Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/321/414/case.php
Timestamp: 2020-01-21 09:01:16
Document Index: 37916823

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 4', '§ 1364', '§ 203', '§ 1', '§ 2', '§ 1', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 4', '§ 204', '§ 203', '§ 204', '§ 203', '§ 1300', '§ 203', '§ 4', '§ 204', '§ 6', '§ 902', '§ 2', '§ 902', '§ 204', '§ 924', '§ 204', '§ 205', '§ 205', '§ 204', '§ 203', '§ 203', '§ 2', 'arts 321', '§ 203', '§ 1300']

(a) The Act, the declared purpose of which is to prevent wartime inflation, provides for the establishment of an Office of Price Administration under the direction of a Price Administrator appointed by the President. The Administrator is authorized, after consultation with representative members of the industry so far as practicable, to promulgate regulations fixing prices of commodities which "in his judgment will be generally fair and equitable and will effectuate the purposes of this Act" when, in his judgment, their prices "have risen or threaten to rise to an extent or in a manner inconsistent with the purposes of this Act." The Administrator is directed in fixing prices to give due consideration, so far as practicable, to prices prevailing during a chanrobles.com-red
4. The provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act, construed to deprive petitioners of opportunity to attack the validity of a price regulation (establishing maximum prices for the sale of certain meats at wholesale) in a prosecution for its violation, held not chanrobles.com-red
6. No principle of law or provision of the Constitution precludes Congress from making criminal the violation of an administrative regulation, chanrobles.com-red
CERTIORARI, 320 U.S. 730, to review the affirmance of convictions for violations of the Emergency Price Control Act. chanrobles.com-red
Petitioners in both of these cases were tried and convicted by the District Court for Massachusetts upon several counts of indictments charging violation of §§ 4(a) and 205(b) of the Act by the willful sale of wholesale cuts of beef at prices above the maximum prices prescribed by §§ 1364.451-1364.455 of Revised Maximum Price Regulation No. 169, 7 Fed.Reg. 10381 et seq. Petitioners have not availed themselves of the procedure set up by §§ 203 and 204 by which any person subject to a maximum price regulation may test its validity by protest to and hearing before the Administrator, whose determination may be chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 419
reviewed on complaint to the Emergency Court of Appeals and by this Court on certiorari, see Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U. S. 182. When the indictments were found, the 60 days' period allowed by the statute for filing protests had expired.
The Emergency Price Control Act provides for the establishment of the Office of Price Administration under the direction of a Price Administrator appointed by the President, and sets up a comprehensive scheme for the promulgation by the Administrator of regulations or orders fixing such maximum prices of commodities and rents as will effectuate the purposes of the Act and conform to the standards which it prescribes. The Act was adopted as a temporary wartime measure, and provides in § 1(b) for its termination on June 30, 1943, unless sooner chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 420
terminated by Presidential proclamation or concurrent resolution of Congress. By the amendatory Act of October 2, 1942, it was extended to June 30, 1944.
The standards which are to guide the Administrator's exercise of his authority to fix prices, so far as now relevant, are prescribed by § 2(a) and by § 1 of the amendatory Act of October 2, 1942, and Executive Order 9250, promulgated under it. 7 Fed.Reg. 7871. By § 2(a), the Administrator is authorized, after consultation with representative members of the industry so far as practicable, to promulgate regulations fixing prices of commodities which "in his judgment will be generally fair and equitable and will effectuate the purposes of this Act" when, in his judgment, their prices "have risen or threaten to rise to an extent or in a manner inconsistent with the purposes of this Act." chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 421
Revised Maximum Price Regulation No. 169 was issued December 10, 1942, under authority of the Emergency Price Control Act as amended and Executive Order No. 9250. The Regulation established specific maximum chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 422
prices for the sale at wholesale of specified cuts of beef and veal. As is required by § 2(a) of the Act, it was accompanied by a "statement of the considerations involved" in prescribing it. From the preamble to the Regulation and from the Statement of Considerations accompanying it, it appears that the prices fixed for sales at wholesale were slightly in excess of those prevailing between March 16 and March 28, 1942, [Footnote 2] and approximated those prevailing on September 15, 1942. Findings that the Regulation was necessary, that the prices which it fixed were fair and equitable, and that it otherwise conformed to the standards prescribed by the Act, appear in the Statement of Considerations.
That Congress has constitutional authority to prescribe commodity prices as a war emergency measure, and that the Act was adopted by Congress in the exercise of that power, are not questioned here, and need not now be considered save as they have a bearing on the procedural chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 423
The Act is thus an exercise by Congress of its legislative power. In it, Congress has stated the legislative objective, has prescribed the method of achieving that objective -- maximum price-fixing -- and has laid down standards to guide the administrative determination of both the occasions for the exercise of the price-fixing power, and the particular prices to be established. Compare Field v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649; Hampton & Co. v. United States, 276 chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 424
U.S. 394; Currin v. Wallace, 306 U. S. 1; Mulford v. Smith, 307 U. S. 38; United States v. Rock Royal Co-op., 307 U. S. 533; Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U. S. 381; Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U. S. 126; National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 190; Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81.
The Constitution, as a continuously operative charter of government, does not demand the impossible or the impracticable. It does not require that Congress find for itself every fact upon which it desires to base legislative action, or that it make for itself detailed determinations which it has declared to be prerequisite to the application of the legislative policy to particular facts and circumstances impossible for Congress itself properly to investigate. The essentials of the legislative function are the determination of the legislative policy and its formulation and promulgation as a defined and binding rule of conduct -- here, the rule, with penal sanctions, that prices shall not be greater than those fixed by maximum price regulations which conform to standards and will tend to further the policy which Congress has established. These essentials are preserved when Congress has specified the basic conditions of fact upon whose existence or occurrence, chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 425
ascertained from relevant data by a designated administrative agency, it directs that its statutory command shall be effective. It is no objection that the determination of facts and the inferences to be drawn from them in the light of the statutory standards and declaration of policy call for the exercise of judgment, and for the formulation of subsidiary administrative policy within the prescribed statutory framework. See Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, supra, 312 U. S. 145-146, and cases cited.
Currin v. Wallace, supra, 306 U. S. 15. Hence, it is irrelevant that Congress might itself have prescribed the maximum prices or have provided a more rigid standard by which they are to be fixed; for example, that all prices should be frozen at the levels obtaining during a certain period or on a certain date. See Union Bridge Co. v. United States, 204 U. S. 364, 204 U. S. 386. Congress is not confined chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 426
to that method of executing its policy which involves the least possible delegation of discretion to administrative officers. Compare 17 U. S. 413 et seq. It is free to avoid the rigidity of such a system, which might well result in serious hardship, and to choose instead the flexibility attainable by the use of less restrictive standards. Cf. Hampton & Co. v. United States, supra,@ 276 U. S. 408, 276 U. S. 409. Only if we could say that there is an absence of standards for the guidance of the Administrator's action, so that it would be impossible in a proper proceeding to ascertain whether the will of Congress has been obeyed, would we be justified in overriding its choice of means for effecting its declared purpose of preventing inflation.
