Opinion
Argued February 13, 1992
Decided March 31, 1992
Appeal from the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the First Judicial Department, Carol Berkman, J.
Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney (James M. McGuire and Mark Dwyer of counsel), for appellant.
Robert Abrams, Attorney-General (Abigail I. Petersen and Jerry Boone of counsel), for respondent.
MEMORANDUM.
The judgment of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, without costs.
Petitioner, an Assistant District Attorney, refused to obey respondent, an Acting Justice of Supreme Court presiding at a calendar call, when she ordered the prosecutor to leave the well area of her courtroom. The verbal exchanges and actions that led the Justice to hold the prosecutor in summary criminal contempt are described in the Appellate Division writings ( 170 A.D.2d 364).
Petitioner's statements and conduct, as reflected in the record before us, satisfied the prerequisites for respondent's adjudication of summary contempt (contrast, Matter of Williams v Cornelius, 76 N.Y.2d 542, 547). He willfully refused to exit the well area after an explicit and unambiguous judicial order to do so (Judiciary Law § 750 [A] [3], [4]). As this Court has noted in the past, "[h]owever misguided and erroneous the court's order may have been, petitioner was not free to disregard it and decide for himself the manner in which to proceed" (Matter of Balter v Regan, 63 N.Y.2d 630, 631).
Petitioner's arguments that his due process rights were violated and that the mandate was defective under Judiciary Law § 752 are also without merit (see, Matter of Kunstler v Galligan, 79 N.Y.2d 775, affg on App. Div. 168 A.D.2d 146).
Chief Judge WACHTLER and Judges SIMONS, KAYE, ALEXANDER, TITONE, HANCOCK, JR., and BELLACOSA concur.
Judgment affirmed, without costs, in a memorandum.