Matter Chester Presta v. Arvid Owsley

In this original proceeding petitioner, Chester Presta, prays discharge from imprisonment in the county jail ordered by the
Honorable Richard C. Jensen, Judge of the Criminal Division of the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, after adjudging
the petitioner to be in contempt of court for refusing to answer questions propounded by a Jackson County Grand Jury before
which he had been summoned. He asserts that the restraint of his liberty is unlawful and in violation of his right under Article
1, Section 19, of the Missouri Constitution, 1945, to refuse to answer questions where the answers might tend to incriminate
him; and that his denial of the presence of his counsel and of a public hearing at the time he was adjudicated to be in contempt
invalidated the contempt order. The setting in which the alleged contempt occurred is as follows: On March 17, 1961, Judge Jensen empaneled a Grand Jury
for the March term of the Circuit Court, charging it, in addition to its statutory duty to investigate generally for evidence
of commission of violations in Jackson County of state s, to pay particular attention to the organized criminal element. He
advised the Grand July of his belief that there was a crime wave which was "a part of a national hook-up with the notorious
hoodlum element of our country known as the 'Mafia"; that there are "a series of burglaries and robberies, and assaults occurring
in this county which seem so well planned and apparently well organized as to indicate an organized group of professional
criminals preying upon our community"; to investigate possible connections between certain insurance companies that provide
bail bonds to arrested persons "to determine what part they are playing in the planned program of organized crime"; and to
investigate certain thefts of narcotics "... which were sold through the channels of organized crime".