him to appear before the grand jury on the 12th day of March, 1929, at 10 o’clock A. M.” On March 11 he entered his appearance and asked the court to postpone it until the April term, submitting “an affidavit executed in Florida and sent by the respondent to Chicago. The affidavit was that of a doctor named Phillips.” The judge recites the affidavit’s statements that Capone had suffered from bronchopneumonia and pleurisy since January 13, 1929, had been confined to bed for six weeks and had been out of bed only ten days, and then reviews the testimony of Dr. Phillips, a Dr. Omens and two nurses about the course of the illness.

As far as the OCR can be read, the judge holds that the court deals with witnesses through its process, which is to be obeyed and not trifled with, and that the statement that the respondent had been out of bed only ten days was false when it was a matter of general knowledge where he was staying that he was not sick in bed. He finds the respondent guilty of contempt as charged in the information and commits him to the jail of Cook County for six months, with the formal order to be entered on Monday, March 2, 1931. The closing pages record defense counsel’s motion in arrest of judgment, which was overruled, and an exchange on appeal, supersedeas, bond and the bill of exceptions. These paraphrases follow the OCR text; the research did not transcribe scans 8 to 16 from the page images.