Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/395/411/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 08:22:21+00:00

Document:
or would be "injured" by the operation of the statute, and that the complaint failed to state a cause of action. A three-judge District Court dismissed the complaint, holding that Hannah v. Larche, 363 U. S. 420, foreclosed relief on the constitutional issue, and that the other allegations of the complaint raised merely potential defenses to assertedly pending criminal charges.
Held: The judgment is reversed and remanded. Pp. 395 U. S. 413-433.
1. Appellant has standing to challenge the statute's constitutionality. Pp. 395 U. S. 421-425.
(a) The allegations of the complaint indicate that the Commission and those acting in concert with it have carried out a series of acts designed to injure appellant in several ways, and it is thus clear that appellant has sufficient adversary interest to insure proper presentation of issues facing the court. Pp. 395 U. S. 423-424.
(b) Appellant has sufficiently alleged a nexus between the official action challenged and his legally protected interest, since he has claimed that the very purpose of the Commission is to find him and persons like him guilty of violating criminal laws without trial or procedural safeguards, and to publicize those findings, and thus the Commission's alleged actions will substantially affect him. P. 395 U. S. 424.
(c) In the circumstances of this case, where appellant claims a concerted attempt to brand him a criminal without trial, and has claimed that he has vainly tried to secure prosecution of charges against him, his opportunity to defend criminal prosecution is not sufficient to deprive him of standing to challenge the statute. Pp. 395 U. S. 424-425.
2. Appellant has alleged a cause of action which may make declaratory and injunctive relief appropriate. and is entitled to go to trial on his allegations concerning the Commission and that its procedures violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 395 U. S. 425-431.
performing functions that are primarily accusatory, and have no legislative purpose. Pp. 395 U. S. 425-428.
(b) Due process requires that the Commission here, which allegedly makes actual findings of guilt, afford a person being investigated the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against him. Pp. 395 U. S. 428-429.
(c) The Commission's alleged procedures drastically limiting the right of a person being investigated to present evidence on his own behalf do not comport with due process. P. 395 U. S. 429.
(d) The extent to which the Commission's procedures in these and other respects alleged by appellant may violate the Due Process Clause should be decided in the first instance by the District Court in light of the evidence adduced at trial. Pp. 395 U. S. 429-430.
3. Whether appellant's allegations that false criminal charges were filed against him involve actions taken under the statute, and should thus be taken into account by the District Court in determining the statute's constitutionality, or are merely potential defenses, as the District Court held, to assertedly pending criminal charges should be left open for reconsideration on remand. Pp. 395 U. S. 431-432.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS concurs in the result for the reasons stated in his dissent in Hannah v. Larche, supra, at 363 U. S. 493-508. P. 395 U. S. 432.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK adhered to MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS' dissent in Hannah v. Larche, supra, and, while concurring in much of the prevailing opinion in this case, concluded that the statute involved here, like the statute involved in Hannah, constitutes a scheme for a nonjudicial tribunal to convict people without any of the safeguards of the Bill of Rights, and denies due process of law. Pp. 395 U. S. 432-433.
Act No. 2, Preamble, [1967 Extra.Sess.] La. Acts 3. Appellant, a member of a labor union, filed this suit in the District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana challenging the constitutionality of Act No. 2 and of certain actions taken by state officials in the administration of the Act and otherwise. He sought both declaratory and injunctive relief. A three-judge court was convened, and that court ultimately granted appellees' motion to dismiss the complaint. Jenkins v. McKeithen, 286 F.Supp. 537 (D.C.E.D.La.1968). We noted probable jurisdiction of an appeal brought under 28 U.S.C. § 1253. [Footnote 1] We reverse. Since the case was decided on a motion to dismiss, a rather detailed examination of the structure of the Act and of the allegations of the complaint is necessary.
