Source: https://m.openjurist.org/396/us/64
Timestamp: 2020-07-04 03:40:25
Document Index: 297666574

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 10011', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 1001', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 1001', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 9', '§ 1001', '§ 9', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 9', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 9', '§ 1001', '§ 9', '§ 1001', '§ 9', '§ 159', '§ 2255', '§ 9', '§ 504', '§ 504', '§ 9', '§ 504', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 9']

396 US 64 Bryson v. United States | OpenJurist
396 U.S. 64 - Bryson v. United States
396 US 64 Bryson v. United States
90 S.Ct. 355
24 L.Ed.2d 264
Hugh BRYSON, Petitioner,
Petitioner asks this Court to set aside his 1955 jury conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 10011 for having falsely and fraudulently denied affiliation with the Communist Party in an affidavit he had filed with the National Labor Relations Board, pursuant to § 9(h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act.2 This collateral proceeding was brought in the District Court for the Northern District of California in 1967, some 10 years after his original conviction was upheld over a variety of challenges on direct review.3 The District Court distinguished Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855, 86 S.Ct. 1840, 16 L.Ed.2d 973 (1966), and decided that § 9(h), which had been upheld in American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 70 S.Ct. 674, 94 L.Ed. 925 (1950), could no longer be thought constitutionally valid, particularly in light of United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 85 S.Ct. 1707, 14 L.Ed.2d 484 (1965). Having concluded that the Government had no right to ask the questions which petitioner answered falsely in his affidavit, the District Court ruled that petitioner's conviction under § 1001 should be 'without effect.' It therefore set aside petitioner's conviction and discharged his parole (unreported opinion).4
* Petitioner bottoms his claim to relief on asserted constitutional deficiencies of § 9(h) of the National Labor Relations Act, enacted by Congress in 1947 out of concern that Communist Party influence on union officers created the risk of 'political strikes,' see American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U.S., at 387—389, 70 S.Ct., at 678—679. Under § 9(h), a union could participate in representation proceedings conducted by the NLRB or utilize the Board's machinery to protest employer unfair labor practices only if each of the union's officers had filed a 'non-Communist' affidavit. See n. 2, supra. Petitioner filed such an affidavit in 1951, and his subsequent conviction under § 1001 was based on a jury's determination that petitioner had knowingly and willfully lied in his affidavit by denying affiliation with the Communist Party.5
About one year before petitioner filed the false affidavit, this Court had upheld § 9(h) after considering a variety of asserted constitutional deficiencies, American Communications Assn. v. Douds, supra. However, in 1959 Congress replaced § 9(h) with a provision that simply made it a crime for one who was or had recently been a Communist Party member to be a union officer,6 and this successor statute was subsequently held unconstitutional as a bill of attainder, United States v. Brown, supra.
Relying primarily on Brown, petitioner argues that § 9(h) was also a bill of attainder, prohibited by Art. I, § 9, cl. 3, of the Constitution. Petitioner also argues that the statute abridged First Amendment rights of speech, assembly, and association, and was so vague as to offend the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. We do not decide whether § 9(h)—now repealed for over 10 years—would today pass constitutional muster and whether Douds would be reaffirmed. Guided by Dennis v. United States, supra, we hold that the question of whether § 9(h) was constitutional or not is legally irrelevant to the validity of petitioner's conviction under § 1001, the general criminal provision punishing the making of fraudulent statements to the Government.
We find the principle of Dennis no less applicable in the case before us. First, none of the elements of proof necessary for petitioner's conviction under § 1001 has been shown to depend on the validity of § 9(h). Petitioner suggests in this collateral proceeding that when he filed his affidavit he misunderstood the meaning of the statutory term 'affiliated,' a word which he claims is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. But the trial court narrowly defined the term in an instruction7 later explicitly approved by this Court in Killian v. United States, 368 U.S. 231, 254—258, 82 S.Ct. 302, 314—317, 7 L.Ed.2d 256 (1961). Moreover, the jury's verdict reflects a determination that petitioner's false statement was knowingly and willfully made. This negates any claim that petitioner did not know the falsity of his statement at the time it was made, or that it was the product of an accident, honest inadvertence, or duress. Insofar as petitioner in this collateral proceeding attempts to suggest the contrary,8 he is simply trying to impeach the jury's verdict, upheld after careful review on direct appeal.