The standards prescribed by the present Act, with the aid of the "statement of considerations" required to be made by the Administrator, are sufficiently definite and precise to enable Congress, the courts and the public to ascertain whether the Administrator, in fixing the designated prices, has conformed to those standards. Compare Hirabayashi v. United States, supra, 320 U. S. 104. Hence, we are unable to find in them an unauthorized delegation of legislative power. The authority to fix prices only when prices have risen or threaten to rise to an extent or in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the Act to prevent inflation is no broader than the authority to fix maximum prices when deemed necessary to protect consumers against unreasonably high prices, sustained in Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, supra, or the authority to take possession of and operate telegraph lines whenever deemed necessary for the national security or defense, upheld in Dakota Central Tel. Co. v. South Dakota, 250 U. S. 163; or the authority to suspend tariff provisions upon findings that the duties imposed by a foreign state are "reciprocally unequal and unreasonable," held valid in Field v. Clark, supra. chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 427
We consider next the question whether the procedure which Congress has established for determining the validity of the Administrator's regulations is exclusive, so as to preclude the defense of invalidity of the Regulation in this criminal prosecution for its violation under §§ 4(a) and chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 428
205(b). Section 203(a) sets up a procedure by which "any person subject to any provision of a regulation or order" may, within sixty days after it is issued, "file a protest specifically setting forth objections to any such provision and affidavits or other written evidence in support of such objections." He may similarly protest later, on grounds arising after the expiration of the original sixty days. The subsection directs that, within a reasonable time and in no event more than thirty days after the filing of a protest or ninety days after the issue of the regulation protested, whichever is later,
Section 204(c) creates a court to be known as the Emergency Court of Appeals consisting of United States district or circuit judges designated by the Chief Justice of the United States. Section 204(a) authorizes any person aggrieved by the denial or partial denial of his protest to file a complaint with the Emergency Court of Appeals within thirty days after the denial, praying that the regulation, order or price schedule protested be enjoined or set aside in whole or in part. The court may issue such an injunction only if it finds that the regulation, order or price schedule "is not in accordance with law, or is arbitrary or capricious." (Subsection (b).) It is denied power to issue a temporary restraining order or interlocutory decree. (Subsection (c).) The effectiveness of any permanent injunction it may issue is postponed for thirty days, and, if review by this Court is sought upon writ of certiorari, as authorized by subsection (d), its effectiveness is further chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 429
postponed until final disposition of the case by this Court by denial of certiorari or decision upon the merits. (Subsection (b).)
The considerations which led us to that conclusion with respect to the equity jurisdiction of the district court, lead to the like conclusion as to its power to consider the validity of a price regulation as a defense to a criminal prosecution for its violation. The provisions of § 204(d), conferring chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 430
upon the Emergency Court of Appeals and this Court "exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of any regulation or order," coupled with the provision that "no court, Federal, State or Territorial, shall have jurisdiction or power to consider the validity of any such regulation," are broad enough in terms to deprive the district court of power to consider the validity of the Administrator's regulation or order as a defense to a criminal prosecution for its violation.
Congress, in thus authorizing consideration by the district court of the validity of the Act alone, gave clear indication that the validity of the Administrator's regulations chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 431
or orders should not be subject to attack in criminal prosecutions for their violation, at least before their invalidity had been adjudicated by recourse to the protest procedure prescribed by the statute. Such, we conclude, is the correct construction of the Act.
In considering these asserted hardships, it is appropriate to take into account the purposes of the Act and the circumstances attending its enactment and application as a wartime emergency measure. The Act was adopted January chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 432
30, 1942, shortly after our declaration of war against Germany and Japan, when it was common knowledge, as is emphasized by the legislative history of the Act, that there was grave danger of wartime inflation and the disorganization of our economy from excessive price rises. Congress was under pressing necessity of meeting this danger by a practicable and expeditious means which would operate with such promptness, regularity and consistency as would minimize the sudden development of commodity price disparities, accentuated by commodity shortages occasioned by the war.
Congress, in enacting the Emergency Price Control Act, was familiar with the consistent history of delay in utility rate cases. It had in mind the dangers to price control as a preventive of inflation if the validity and effectiveness of prescribed maximum prices were to be subject to the exigencies and delays of litigation originating in eighty-five district courts and continued by separate appeals through eleven separate courts of appeals to this Court, to say nothing of litigation conducted in state courts. See Sen.Rep. No. 931, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 23-25. chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 433
Petitioners assert that they have been denied that opportunity because the sixty days' period allowed for filling a protest is insufficient for that purpose; because the procedure chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 434
before the Administrator is inadequate to ensure due process; because the statute precludes any interlocutory injunction staying enforcement of a price regulation before final adjudication of its validity; because the trial of the issue of validity of a regulation is excluded from the criminal trial for its violation, and because, in any case, there is nothing in the statute to prevent their conviction for violation of a regulation before they could secure a ruling on its validity. A sufficient answer to all these contentions is that petitioners have failed to seek the administrative remedy and the statutory review which were open to them, and that they have not shown that, had they done so, any of the consequences which they apprehend would have ensued to any extent whatever, or, if they should, that the statute withholds judicial remedies adequate to protect petitioners' rights.
For the purposes of this case, in passing upon the sufficiency of the procedure on protest to the Administrator and complaint to the Emergency Court, it is irrelevant to suggest that the Administrator or the Court has in the past or may in the future deny due process. Action taken by them is reviewable in this Court, and, if contrary to due process, will be corrected here. Hence, we have no occasion to pass upon determinations of the Administrator or the Emergency Court, said to violate due process, which have never been brought here for review, and obviously we cannot pass upon action which might have been taken on a protest by petitioners, who have never made a protest or in any way sought the remedy Congress has provided. In the absence of any proceeding before the Administrator, we cannot assume that he would fail in the performance of any duty imposed on him by the Constitution and laws of the United States, or that he would deny due process to petitioners by "loading the record against them" or denying such hearing as the Constitution prescribes. Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 531, 232 U. S. 545; 242 U. S. 554; Minnesota v. Probate Court, 309 U. S. 270, 309 U. S. 277, and cases cited. Only if we could say in advance of resort to the statutory procedure that it is incapable of affording due process to petitioners could we conclude that they have shown any legal excuse for their failure to resort to it or that their constitutional rights have been or will be infringed. Natural Gas Co. v. Slattery, 302 U. S. 300, 302 U. S. 309; Anniston Mfg. Co. v. Davis, supra, 301 U. S. 356-357; Minnesota v. Probate Court, supra,@ 309 U. S. 275, 309 U. S. 277. But, upon a full examination of the provisions of the statute, it is evident that the authorized procedure is not incapable of affording the protection to petitioners' rights required by due process.
