Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/328/303/case.php
Timestamp: 2017-10-22 17:35:12
Document Index: 489702990

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 9', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304']

In 1943, the respondents, Lovett, Watson, and Dodd, were, and had been for several years, working for the Government. The government agencies which had lawfully chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
employed them were fully satisfied with the quality of their work, and wished to keep them employed on their jobs. Over the protest of those employing agencies, Congress provided in § 304 of the Urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act of 1943, by way of an amendment attached to the House bill, that, after November 15, 1943, no salary or compensation should be paid respondents out of any monies then or thereafter appropriated except for services as jurors or members of the armed forces, unless they were, prior to November 15, 1943, again appointed to jobs by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. [Footnote 1] 57 Stat. 431, 450. Notwithstanding the congressional enactment, and the failure of the President to reappoint respondents, the agencies kept all the respondents at work on their jobs for varying periods after November 15, 1943; but their compensation was discontinued after that date. To secure compensation for this post-November 15th work, respondents brought these actions in the Court of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
and provide that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law . . ." Counsel for Congress also urged that § 304 did not purport to terminate respondents' employment. According to him, it merely cut off respondents' pay, and deprived governmental agencies of any power to make enforceable contracts with respondents for any further compensation. The contention was that this involved chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In this Court, the parties and counsel for Congress have urged the same points as they did in the Court of Claims. According to the view we take, we need not decide whether § 304 is an unconstitutional encroachment on executive power or a denial of due process of law, and the section is not challenged on the ground that it violates the First Amendment. Our inquiry is thus confined to whether the actions, in the light of a proper construction of the Act, present justiciable controversies, and, if so, whether § 304 is a bill of attainder against these respondents, involving a use of power which the Constitution unequivocally declares Congress can never exercise. These questions require an interpretation of the meaning and purpose of the section, which, in turn, requires an understanding of the circumstances leading to its passage. We, consequently, find it necessary to set out these circumstances somewhat in detail. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
While all this was happening, Mr. Dies, on February 1, 1943, in a long speech on the floor of the House, attacked thirty-nine named government employees as "irresponsible, unrepresentative, crackpot, radical bureaucrats," and chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
affiliates of "Communist front organizations." Among these named individuals were the three respondents. Congressman Dies told the House that respondents, as well as the other thirty-six individuals he named, were, because of their beliefs and past associations, unfit to "hold a Government position," and urged Congress to refuse "to appropriate money for their salaries." In this connection, he proposed that the Committee on Appropriations "take immediate and vigorous steps to eliminate these people from public office." 89 Cong.Rec. 474, 479, 486. Four days later, an amendment was offered to the Treasury-Post Office Appropriation Bill which provided that "no part of any appropriation contained in this act shall be used to pay the compensation of" the thirty-nine individuals Dies had attacked. 89 Cong.Rec. 645. The Congressional Record shows that this amendment precipitated a debate that continued for several days. Id. 645-742. All of those participating agreed that the "charges" against the thirty-nine individuals were serious. Some wanted to accept Congressman Dies' statements as sufficient proof of "guilt," while others referred to such proposed action as "legislative lynching," id. at 651, smacking "of the procedure in the French Chamber of Deputies, during the Reign of Terror." Id. at 654. The Dies charges were referred to as "indictments," and many claimed this made it necessary that the named federal employees be given a hearing and a chance to prove themselves innocent. Id. at 711. Congressman Dies then suggested that the Appropriations Committee "weigh the evidence and . . . take immediate steps to dismiss these people from the Federal service." Id. at 651. Eventually, a resolution was proposed to defer action until the Appropriations Committee could investigate, so that accused federal employees would get a chance to prove themselves "innocent" of communism or disloyalty, and so that each "man would chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
After the resolution was passed, a special subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee held hearings in secret executive session. Those charged with "subversive" beliefs and "subversive" associations were permitted to testify, but lawyers, including those representing the agencies chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Senate Appropriation Committee eliminated § 304, and its action was sustained by the Senate. 89 Cong.Rec. 5024. After the first conference report, which left the matter still in disagreement, the Senate voted 69 to 0 against the conference report which left § 304 in the bill. The House, however, insisted on the amendment, and indicated that it would not approve any appropriation bill without § 304. Finally, after the fifth conference report chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We hold that the purpose of § 304 was not merely to cut off respondents' compensation through regular disbursing channels, but permanently to bar them from government service, and that the issue of whether it is constitutional is justiciable. The section's language, as well as the circumstances of its passage which we have just described, show that no mere question of compensation procedure or of appropriations was involved, but that it chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Federalist Paper No. 78. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We hold that § 304 falls precisely within the category of congressional actions which the Constitution barred by providing that "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." In @ 71 U. S. 323, this Court said,
