The necessity for this suit was the fact that the forged paper had not been surrendered for cancellation, as ordered by the decree, and the plaintiff feared that the defendant would claim and seek to enforce property rights as wife of the plaintiff, by authority of the alleged written declaration of marriage, under the decree of another court, essentially founded thereupon, contrary to the perpetual injunction ordered by the Circuit Court.  To this suit, David S. Terry, as husband of the defendant, was made a party.  It merely asked the Circuit Court to place its own decree in a position to be executed, and thereby prevent the spoliation of the Sharon estate, under the authority of the decree of Judge Sullivan in the suit in the state court subsequently commenced.  A demurrer was filed by the defendant.  It was argued in July before Justice Field, Judge Sawyer, and District Judge Sabin.  It was overruled on the 3d of September, when the court ordered that the original suit of Sharon against Hill, and the final decree therein, stand revived in the name of Frederick W. Sharon as executor, and that the said suit and the proceedings therein be in the same plight and condition they were in at the death of William Sharon, so as to give the executor, complainant as aforesaid, the full benefit, rights, and protection of the decree, and full power to enforce the same against the defendants, and each of them, at all times and in all places, and in all particulars.  The opinion in the case was delivered by Justice Field.  During its delivery he was interrupted by Mrs. Terry with violent and abusive language, and an attempt by her to take a pistol from a satchel which she held in her hand.  Her removal from the court-room by order of Justice Field; her husband’s assault upon the marshal with a deadly weapon for executing the order, and the imprisonment of both the Terrys for contempt of court, will be more particularly narrated hereafter.

The commencement of the proceedings for the revival of the suit was well calculated to alarm the Terrys.  They saw that the decree in the Circuit Court was to be relied upon for something more than its mere moral effect.  Their feeling towards Judges Sawyer and Deady was one of most intense hatred.  Judge Deady was at his home in Oregon, beyond the reach of physical violence at their hands, but Judge Sawyer was in San Francisco attending to his official duties.  Upon him they took an occasion to vent their wrath.

It was on the 14th of August, 1888, after the commencement of the revivor proceedings, but before the decision.  Judge Sawyer was returning in the railway train to San Francisco from Los Angeles, where he had been to hold court.  Judge Terry and his wife took the same train at Fresno.  Judge Sawyer occupied a seat near the center of the sleeping-car, and Judge and Mrs. Terry took the last section of the car, behind him, and on the same side.  A few minutes after leaving Fresno, Mrs. Terry walked down the aisle to