The sixty days' period allowed for protest of the Administrator's regulations cannot be said to be unreasonably short in view of the urgency and exigencies of wartime price regulation. [Footnote 3] Here, the Administrator is required to act initially upon the protest within thirty days after it is filed or ninety days after promulgation of the challenged regulation, by allowing the protest wholly or in part, or denying it or setting it down for hearing. (§ 203(a).) chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 436
But we cannot say that the Administrator would not have allowed ample time for the presentation of evidence. [Footnote 4] And, under § 204(a), petitioners could have applied to the Emergency Court of Appeals for leave to introduce any additional evidence "which could not reasonably" have been offered to the Administrator or included in the proceedings before him, and could have applied to the Administrator to modify or change his decision in the light of that evidence.
Nor can we say that the administrative hearing provided by the statute will prove inadequate. We hold in Bowles v. Willingham, post, p. 321 U. S. 503, that, in the circumstances to which this Act was intended to apply, the failure to afford a hearing prior to the issue of a price regulation does not offend against due process. While the hearing on a protest may be restricted to the presentation of documentary evidence, affidavits and briefs, the Act contemplates, and the Administrator's regulations provide for, a full oral hearing upon a showing that written evidence and briefs "will not permit the fair and expeditious disposition of the protest." (§ 203(a); Revised Procedural Regulation No. 1, § 1300.39, 7 Fed.Reg. 891.) In advance of application to the Administrator for such a hearing, we cannot well say whether its denial in any particular case would be a denial of due process. The Act requires the Administrator to inform the protestant of the grounds for his decision denying a protest, including all matters of which he has taken official notice. (§ 203(a).) In view of the provisions for the introduction of further evidence both before and after the Administrator has announced his determination, we cannot say that, if petitioners had filed a protest adequate chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 437
opportunity would not have been afforded them to meet any arguments and evidence put forward by the Administrator, or that, if such opportunity had been denied, the denial would not have been corrected by the Emergency Court.
In the circumstances of this case, we find no denial of due process in the statutory prohibition of a temporary stay or injunction. The present statute is not open to the objection that petitioners are compelled to serve the public as in the case of a public utility, or that the only method by which they can test the validity of the regulations chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 438
promulgated under it is by violating the statute and thus subjecting themselves to the possible imposition of severe and cumulative penalties. See Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123; Willcox v. Consolidated Gas Co., 212 U. S. 19, 212 U. S. 53; Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Tucker, 230 U. S. 340; Oklahoma Operating Co. v. Love, 252 U. S. 331. For as we have seen, § 4(d) specifically provides that no one shall be compelled to sell any commodity, and the statute itself provides an expeditious means of testing the validity of any price regulation, without necessarily incurring any of the penalties of the Act. Compare Wadley Southern Ry. Co. v. Georgia, 235 U. S. 651, 235 U. S. 667-669.
The Administrator, who is the author of the regulations, is given wide discretion as to the time and conditions of their issue and continued effect. Section 2(a) authorizes him to issue such regulations as will effectuate the purposes of the Act, whenever, in his judgment, such action is necessary. Section 201(d) similarly authorizes him "from time to time" to issue regulations when necessary and proper to effectuate the purposes of the Act. One of the objects of the protest provisions is to enable the Administrator more fully to inform himself as to the wisdom chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 439
of a regulation through evidence of its effect on particular cases. In the light of that information, he is authorized by 203(a) to grant or deny a protest "in whole or in part." And § 204(a) authorizes the Administrator to modify or rescind a regulation "at any time." [Footnote 6] Moreover, 2(a) further authorizes the issue, in the Administrator's judgment, of temporary regulations, effective for sixty days,
In any event, we are unable to say that the denial of interlocutory relief pending a judicial determination of the validity of the regulation would, in the special circumstances of this case, involve a denial of constitutional right. If the alternatives, as Congress could have concluded, were wartime inflation or the imposition on individuals of the burden of complying with a price regulation while its validity is being determined, Congress could constitutionally make the choice in favor of the protection of the public interest from the dangers of inflation. Compare chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 440
Miller v. Schone, 276 U. S. 272, in which we held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not preclude a state from compelling the uncompensated destruction of private property in order to preserve important public interests from destruction.
But where an injunction is asked which will adversely affect a public interest for whose impairment, even temporarily, an injunction bond cannot compensate, the court may, in the public interest, withhold relief until a final determination of the rights of the parties, though the postponement may be burdensome to the plaintiff. [Footnote 7] 272 U. S. 672-673; Petroleum Exploration Co. v. Public Service Comm'n, 304 U. S. 209, 304 U. S. 222-223; Dryfoos v. Edwards, 284 F.5d 6, 603, affirmed, 251 U. S. 251 U.S. 146; see Beaumont, S. L. & W. Ry. Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 74, 282 U. S. 91, 282 U. S. 92. Compare Wisconsin v. Illinois, 278 U. S. 367, 278 U. S. 418-421. This is but another application of the principle, declared in Virginian Ry. Co. v. System Federation,@ 300 U. S. 515, 300 U. S. 552, that
Here, in the exercise of the power to protect the national economy from the disruptive influences of inflation in time of war, Congress has seen fit to postpone injunctions restraining the operations of price regulations until their lawfulness could be ascertained by an appropriate and expeditious procedure. In so doing, it has done only what a court of equity could have done in the exercise of its discretion to protect the public interest. What the courts chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 442
could do, Congress can do as the guardian of the public interest of the nation in time of war. The legislative formulation of what would otherwise be a rule of judicial discretion is not a denial of due process or a usurpation of judicial functions. Cf. Demorest v. City Bank Co., 321 U. S. 36. [Footnote 8]
Our decisions leave no doubt that, when justified by compelling public interest, the legislature may authorize summary action subject to later judicial review of its validity. It may insist on the immediate collection of taxes. Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589, 283 U. S. 595-597 and cases cited. It may take possession of property presumptively abandoned by its owner, prior to determination of chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 443
its actual abandonment. Anderson National Bank v. Luckett, 321 U. S. 233. For the protection of public health, it may order the summary destruction of property without prior notice or hearing. North American Cold Storage Co. v. Chicago, 211 U. S. 306; Adams v. Milwaukee, 228 U. S. 572, 228 U. S. 584. It may summarily requisition property immediately needed for the prosecution of the war. Compare United States v. Pfitsch, 256 U. S. 547. As a measure of public protection, the property of alien enemies may be seized, and property believed to be owned by enemies taken without prior determination of its true ownership. Central Union Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U. S. 554, 254 U. S. 566; Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U. S. 239, 255 U. S. 245. Similarly, public necessity in time of war may justify allowing tenants to remain in in possession against the will of the landlord. Block v. Hirsh, 256 U. S. 135; Marcus Brown Co. v. Feldman, 256 U. S. 170. Even the personal liberty of the citizen may be temporarily restrained as a measure of public safety. Hirabayashi v. United States, supra; cf. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11. Measured by these standards, we find no denial of due process under the circumstances in which this Act was adopted and must be applied, in its denial of any judicial stay pending determination of a regulation's validity.
