Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/340/332
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 14:33:00+00:00

Document:
Mr. Samuel D. Menin, Denver, Colo., for petitioner.
Mr. Philip B. Perlman, Sol. Gen., Washington, D.C., for respondent.
Petitioner was summoned to appear before a federal district grand jury in Denver, Colorado. Both before that body and before the district judge where he was later taken, petitioner declined to answer questions concerning the activities and records of the Communist Party of Colorado, claiming his constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. He also refused to reveal the whereabouts of his wife, who was wanted by the grand jury as a witness in connection with the same investigation. As to this refusal to testify, petitioner asserted his privilege against disclosing confidential communications between husband and wife. The district judge overruled both claims of privilege and sentenced petitioner to six months in prison for contempt of court. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. 179 F.2d 559.
For the reasons set out in our recent opinion in Blau v. United States, 340 U.S. 159, 71 S.Ct. 223, we hold it was error to fail to sustain the claim of privilege against self-incrimination.
Mr. Justice MINTON, with whom Mr. Justice JACKSON joins, dissenting.
If a communication between husband and wife is made under circumstances obviously not intended to be confidential, it is not privileged. Wolfle v. United States, 291 U.S. 7, 14, 54 S.Ct. 279, 280, 78 L.Ed. 617.
Where the privilege suppresses relevant testimony, as it did here, it should 'be allowed only when it is plain that marital confidence can not otherwise reasonably be preserved.' 291 U.S. at page 17, 54 S.Ct. at page 281.
Unless the wife is in concealment, which does not appear to be the case here, the disclosure of her whereabouts to the husband is obviously not intended to be confidential and therefore is not privileged. Not every communication between husband and wife is blessed with the privilege. The general rule of evidence is competency. Incompetency is the exception, and to bring one within the exception, one must come within the reason for the exception. The reason here is protection of marital confidence, not merely of communication between spouses. It seems to me clear that all that is shown here is communication. The circumstances of confidence are absent; what all may know is certainly not confidential.
For refusal to divulge his wife's whereabouts, petitioner was in contempt. Since the sentence he received was such as he might have received for that single act of contempt, his conviction is valid. Cf. Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 641, n. 1, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 1181, 90 L.Ed. 1489; Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 85, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 1378, 87 L.Ed. 1774. If petitioner conceived his sentence to be illegal, he would not be without remedy, for he might seek a reduction thereof on remand of this case under Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C.A. I intimate nothing as to that issue.
In view of our decision on this phase of the case, it is unnecessary to reach the question whether the single conviction for contempt (which was based on the refusal to give incriminating testimony and on the refusal to reveal a confidential marital communication) would be valid if petitioner were entitled to claim one, but not both, of the privileges.
William ALBERTSON and Roscoe Quincy Proctor, Petitioners, v. SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES CONTROL BOARD.
PEREIRA et al. v. UNITED STATES.
Junius Irving SCALES, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America.

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