The court, relying largely on the opinion of the Louisiana Supreme Court in Martone v. Morgan, 251 La. 993, 207 So.2d 770, appeal dismissed, 393 U. S. 12 (1968) (petition for rehearing pending), held that this Court's decision in Hannah v. Larche, 363 U. S. 420 (1960), was dispositive of the issue of the constitutionality of the Act. The court further ruled that appellant had not stated any other claim for relief under §§ 1981, 1983, and 1988 of Title 42, United States Code. Rather, the court held that the other matters sought to be raised in the complaint were merely potential defenses to the pending criminal charges, and that appellant had not alleged any basis for restraining prosecution of those charges. Finally, the court ruled that appellant's suit was not a proper class action under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. [Footnote 3] The court did not explicitly rule on the issue of whether appellant lacked standing to challenge the Act.
The present case was decided on appellees' motion to dismiss, in which appellees contested appellant's standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Act. As noted above, the court below made no explicit reference to the issue of standing. But since the question of standing goes to this Court's jurisdiction, see Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 392 U. S. 94-101 (1968), we must decide the issue even though the court below passed over it without comment. Cf. Tileston v. Ullman, supra.
For the purposes of a motion to dismiss, the material allegations of the complaint are taken as admitted. See, e.g., Walker Process Equipment, Inc. v. Food Machinery & Chemical Corp., 382 U. S. 172, 382 U. S. 174-175 (1965). And the complaint is to be liberally construed in favor of plaintiff. See Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 8(f); Conley v.
Gibson, 355 U. S. 41 (1957). The complaint should not be dismissed unless it appears that appellant could "prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, supra, at 355 U. S. 45-46. With these rules in mind, we turn to an examination of the allegations of appellant's complaint.
Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 369 U. S. 204 (1962); see Flast v. Cohen, supra; Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 341 U. S. 151 (1951) (concurring opinion). In this sense, the concept of standing focuses on the party seeking relief, rather than on the precise nature of the relief sought. See Flast v. Cohen, supra, at 99-100. The decisions of this Court have also made it clear that something more than an "adversary interest" is necessary to confer standing. There must in addition be some connection between the official action challenged and some legally protected interest of the party challenging that action. See Flast v. Cohen, supra, at 392 U. S. 101-106.
363 U.S. at 363 U. S. 442.
363 U.S. at 363 U. S. 441.
The Court noted that any adverse consequences to those being investigated, such as subjecting them to public opprobrium, were purely conjectural, and, in any case, were merely collateral, and "not . . . the result of any affirmative determinations made by the Commission. . . ." 363 U.S. at 363 U. S. 443. Morgan v. United States, 304 U. S. 1 (1938), Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, supra, and Greene v. McElroy, supra, were distinguished on the ground that "[t]hose cases . . . involved . . . determinations in the nature of adjudications affecting legal rights." 363 U.S. at 363 U. S. 451.
363 U.S. at 363 U. S. 488.
v. McElroy, supra, at 360 U. S. 496-499, and cases cited. In the present context, where the Commission allegedly makes an actual finding that a specific individual is guilty of a crime, we think that due process requires the Commission to afford a person being investigated the right to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against him, subject only to traditional limitations on those rights. Cf. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965).
The Commission's procedures also drastically limit the right of a person investigated to present evidence on his own behalf. It is true that he may appear and call a "reasonable number of witnesses" in executive session, but, should the Commission decide to hold a public hearing, he is limited to presentation of his own testimony and the "pertinent" written statements of others. The right to present oral testimony from other witnesses and the power to compel attendance of those witnesses may be denied in the discretion of the Commission. The right to present evidence is, of course, essential to the fair hearing required by the Due Process Clause. See, e.g., Morgan v. United States, supra, at 304 U. S. 18; Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. United States, 298 U. S. 349, 298 U. S. 368-369 (1936). And, as we have noted above, this right becomes particularly fundamental when the proceeding allegedly results in a finding that a particular individual was guilty of a crime. Cf. Washington v. Texas, 388 U. S. 14 (1967); In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 333 U. S. 273 (1948). We do not mean to say that the Commission may not impose reasonable restrictions on the number of witnesses and on the substance of their testimony; we only hold that a person's right to present his case should not be left to the unfettered discretion of the Commission.