As we have seen, Congress, through its power to define the jurisdiction of inferior federal courts and to create such courts for the exercise of the judicial power, could, subject to other constitutional limitations, create the Emergency Court of Appeals, give to it exclusive equity jurisdiction to determine the validity of price regulations prescribed by the Administrator, and foreclose any further or other consideration of the validity of a regulation as a defense to a prosecution for its violation. chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 444
No procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right may be forfeited in criminal, as well as civil, cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right before a tribunal having jurisdiction to determine it. O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U. S. 323, 144 U. S. 331; Barbour v. Georgia, 249 U. S. 454, 249 U. S. 460; Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 274 U. S. 360, 274 U. S. 362, 274 U. S. 380. Courts may, for that reason, refuse to consider a constitutional objection even though a like objection had previously been sustained in a case in which it was properly taken. Seaboard Air Line Ry. Co. v. Watson, 287 U. S. 86. While this Court, in its chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 445
discretion, sometimes departs from this rule in cases from lower federal courts, it invariably adheres to it in cases from state courts, see Brandeis, J. concurring in Whitney v. California, supra, 274 U. S. 380, and it could hardly be maintained that it is beyond legislative power to make the rule inflexible in all cases. Compare Woolsey v. Best, 299 U. S. 1, with Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371.
For more than fifty years, it has been a penal offense for shippers and interstate rail carriers to fail to observe the duly filed tariffs fixing freight rates -- including, since 1906, rates prescribed by the Commission -- even though the validity of those rates is open to attack only in a separate administrative proceeding before the Interstate Commerce Commission. 49 U.S.C. §§ 6(7), 10(1); Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 209 U. S. 56, 209 U. S. 81; United States v. Adams Express Co., 229 U. S. 381, 229 U. S. 388. It is no defense to a prosecution for departure from a rate fixed by the filed tariffs that the rate is unreasonable or otherwise unlawful where its infirmity has not first been established by an independent proceeding before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the denial of the defense in such a case does not violate any provision of the Constitution. United States v. Vacuum Oil Co., 158 F.5d 6, 539-541; Lehigh Valley R. Co. v. United States, 188 F.8d 9, 887-888. See also United States v. Standard Oil Co., 155 F.3d 5, 309-310, reversed on other grounds, 164 F.3d 6. Compare Pennsylvania R. Co. v. International Coal Co., 230 U. S. 184, 230 U. S. 196-197; Arizona Grocery Co. v. Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry. Co., 284 U. S. 370, 24 U. S. 384. Similarly, it has been held that one who has failed to avail himself of the statutory method of review of orders of the Secretary of Agriculture under the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921, or of the Federal Radio Commission under the Radio Act of 1927, cannot enjoin threatened prosecutions for violation of those orders, United States v. Corrick, 298 U. S. 435, 298 U. S. 440; chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 446
White v. Johnson, supra, 282 U. S. 373-374. See also Natural Gas Co. v. Slattery, supra, 302 U. S. 309-310. [Footnote 9]
We have no occasion to decide whether one charged with criminal violation of a duly promulgated price regulation chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 447
may defend on the ground that the regulation is unconstitutional on its face. Nor do we consider whether one who is forced to trial and convicted of violation of a regulation, while diligently seeking determination of its validity by the statutory procedure, may thus be deprived of the defense that the regulation is invalid. There is no contention that the present regulation is void on its face, petitioners have taken no step to challenge its validity by the procedure which was open to them, and it does not appear that they have been deprived of the opportunity to do so. Even though the statute should be deemed to require it, any ruling at the criminal trial which would preclude the accused from showing that he had had no opportunity to establish the invalidity of the regulation by resort to the statutory procedure would be reviewable on appeal on constitutional grounds. It will be time enough to decide questions not involved in this case when they are brought to us for decision, as they may be, whether they arise in the Emergency Court of Appeals or in the district court upon a criminal trial.
In the exercise of the equity jurisdiction of the Emergency Court of Appeals to test the validity of a price regulation, a jury trial is not mandatory under the Seventh Amendment. Cf. Block v. Hirsh, supra, 256 U. S. 158. Nor has there been any denial in the present criminal proceeding of the right, guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, to a trial by a jury of the state and district where the crime was committed. Subject to the requirements of due process, which are here satisfied, Congress could make criminal the violation of a price regulation. The indictment charged a violation of the regulation in the district of trial, and the question whether petitioners had committed the crime thus charged in the indictment and defined by Congress, namely, whether they had violated the statute by willful disobedience of a price regulation promulgated by the chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 448
Any regulation may provide for adjustments and reasonable exceptions which, in the Administrator's judgment, chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 449
are necessary and proper to effectuate the purposes of the Act. If, in his judgment, such action is necessary or proper to effectuate the purposes of the Act, he may, by regulation or order, regulate or prohibit speculative or manipulative practices or hoarding in connection with any commodity (50 U.S.C. § 902).
In order to exercise his power anent this purpose, the Administrator will have to form a judgment as to what stabilization means, and what are speculative, unwarranted and abnormal increases in price. It hardly need be said that men may differ radically as to the connotation of these terms, and that it would be very difficult to convict chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 450
"to prevent hardships to persons engaged in business, to schools, universities, and other institutions, and to the
Page 321 U. S. 451
Federal, State, and local governments, which would result from abnormal increases in prices;"
Reflection will demonstrate that, in fact, the Act sets no limits upon the discretion or judgment of the Administrator. His commission is to take any action with respect to prices which he believes will preserve what he deems a sound economy during the emergency and prevent what he considers to be a disruption of such a sound economy chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 452
in the postwar period. His judgment, founded, as it may be, on his studies and investigations, as well as other economic data, even though contrary to the great weight of current opinion or authority, is the final touchstone of the validity of his action.
Each regulation or order must be accompanied by a "statement of the considerations involved" in its issue (§ 2(a), 50 U.S.C. § 902(a)). This is not a statement or finding of fact. Webster defines the term "consideration" as "that which is, or should be, considered as a ground of opinion or action; motive; reason." The citizen, chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 453
And it is to be observed that, after seeing the protestant's affidavits and the evidence, the Administrator may load the record with all sorts of material, articles, opinions, chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 454
compilations, and what not -- pure hearsay -- subject to no cross-examination, to persuade the court that his order could, "in his judgment," promote one of the "purposes" of the Act.