The Cummins decision involved a provision of the Missouri Reconstruction Constitution which required persons to take an Oath of Loyalty as a prerequisite to practicing a profession. Cummins, a Catholic Priest, was convicted for teaching and preaching as a minister without taking the oath. The oath required an applicant to affirm that he had never given aid or comfort to persons engaged in hostility to the United States, and had never "been a member of, or connected with, any order, society, or organization, inimical to the government of the United States . . ." In an illuminating opinion which gave the historical background of the constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder, this Court invalidated the Missouri constitutional provision both because it constituted a bill of attainder and because it had an ex post facto operation. On the same day the Cummins case was decided, the Court, in Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333, also held invalid on the same grounds an Act of Congress which required attorneys practicing before this Court to take a similar oath. Neither of these cases has ever been overruled. They stand for the proposition that legislative acts, no matter what their form, that apply either to named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a group in such a way as to inflict punishment on them without a judicial trial are bills of attainder prohibited by the Constitution. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Section 304, thus, clearly accomplishes the punishment of named individuals without a judicial trial. The fact that the punishment is inflicted through the instrumentality of an Act specifically cutting off the pay of certain named individuals found guilty of disloyalty makes it no less galling or effective than if it had been done by an Act which designated the conduct as criminal. [Footnote 5] No one would think that Congress could have passed a valid law stating that, after investigation, it had found Lovett, Dodd, and Watson "guilty" of the crime of engaging in "subversive activities," defined that term for the first time, and sentenced them to perpetual exclusion from any government employment. Section 304, while it does not use that language, accomplishes that result. The effect was to inflict punishment without the safeguards of a judicial trial and chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Those who wrote our Constitution well knew the danger inherent in special legislative acts which take away the life, liberty, or property of particular named persons because the legislature thinks them guilty of conduct which deserves punishment. They intended to safeguard the people of this country from punishment without trial by duly constituted courts. See Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 327 U. S. 304. And even the courts to which this important function was entrusted were commanded to stay their hands until and unless certain tested safeguards were observed. An accused in court must be tried by an impartial jury, has a right to be represented by counsel, he must be clearly informed of the charge against him, the law which he is charged with violating must have been passed before he committed the act charged, he must be confronted by the witnesses against him, he must not be compelled to incriminate himself, he cannot twice be put in jeopardy for the same offense, and, even after conviction, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
See Cummins v. Missouri, supra, 4 Wall. at 71 U. S. 325, 71 U. S. 329; see also 10 U. S. 138-139; Burgess v. Salmon,@ 97 U. S. 381, 97 U. S. 385.
Nothing would be easier than personal condemnation of the provision of the Urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act of 1943, here challenged . § 304, 57 Stat. 431, 450. [Footnote 2/1] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Not to exercise by indirection authority which the Constitution denied to this Court calls for the severest intellectual detachment, and the most alert self-restraint. The scrupulous observance, with some deviations, of the professed limits of this Court's power to strike down legislation has been, perhaps, the one quality the great judges of the Court have had in common. Particularly when Congressional legislation is under scrutiny, every rational trail must be pursued to prevent collision between Congress and Court. For Congress can readily mend its ways, or the people may express disapproval by choosing different representatives. But a decree of unconstitutionality by this Court is fraught with consequences so enduring and far-reaching as to be avoided unless no choice is left in reason. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Court reads § 304 as though it expressly discharged respondents from office which they held and prohibited them from holding any office under the Government in the future. On the basis of this reading, the Court holds that the provision is a bill of attainder, in that it "inflicts punishment without a judicial trial," @ 71 U. S. 323, and is therefore forbidden by Article I, § 9 of the Constitution. Congress is said to have inflicted this punishment upon respondents because it disapproved the beliefs they were thought to hold. Such a colloquial treatment of the statute neglects the relevant canons of constitutional adjudication and disregards those chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The prohibition of bills of attainder falls, of course, among these very specific constitutional provisions. The distinguishing characteristic of a bill of attainder is the substitution of legislative determination of guilt and legislative imposition of punishment for judicial finding and chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Farrar, Manual of the Constitution (1867) 419. And see 2 Story, Commentaries on the Constitution (5th ed., 1891) 216; 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed., 1927) 536. It was this very special, narrowly restricted, intervention by the legislature, in matters for which a decent regard for men's interests indicated a judicial trial, that the Constitution prohibited. It must be recalled that the Constitution was framed in an era when dispensing justice was a well established function of the legislature. The prohibition against bills of attainder must be viewed in the background of the historic situation when moves in specific litigation that are now the conventional, and, for the most part, the exclusive, concern of courts were commonplace legislative practices. See 3 U. S. 660; Baltimore & Susquehanna R. Co. v. Nesbit, 10 How. 395; Pound, Justice According to Law, II (1914) 14 Col.L.Rev. 1-12; Woodruff, Chancery in Massachusetts (1889) 5 L.Q.Rev. 370. Cf. Sinking-Fund Cases,@ 99 U. S. 700. Bills of attainder were part of what now are staple judicial functions which legislatures then exercised. It was this part of their recognized authority which the Constitution prohibited when it provided that "No Bill of Attainder . . . shall be passed." Section 304 lacks the characteristics of the enactments in the Statutes of the Realm and the Colonial Laws that bear the hallmarks of bills of attainder.