As another element of the offense, § 1001 requires that the false statement be made 'in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States.' Petitioner argues that if § 9(h) was unconstitutional, then the affidavit requirement was not within the 'jurisdiction' of the Board, and therefore the false statement was not punishable under § 1001. Because there is a valid legislative interest in protecting the integrity of official inquiries, see United States v. Bramblett, 348 U.S. 503, 75 S.Ct. 504, 99 L.Ed. 594 (1955); United States v. Gilliland, 312 U.S. 86, 93, 61 S.Ct. 518, 522, 85 L.Ed. 598 (1941),9 we think the term 'jurisdiction' should not be given a narrow or technical meaning for purposes of § 1001, Ogden v. United States, 303 F. 2d 724, 742—743 (C.A.9th Cir. 1962); United States v. Adler, 380 F.2d 917, 921—922 (C.A.2d Cir. 1967). A statutory basis for an agency's request for information provides jurisdiction enough to punish fraudulent statements under § 1001.10
In this case, the Board received petitioner's affidavit pursuant to explicit statutory authority, which only a short time before had been upheld as constitutional in Douds. Given that under § 9(h) the Board's 'power to act on union charges (was) conditioned on filing of the necessary affidavits,' Leedom v. International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelting Workers, 352 U.S. 145, 148—149, 77 S.Ct. 154, 156, 1 L.Ed.2d 201 (1956), the Board certainly had the apparent authority, granted by statute, necessary for purposes of § 1001. Thus, we hold that irrespective of whether Douds would be reaffirmed today, petitioner made a false statement in a 'matter within the jurisdiction' of the Board.11
Notwithstanding the fact that the Government has proved the elements necessary for a conviction under § 1001, the petitioner would have us say that the invalidity of § 9(h) would provide a defense to his conviction. But after Dennis it cannot be thought that as a general principle of our law a citizen has a privilege to answer fraudulently a question that the Government should not have asked. Our legal system provides methods for challenging the Government's right to ask questions12—lying is not one of them. A citizen may decline to answer the question, or answer it honestly, but he cannot with impunity knowingly and willfully answer with a falsehood.
Petitioner argues, and the District Court also found, that Dennis is distinguishable, and that its teachings therefore have no relevance in this instance. The first distinction offered is that Dennis involved a conviction for conspiracy, whereas this petitioner was prosecuted under § 1001 for individually making a false statement.13 We see nothing in that fact that makes Dennis less applicable in this instance. The cases are indeed very similar in that both involve the use of false affidavits 'to circumvent the law and not to challenge it— a purported compliance with (§ 9(h) was) designed to avoid the courts, not to invoke their jurisdiction.' 384 U.S., at 865, 86 S.Ct., at 1846.
This conviction was founded on an indictment which in the words of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 makes it a crime to file 'any false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or representations' in any matter 'within the jurisdiction' of the National Labor Relations Board. Former § 9(h) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 29 U.S.C. § 159(h) (1958 ed.), barred a union from using the services of the Board unless and until each of the union's officers had filed his affidavit that he was neither a member of nor affiliated with the Communist Party. The basic question in this proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 is whether constitutionally speaking it was 'within the jurisdiction' of the Board to require the filing of those affidavits.
In United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 85 S.Ct. 1707, 14 L.Ed.2d 484, we held that the successor of § 9(h), § 504 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 29 U.S.C. § 504, was a bill of attainder. It made it a crime for a member of the Communist Party to serve as an officer or employee (except in clerical or custodial positions) of a labor union. The Vinson opinion in Douds upheld § 9(h) on the basis that it was 'intended to prevent future action rather than to punish past action.' 339 U.S., at 414, 70 S.Ct., at 692. In Brown, it was likewise argued that the statute there involved was 'preventive rather than retributive in purpose.' 381 U.S., at 457, 85 S.Ct., at 1719. That view was rejected. The question, we said, was whether § 504 inflicted 'punishment' which, we pointed out, 'serves several purposes; retributive, rehabilitative, deterrent and preventive.' Id., at 458, 85 S.Ct., at 1720. The dissenters Mr. Justice Clark, Mr. Justice Harlan, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice White—concluded that Douds was 'obviously overruled.' Id., at 464—465, 85 S.Ct., at 1723. Whatever may be said technically about any remaining vitality of the Douds case, it obviously belongs to a discredited regime, though, like Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256, it has never been officially overruled.
Title 18 U.S.C. § 1001 provides: 'Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.'
'I tried to think of some analogy which would make that possibly clearer to you, and the best one I can think of—we have all in our experience probably heard of a man and woman who live together but are not married. They are husband and wife in everything but name only. You have probably heard that expression. A person to be affiliated with the Communist Party within the meaning of that term as used in the Second Count of the indictment must be a member in every sense and stand in the relationship of a member in every sense but that of the mere technicality of being a member,—in everthing but name.' Bryson v. United States, 238 F.2d, at 664 n. 8.
We do not read previous decision of this Court, in contexts other than prosecutions under § 1001, e.g., Williamson v. United States, 207 U.S. 425, 453—462, 288 S.Ct. 163, 173—177, 52 L.Ed. 278 (1908); United States v. George, 228 U.S. 14, 33 S.Ct. 412, 57 L.Ed. 712 (1913); Viereck v. United States, 318 U.S. 236, 63 S.Ct. 561, 87 L.Ed. 734 (1943); Christoffel v. United States, 338 U.S. 84, 69 S.Ct. 1447, 93 L.Ed. 1826 (1949), as inconsistent with this conclusion. Petitioner has cited no cases of this Court, and we know of none, in which there existed statutory authority to require a statement but the Court nevertheless held that a prosecution for a false answer could not be maintained because the statute was later determined invalid. Friedman v. United States, 374 F.2d 363 (C.A.8th Cir. 1967), cited by the dissent, held that a false and fraudulent statement willfully and knowingly given to the FBI in order 'to initiate a federal prosecution under the Civil Rigts Laws' was not in any "matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency" for purposes of § 1001 because the FBI 'had no power to adjudicate rights, establish binding regulations, compel the action or finally dispose of the problem giving rise to the inquiry.' Id., at 365, 368. We have no occasion in the present context either to approve or disapprove Friedman's holding.
For two examples of how the constitutional validity of § 9(h) could be raised, see American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U.S., at 385—387, 70 S.Ct. at 677—678.