"No objection to such regulation, order, or price schedule, and no evidence in support of any objection thereto, shall be considered by the court, unless such objection shall have been set forth by the complainant in the protest or such evidence shall be contained in the transcript. If application is made to the court by either party for leave to introduce additional evidence which was either offered to the Administrator and not admitted, or which could not
Page 321 U. S. 455
reasonably have been offered to the Administrator or included by the Administrator in such proceedings, and the court determines that such evidence should be admitted, the court shall order the evidence to be presented to the Administrator. The Administrator shall promptly receive the same, and such other evidence as he deems necessary or proper, and thereupon he shall certify and file with the court a transcript thereof and any modification made in the regulation, order, or price schedule as a result thereof; except that, on request by the Administrator, any such evidence shall be presented directly to the court."
Referring to § 204(b), 50 U.S. Cl. § 924(b), the court held that the requirement that the complainant must establish "to the satisfaction of the court" that the regulation, order, or price schedule is not in accordance with law or is arbitrary or capricious throws upon the protestant chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 456
the burden "to bring forward and satisfactorily prove the invalidating facts," and added:
A procedure better designed to prevent the making of an issue between parties can hardly be conceived. chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 457
"include a statement setting forth, so far as practicable, the economic data and other facts of which the Administrator has taken official notice. Insofar as any economic generalizations or conclusions formulated by the Administrator constitute indispensable steps in his process of reasoning in denying the protest, it is for this court to say whether they have any rational basis, in performance of our statutory duty to consider whether the regulation or order should be set aside in whole or in part as being 'arbitrary or capricious.' This is so whether the Administrator includes such generalizations and conclusions
Page 321 U. S. 458
in his opinion accompanying the denial of the protest or, as in this case, incorporates them into the record of the protest proceedings at an earlier stage in order to afford protestant an opportunity for rebuttal."
No court is competent, on a mass of economic opinion consisting of studies by subordinates of the Administrator, chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 459
charts and graphs prepared in support of the studies, and economic essays gathered hither and yon, to demonstrate, beyond doubt, that the considerations or conclusions of the Administrator from such material cannot support the Administrator's judgment that what he has done by way of regulation or price schedule tends to prevent postwar collapse of values, or to prevent dissipation of defense appropriations through excessive prices, or to prevent impairment of the standard of living of persons dependent on life insurance, or to prevent hardship to schools -- to enumerate but a few of the stated purposes of the Act.
The Emergency Court of Appeals, in Taylor v. Brown, 137 F.2d 654, overruled a challenge to the constitutional validity of the Act's delegation of legislative power to the Administrator by invocation of the "War Power" of Congress, the powers embodied in Article I, 8, of the Constitution "to declare War," "to raise and support Armies," "to provide and maintain a Navy," and "to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" those powers. After showing, what needs no argument, that these powers of Congress are very different from those to be exercised in peace, the court then -- without a sign that it realizes the great gap in the process -- assumes that one of Congress' war powers is the power to transfer its legislative function to a delegate. By the chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 460
same reasoning, it could close this court or take away the constitutional prerogatives of the President as "War measures."
I agree with the Court's conclusions upon the substantive issues. But I am unable to believe that the trial afforded chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 461
the petitioners conformed to constitutional requirements. The matter is of such importance as requires a statement of the reasons for dissent.
Judged by normal peacetime standards, over-all nationwide price control hardly has accepted place in our institutions. Notwithstanding the considerable expansion of recent years in this respect, the extension has been piecemeal. [Footnote 3/1] Until now, it has not enveloped the entire economy. [Footnote 3/2] Whether control so extensive might be upheld in some emergency not created by war need not now be decided. chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 462
That it can be supported in the present circumstances and for the declared purposes, there can be no doubt. It is enough, as the Court points out, that legal foundation exists in the nation's power to make war, as this has been given to Congress and the Chief Executive. Cf. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81. [Footnote 3/3]
As it is with the substantive control, so it is with delegating legislative power. War begets necessities for this, as for imposing substantive controls, not required by the lesser exigencies of more normal periods. In this respect, certainly there is as much room for difference as exists when Congress is dealing wholly with internal matters and when it is acting with the President about foreign affairs. Cf. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304. Not only the broader power of Congress, but its conjunction in the particular delegation with the wider authority of the President, both as chief magistrate and as commander-in-chief, goes to sustain the greater delegation. Cf. Hirabayashi v. United States, supra. But the present legislation, as the Court's opinion demonstrates, chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 463
does not go beyond the limits allowed by peacetime precedents in the substantive delegation. [Footnote 3/5]
Congress sought to accomplish two procedural objectives. One was to afford a narrow but sufficient method for securing review and revision of the regulations. At the same time, the Act created broad and ready methods for enforcement. The short effect of the procedure is to give the individual a single channel for questioning the validity of a regulation, through the protest procedure and the Emergency Court of Appeals, with review of its decisions here on certiorari. § 204. On the other hand, the varied and widely available means for enforcement include criminal proceedings, suits in equity, and suits for recovery of civil penalties, in the federal district courts and in the state courts. § 205(a), (b), (c). See also chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 464
§ 205(d), (e), (f). [Footnote 3/7] And in all these enforcement proceedings, the mandate of § 204(d) is that the court shall have no "jurisdiction or power to consider the validity of" a regulation, order or price schedule. The statute thus affords the individual, to question a regulation's validity, one route and that a very narrow one, open only briefly. The administrator and others, to enforce it, have many. And, in the enforcement proceedings, the issues are cut down so that, in a practical sense, little else than the fact whether a violation of the regulation as written has occurred or is threatened may be inquired into. [Footnote 3/8]
Disparity in remedial and penal measures does not necessarily invalidate the procedure, though it has relevance to adequacy of the remedy allowed the individual. [Footnote 3/9] Congress has broad discretion to open and close the doors to litigation. In doing so, it may take account of the necessities presented by such a situation as it was dealing with here. To follow the usual course of legislation and permit challenge by restraining orders, injunctions, stay orders and the normal processes of litigation would have been, in this case, to lock the barn door after the horse had been stolen. There was therefore compelling reason for Congress to balance the scales of litigation unevenly, if only it did not go too far. In no other way could it protect the paramount national interest. If the result, within the permissible limits, is harsh or inconvenient for chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 465
the individual, that is but part of the price he, with all others, must pay for living in a nation which ordinarily gives him so much of protection, but in a world which has not been organized to give it security against events so disruptive of democratic procedures.
Congress, however, was not content to create a single national tribunal, give it exclusive jurisdiction to determine all cases arising under the statute, and deny jurisdiction over them to all other courts. [Footnote 3/11] It provided for enforcement chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 466
by civil and criminal proceedings in the federal district courts and in the state courts throughout the country.