evidence and fails to provide standards of guilt or innocence. He also alleges that the Act deprives him of effective assistance of counsel. We have, however, said enough to demonstrate that appellant has alleged a cause of action for declaratory and injunctive relief. Whether the Due Process Clause requires that the Commission provide all the procedural protections afforded a defendant in a criminal prosecution, or whether something less is sufficient, are questions that we think should be initially answered by the District Court on remand. As we have noted, "[w]hether the Constitution requires that a particular right obtain in a specific proceeding depends upon a complexity of factors." Hannah v. Larche, supra, at 363 U. S. 442. We think it inappropriate to rule on the extent to which the Commission's procedures may run afoul of the Due Process Clause on the basis of the record before us, barren as it is of any established facts. That issue is best decided in the first instance by the District Court in light of the evidence adduced at trial.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS concurs in the result for the reasons stated in his dissenting opinion in Hannah v. Larche, 363 U. S. 420, 363 U. S. 493-508 (1960).
id. at 392 U. S. 99-100, that is, "whether there is a logical nexus between the status asserted and the claim sought to be adjudicated." Id. at 392 U. S. 102. In the present context, this means simply that, for a plaintiff to challenge a particular course of conduct pursued or threatened to be pursued by a defendant, it is not enough for the plaintiff to allege that he has been or will be injured by the defendant; the plaintiff must further claim that the injury to him (or to those whom he has status to represent [Footnote 2/1]) results from the particular course of conduct he challenges.
Reading and re-reading these many paragraphs of legal and factual averments, one cannot help but be struck by the conspicuous absence of any claim that appellant has been or will be investigated by the Commission, or called as a witness before it, or identified in its findings, or, indeed, subjected to any of its processes. [Footnote 2/2] Can this lacuna be filled by implication? I believe not.
Because the complaint is barren of.any indication of the manner in which appellant is affected by the Commission's formal procedures, the prevailing opinion is required to make its own assumptions. It places appellant in the vague position of "a person being investigated" by the Commission, ante at 395 U. S. 428, 395 U. S. 429, and thence proceeds to discuss the rights of such a person to confront witnesses and to offer evidence in his own behalf. The prevailing opinion appears understandably reluctant to commit itself to very much. As I read the opinion, it does not state that any of the Commission's procedures are actually unconstitutional, but holds only that there is enough latent in the complaint that the case should proceed to trial.
The Commission thus bears close resemblance to certain federal administrative agencies, infra this page and 395 U. S. 440, and to the offices of prosecuting attorneys. These agencies have one salient feature in common, which distinguishes them from those designed simply to "expose." None of them is the final arbiter of anyone's guilt or innocence. Each, rather, plays only a preliminary role, designed, in the usual course of events, to initiate a subsequent formal proceeding in which the accused will enjoy the full panoply of procedural safeguards. For this reason, and because such agencies could not otherwise practicably pursue their investigative functions, they have not been required to follow "adjudicatory" procedures.
The statutory safeguards afforded persons being investigated by the Louisiana Commission are at least equal to those provided by most of these federal agencies. See id. at 363 U. S. 454-485.
however, it would do well to heed carefully its own warning in Hannah that such a requirement "would make a shambles of the investigation and stifle the agency in its gathering of facts." 363 U.S. at 363 U. S. 444. Such a requirement would not only incapacitate state criminal investigatory bodies at a time when their need cannot be gainsaid, but would cast a broad shadow of doubt over the propriety of longstanding procedures employed by many federal agencies -- procedures which, less than a decade ago, the Court believed to be proper and necessary.
As the prevailing opinion notes, ante at 395 U. S. 420, and n. 3, appellant does not assign as error the District Court's holding that this was not a proper class action.
It is ironic that appellant should complain of the open nature of the Commissions proceedings. The statutory requirement that the Commission "shall base its findings and reports only upon evidence and testimony given at public hearings," La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 23:880.12A (Supp. 1969), is plainly designed to protect witnesses and persons under investigation from what some members of the Court have criticized as secret inquisitions or Star Chamber proceedings. See In re Groban, 352 U. S. 330, 352 U. S. 337 (1957) (BLACK, J., dissenting); Anonymous v. Baker, 360 U. S. 287, 360 U. S. 298 (1959) (BLACK, J., dissenting).

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