All bills of attainder specify the offense for which the attainted person was deemed guilty and for which the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Not only does § 304 lack the essential declaration of guilt. It likewise lacks the imposition of punishment in the sense appropriate for bills of attainder. The punishment imposed by the most dreaded bill of attainder was, of course, death; lesser punishments were imposed by similar bills more technically called bills of pains and penalties. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Constitution outlaws this entire category of punitive measures. @ 10 U. S. 138; Cummins v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277. The amount of punishment is immaterial to the classification of a challenged statute. But punishment is a prerequisite.
@ 71 U. S. 320.
Is it clear, then, that the respondents were removed from office, still accepting the Court's reading of the statute, as a punishment for past acts? Is it clear, that is, to that degree of certitude which is required before this Court declares legislation by Congress unconstitutional? The disputed section does not say so. So far as the House of Representatives is concerned, the Kerr Committee, which proposed the measure, and many of those who voted in favor of the Bill (assuming it is appropriate to go behind the terms of a statute to ascertain the unexpressed motive of its members), no doubt considered the respondents "subversive," and wished to exclude them from the Government because of their past associations and their present views. But the legislation upon which we now pass judgment is the product of both Houses of Congress chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed., 1927) 332. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
United States v. Goelet, 232 U. S. 293, 232 U. S. 298. Congress omitted from § 304 any condemnation for which the presumed punishment was a sanction. Thereby, it negatived the essential notion of a bill of attainder. It may be said that such a view of a bill of attainder offers Congress too easy a mode of evading the prohibition of the Constitution. Congress need merely omit its ground of condemnation, and legislate the penalty! But the prohibition against a "Bill of Attainder" is only one of the safeguards of liberty in the arsenal of the Constitution. There are other provisions in the Constitution, specific and comprehensive, effectively designed to assure the liberties of our citizens. The restrictive function of this clause against bills of attainder was to take from the legislature a judicial function which the legislature once possessed. If Congress adopted, as it did, a form of statute so lacking in any pretension to the very quality which gave a bill of attainder its significance, that of a declaration of guilt under circumstances which made its determination grossly unfair, it simply passed an act which this Court ought not to denounce as a bill of attainder. And not the less so because Congress may have been conscious of the limitations which the Constitution has placed upon it against passing bills of attainder. If Congress chooses to say that men shall not be paid, or even that they shall be removed from their jobs, we cannot decide that Congress also said that they are guilty of an offense. And particularly we cannot so decide as a chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
While § 304 is not a bill of attainder, as the gloss of history defines that phrase in the Constitution, acceptance of the Court's reading of § 304 would raise other serious chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The other serious problem the Court's interpretation of § 304 raises is that of due process. In one aspect, this is another phase of the constitutional issue of the removal power. For, if § 304 is to be construed as a removal from office, it cannot be determined whether singling out three government employees for removal violated the Fifth Amendment until it is decided whether Congress has a removal power at all over such employees, and how extensive it is. Even if the statute be read as a mere stoppage of disbursement, the question arises whether Congress can treat three employees of the Government differently from all others. But that question we do not have to answer. In any event, respondents are entitled to recover in this suit, and their remedy -- a suit in the Court of Claims -- is the same whatever view one takes of the legal significance of § 304. To be sure, § 304 also purports to prescribe conditions chanroblesvirtualawlibrary