This, too, it could do, though only if adequate proceedings, in the constitutional sense, were authorized. And I agree that the enforcing jurisdiction would not be made inadequate merely by the fact that no stay order or other relief could be had pending the outcome of litigation. Confronted as the nation was with the imminent danger of inflation, and therefore the necessity that price controls should become effective at once and continue so without interruption at least until invalidated in particular instances, Congress could require individuals to sustain, in deference to the paramount public interest, whatever harm might ensue during the period of litigation and until each had demonstrated the invalidity of the regulation as it affected himself. [Footnote 3/12] Runaway inflation could not have been avoided in any other way. The lid had to go on, go on tight, and stay tight. This necessity united with the general presumption of validity which attaches to legislation [Footnote 3/13] and Congress' power to control the jurisdiction of the courts to sustain its denial of power to all courts, including the enforcing courts, the Emergency Court and this one, [Footnote 3/14] to suspend operation of the regulations pending final determination of validity. chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 467
The prohibition is unqualified. It makes no distinction between regulations invalid on constitutional grounds and others merely departing in some respect from statutory limitations, which Congress might waive, or by the criterion whether invalidity appears on the face of the regulation or only by proof of facts. If the purpose and effect are to forbid the enforcing court to consider all questions of validity, and thus to require it to enforce regulations which are or may be invalid for constitutional reasons, doubt arises in two respects. First, broad as is Congress' power to confer or withhold jurisdiction, there has been none heretofore to confer it and at the same time deprive the parties affected of opportunity to call in question in a criminal trial whether the law, be it statute or chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 468
regulation, [Footnote 3/15] upon which the jurisdiction is exercised squares with the fundamental law. Nor has it been held that Congress can forbid a court invested with the judicial power under Article III to consider this question, when called upon to give effect to a statutory or other mandate.
The idea is entirely novel that regulations may have a greater immunity to judicial scrutiny than statutes have with respect to the power of Congress to require the courts to enforce them without regard to constitutional requirements. chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 469
At a time when administrative action assumes more and more of the lawmaking function, [Footnote 3/16] it would seem the balance of advantage, if any, should be the other way. But there is none. The statute has impact upon individuals only through the regulations. They are, in effect, part of the Act itself, unless invalid. If invalid, they rule, just as the statute does, until set aside. And, in respect to constitutional requirements, they have no more immunity than the statute itself. [Footnote 3/17]
Clearly, Congress could not require judicial enforcement of an unconstitutional statute. The same is true of an unconstitutional regulation. And it is conceded that Congress could not have compelled judicial enforcement of all price regulations, without regard to their validity, if it had not given opportunity for attack upon them through the Emergency Court or if that opportunity is inadequate. But because the opportunity is afforded and is deemed adequate in the unusual circumstances, at any rate for some of its purposes, and because it was not followed, the Court holds that criminal enforcement must be given, and the enforcing court cannot consider the question of validity. chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 470
The illustration is extreme and improbable of occurrence. But it serves to test the broad contention. Such a doctrine, established as generally applicable, would contain seeds of influence too dangerous for acceptance, more especially for the determination of criminal matters. No authority compels or enjoins this. And I am unwilling to give the idea adherence in particular applications without stating qualification which confines its possible effects chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 471
It is true that, in a variety of situations and for a variety of reasons, a person is foreclosed from raising issues, including some constitutional ones, where he has failed to exercise an earlier opportunity. Thus, ordinarily issues cannot be raised on appeal which were not presented in chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 472
the trial court. And a variant is that federal questions not raised in the state courts generally will not be considered here. [Footnote 3/22]
But such instances of foreclosure, whether legislative or judicial in origin, do not support the broader basis of argument in this case. Two things are to be emphasized. One is that the previous opportunity is in an earlier phase of the same proceeding, not, as here, a separate and independent one of wholly different character. In other words, the determination of guilt or other matter ultimately in issue is not cut up into two separate, distinct and independent proceedings in different tribunals, in which neither body has power to consider and decide all the issues, but each can determine them only in part. The other thing for stress is that the foreclosure by failure to take the earlier chance is not universally effective. And this is true particularly of constitutional questions, some of which may be raised at any time. [Footnote 3/23] While Congress has plenary power to confer chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 473
or withhold appellate jurisdiction, cf. 74 U. S. 7 Wall. 506, it has not so far been held, and it does not follow, that Congress can confer it, yet deny the appellate court "power to consider" constitutional questions relating to the law in issue.
If the foreclosure is not always effective when the earlier phase of litigation is wholly judicial, it hardly should be when this consists of administrative or of both administrative and judicial proceedings, still less when these are civil in character and the later enforcement phase is criminal. In the enforcement of administrative orders, the courts have been assiduous, perhaps at times extremely so, [Footnote 3/24] to see that constitutional protections to the persons affected are observed. By trial and error, ways have been found to give the administrative process scope for effective action and yet to maintain individual security against abuse, especially in respect to constitutional rights. [Footnote 3/25] The instances closest to the problem here have provided for attaching penalties, including criminal sanctions, to violations of orders. But generally, by one method or another, means have been supplied for postponing their impact, at any rate irrevocably, until after the order's validity has chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 474
been established. [Footnote 3/26] And in that effort, this Court has joined. [Footnote 3/27]
Whatever may be the limitations on judicial review in criminal proceedings under other administrative enforcement patterns, [Footnote 3/28] no one of these arrangements goes as far as the combination presented by this Act. It restricts the individual's right to review to the protest procedure and appeal through the Emergency Court of Appeals Both are short-cut proceedings, trimmed almost to the bone of due process, even for wholly civil purposes, and pared down further by a short statute of limitations. Protest must be filed within the sixty-day period. After that time, no protest can be made, and no review can be chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 475
had, except upon grounds arising later. § 203(a). [Footnote 3/29] The only right is to submit written evidence and argument to the administrator. § 203(c). There is none to present additional evidence to the court. [Footnote 3/30] Necessarily, there is none of cross-examination. No court can suspend the order unless or until a judgment of the Emergency Court invalidating it becomes final. [Footnote 3/31] The penalties, civil and criminal, attach at once on violation and, it would seem, until the contrary is decided, with finality. [Footnote 3/32] At any rate, chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 476
that is the statute's purport. In short, the statute, as drawn, makes not only the regulation, but also the penalties, immediately and fully effective without regard to whether protest is made, the protest proceeding is carried to conclusion, or what the conclusion may be, except, and this is by inference, that violation after the order finally is held invalid may not be punishable.
This is the scope and reach of the statute. It is greater than any this Court heretofore has sustained. [Footnote 3/33] It places chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 477
the affected individual just where the Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Lamar in Wadley Southern Ry. Co. v. Georgia, 235 U. S. 651, 235 U. S. 662, said he could not be put: "He must either obey what may finally be held to be a void order or disobey what may ultimately be held to be a lawful order." Yet the Court holds this special proceeding "adequate," and therefore effective to foreclose all opportunity for defense in a criminal prosecution on the ground the regulation is void.
This is no answer. A procedure so summary, imposing such risks, does not meet the requirements heretofore considered essential to the determination or foreclosure of issues material to guilt in criminal causes. It makes no difference that petitioners did not follow the special procedure. The very question, posed in the Court's own terms, is whether, if they had followed it, the remedy would be adequate constitutionally. It cannot be, under previously accepted ideas, if, for one who follows it to a favorable judgment, the penalty yet may fall. That question the Court does not decide. Unless it is decided, the question of adequacy, in any sense heretofore received, has not been determined, or an entirely new conception of adequacy has been approved. chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 478
But there is a deeper fault, even if we assume what neither the statute nor the Court's opinion today justifies, that a potential offender who successfully challenges the constitutionality of a regulation or begins a challenge on constitutional grounds in the Emergency Court at any time before or during the criminal prosecution, cannot be convicted, at least until after final decision that the order is valid. There still remain those cases where he has either challenged unsuccessfully in the Emergency Court or has not challenged at all. In them, the would-be offender is subject to criminal prosecution without a right to question in the criminal trial the constitutionality of the regulation on which his prosecution and conviction hinge. And this seems to be true without distinction as to the character of the ground on which he seeks to make the issue. To say that this does not operate unconstitutionally on the accused because he has the choice of refraining from violation or of testing the constitutional questions in a civil proceeding beforehand entirely misses the point. The fact is that, if he violates the regulation, he must be convicted, in a trial in which either an earlier and summary civil determination or the complete absence of a determination forecloses him on a crucial constitutional question. In short, his trial for the crime is either in two parts in two courts or on only a portion of the issues material to guilt in one court. This may be all very well for some civil proceedings. But, so far as I know, criminal proceedings of this character never before have received the sanction of Congress or of this Court. That, like many other criminals, an offender here can be punished for making the wrong guess as to the constitutionality of the regulation I have no doubt. But that, unlike all other criminals, he can be convicted on a trial in two parts, one so summary and civil and the other criminal chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 479
By these provisions, the purpose hardly is to be supposed to authorize splitting up a criminal trial into separate segments, with some of the issues essential to guilt triable before one court in the state and district where the crime was committed and others, equally essential, triable in another court in a highly summary civil proceeding held elsewhere, or to dispense with trial on them because that proceeding has not been followed. [Footnote 3/34] If the validity of the chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 480
order, on constitutional or other grounds, has any substantial relationship to the petitioners' guilt, and it cannot be denied that it does, the short effect of the procedure is to chop up their trial into two separate, successive and distinct parts or proceedings, in each of which only some of the issues determinative of guilt can be tried, the two being connected only by the thread of finality which runs from the decision of the first into the second. The effect is to segregate out of the trial proper issues, whether of law or of fact, relating to the validity of the law for violation of which the defendants are charged, and to leave to the criminal court only the determination of whether a violation of the regulation as written actually took place and whether, in some other respect, the statute itself is invalid. If Congress can remove these questions, it can remove also all questions of validity of the statute or, it would seem, of law.
The consequences of this splitting hardly need further noting. On facts and issues material to validity of the regulation, the persons charged are deprived of a full trial in the state or district where the crime occurs, even if the Emergency Court sits there, as it is not required to do. Their right to try those constitutional issues, both of fact and of law, on which a criminal conviction ultimately will hinge is restricted rigidly to the introduction of written evidence before the administrator in a proceeding barely adequate, even under special circumstances like these, to meet the requirements of due process of law in civil proceedings. The court which makes the decision on these issues cannot consider the facts constituting the violation. It has no power to pass judgment of guilty or not guilty upon the whole of the evidence. It can only pronounce chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 481
A procedure so piecemeal, so chopped up, so disruptive of constitutional guaranties in relation to trials for crime, should not, and, in my judgment, cannot be validated as to such proceedings, under the Constitution. Even war does not suspend the protections which are inherently part and parcel of our criminal process. Such a dissection of the trial for crime could be supported, under our system, only upon some such notions as waiver and estoppel or res judicata, whether or not embodied in legislation. [Footnote 3/36] These too are strange and inadequate vehicles for trying whether the citizen has been guilty of criminal conduct. They bar defense, while keeping prosecution open, before it begins. chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 482
Res judicata, by virtue of a judgment in some prior civil proceeding, where different constitutional guaranties relating to the mode and course of trial have play, has not done duty heretofore to replace either proof of facts before a jury or decision of constitutional questions necessary to make up the sum of guilt in the criminal proceeding itself. Congress can invade the judicial function in criminal cases no more by compelling the court to dispense with proof, jury trial or other constitutionally required characteristics than it can by denying all effect of finality to judicial judgments. Cf. Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, concurring opinion at 320 U. S. 167-168. And while, as noted above, notions of waiver and estoppel have had place in criminal proceedings to an extent not wholly defined, in some instances harshly and artificially, [Footnote 3/37] they have not had effect heretofore to enable Congress to force a waiver of defense upon the individual by offering a choice between two kinds of trial, neither of which satisfies constitutional requirements for criminal trials. Certainly when the consequences are so novel and far-reaching as they may be under this procedure, both for the individual and for the judicial system, these conceptions should not be given legal establishment to bring them into being.
To state the question often is to decide it. And it may do this by failure to reveal fully what is at stake. The question is not merely whether the protest proceeding is adequate in the constitutional sense for some of the purposes pertinent to that proceeding. It is rather what effect shall be given to the civil determination in the later and entirely different criminal trial. It is whether, by substituting that civil proceeding for decision of basic issues in the criminal trial itself, Congress can foreclose chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 483
the accused from having them decided in that trial, and thereby deprive him of the protections in trial guaranteed all persons charged with crime and thus of full and adequate defense. It is not the equivalent of that sort of defense to force one to initiate a curtailed civil suit or to cut him off shortly from all defense on the issues allocated to it, if he does not do so. Again, the question is not merely whether the individual can waive his constitutional trial of the issue of validity. It is, rather, whether Congress can force him to do so in the manner attempted and, beyond this, whether he and Congress together, in the combined effects of what they do, can so strip the criminal forum of its power and of its duty to abide the law of the land. And if the issue is further whether Congress can do this in some situations, respecting some issues, under more usual safeguards, the question requires attention to these important limitations. [Footnote 3/38]
The procedural pattern is one which may be adapted to the trial of almost any crime. Once approved, it is bound to spawn progeny. If, in one case, Congress thus can withdraw from the criminal court the power to consider the validity of the regulations on which the charge is based, it can do so for other cases, unless limitations are pointed out clearly and specifically. And it can do so for statutes, as well. In short, the way will have been found to avoid, if not altogether the power of the courts to review legislation for consistency with the Constitution, [Footnote 3/39] then, in part, at least, their obligation to observe its commands, and, more especially, the guaranteed protections of persons charged with crime in the trial of their causes. This is not merely control or definition of jurisdiction. It chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 484
is, rather, unwarranted abridgement of the judicial power in the criminal process unless, at the very least, it is confined specifically to situations where the special proceeding provides a fair and equal substitute for full defense in the criminal trial or other adequate safeguard is afforded against punishment for violating an order which itself violates or may violate basic rights. So much should not be accomplished merely by giving to the failure to take advantage of opportunity for summary civil determination, coupled with a short statute of limitations upon its availability, the effect of a full and final criminal adjudication. To do this hardly observes the substance of "adequacy" in criminal trials.
For legislation not void on its face, a presumption of constitutionality attaches and remains until it is proven chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 485
invalid or so in operation. In such cases, there is no unfairness, nor any invasion of the court's paramount obligation in requiring one who would avoid the regulations' impact to show they are not what they appear to be or that they are made to operate otherwise than as they purport or were intended. But it is one thing to say that burden must be borne within the enforcement proceeding itself, and another to say it must be carried entirely outside it. To require the defendant to prove invalidity in such a situation in the criminal trial itself upon a showing of violation of the statute is wholly permissible. But for the court to be unable to receive tendered evidence which might disclose the statute's invalid character and effect is quite different. Certainly, under the circumstances of this case, it would seem to be as much a violation of individual right and as much an invasion of the judicial function for Congress to command the court not to receive the evidence regardless of its character or effect as for it to direct the court to enforce a law or an order void on its face.
That argument would be more powerful if enforcement of the statute, and thus maintenance of price control, were chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 486
dependent upon accepting every feature. No doubt to impose the criminal sanction, as has been done in this case, implements the enforcement process with the deterrent effects which usually accompany that sanction. But neither its use nor enforcement of the statute's substantive prohibitions requires that the criminal court shall not consider the validity of the regulations.
With the arsenal of other valid legal weapons available, there can be no lack of speedy and effective measures to secure compliance. The regulations are effective until invalidated. They cannot be suspended by any court pending final decision here, if the last source of relief is sought. All the armory of equity, and with it the sanctions of contempt, are available to keep the regulations in force and to prevent violations, at least until decision here is sought and had that the regulations are invalid. The same weapons are available to enforce them permanently if they are found valid. Apart from defense when charged with crime, the individual's only avenue of escape, and that not until final decision of invalidity has been made, is by protest and appeal through the single route prescribed. Finally, in addition to all this, the dealer may be punished for crime if he violates the regulation willfully and cannot show it is invalid either in his defense or by securing a judgment to this effect through the protest procedure. In either case, in view of the statute's curtailment of his substantive rights and the consequent increase in the burden of proving facts sufficient to nullify the regulation, [Footnote 3/40] his chance for escape chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 487
War requires much of the citizen. He surrenders rights for the time being to secure their more permanent establishment. Most men do so freely. According to our plan, others must do so also, as far as the nation's safety requires. But the surrender is neither permanent nor total. The great liberties of speech and the press are curtailed, but not denied. Religious freedom remains a chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 488
living thing. With these, in our system, rank the elemental protections thrown about the citizen charged with crime, more especially those forged on history's anvil in great crises. They secure fair play to the guilty and vindication for the innocent. By one means only may they be suspended, even when chaos threatens. Whatever else seeks to dispense with them or materially impair their integrity should fail. Not yet has the war brought extremity that demands or permits them to be put aside. Nor does maintaining price control require this. The effect, though not intended, of the provision which forbids a criminal court to "consider the validity" of the law on which the charge of crime is founded, in only opinion, would be greatly to impair these securities. Hence, I cannot assent to that provision as valid.
Different considerations, in part at any rate, apply in civil proceedings. [Footnote 3/41] But, for the trial of crimes, no procedure chanrobles.com-red
Page 321 U. S. 489
should be approved which dispenses with trial of any material issue or splits the trial into disjointed segments, one of which is summary and civil, the other but a remnant of the ancient criminal proceeding.
Cf. 321 U. S. @
Cf. Judicial Review of Price Orders under the Emergency Price Control Act (1942) 37 Ill.L.Rev. 256, 263-264, and other materials cited infra, notes 321 U. S. 20, 321 U. S. 21.
71 U. S. 503; cf. Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130; Plaquemines Tropical Fruit Co. v. Henderson,@ 170 U. S. 511.
This it might have done, subject only to the requirement that the procedure specified for the single competent court afford a constitutionally adequate mode for determining the issues. Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., supra. In case criminal jurisdiction were conferred, observance of the requirements of Article III, § 2, and of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments concerning such trials would be required. Cf. text infra Parts 321 U. S. 321 U. S.
Cf. text infra, 321 U. S. 16, 321 U. S. 17.
See 321 U. S. The unique circumstances involved in Hirabayashi v. United States,@ 320 U. S. 1, confine that case to its facts, including the particular emergency with which legislation there under review had dealt, as respects the issue of equal protection.
Cf. notes 321 U. S. 23, 321 U. S. 33 infra.
E.g., compare Federal Trade Commission v. Gratz, 253 U. S. 421, with Labor Board v. Mackay Radio Co., 304 U. S. 333; cf. also Morgan v. United States, 298 U. S. 468; 304 U. S. 304 U.S. 1; United States v. Morgan, 307 U. S. 183. Compare 321 U. S. supra, and see Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U. S. 276.
Cf. McAllister, op. cit. supra, 321 U. S. and 321 U. S. @
Cf. 321 U. S. @ In the Emergency Court of Appeals, "no objection to [the] regulation . . . , and no evidence in support of any objection thereto, shall be considered . . . unless such objection" has been set forth in the protest or such evidence is in the transcript. Additional evidence can be admitted only if it was
In these decisions, none of the statutes forbade the enforcing court "to consider the validity" of the orders, none afforded a special proceeding so summary as that provided here, and only United States v. Vacuum Oil Co., 158 F.5d 6, raised a constitutional question relevant here. Falbo v. United States, 320 U. S. 549, involved a different procedure and a different and more urgent problem. Compare 321 U. S. @ It may be doubted the decision's effect is to preclude the enforcing court from examining constitutional questions affecting the order's validity.
His only remedy is to begin a new protest proceeding (§ 203(a)), which is not only as limited in character as the original one, but, under the administrator's procedural regulations, must be "filed within . . . sixty days after the protestant has had, or could reasonably have had, notice" of the changed facts. Revised Procedural Regulation 1, § 1300.26. Cf. notes 321 U. S. 29, 321 U. S. 30 supra.