Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/356/148/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 16:14:43
Document Index: 755122215

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 401', '§ 340', '§ 1451', '§ 1451', '§ 725', '§ 268', '§ 401', '§ 3481']

Stefena BROWN, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America. | LII / Legal Information Institute
356 U.S. 148 (78 S.Ct. 622, 2 L.Ed.2d 589)
Reargued: Oct. 22, 1957.
This is a proceeding of summary disposition, under Rule 42(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C.A., 1 of a finding of criminal contempt committed in the actual presence of the court, the power to punish which is given by 18 U.S.C. 401, 18 U.S.C.A. § 401. 2 The proceeding grew out of a suit for denaturalization brought against petitioner pursuant to § 340(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 66 Stat. 260, as amended, 8 U.S.C. (Supp. IV) § 1451(a), 8 U.S.C.A. § 1451(a). The complaint in the denaturalization suit charged that petitioner had fraudulently procured citizenship in 1946 by falsely swearing that she was attached to the principles of the Constitution, and that she was not and had not been for ten years preceding opposed to organized government or a member of or affiliated with the Communist Party or any organization teaching opposition to organized government, whereas in fact petitioner had been, from 1933 to 1937, a member of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League, both organizations advocating the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence.
At the trial in the denaturalization proceeding, petitioner was called as an adverse witness by the Government under Rule 43(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. Petitioner admitted that she had once been a member of the Young Communist League, but denied that she had belonged to the Communist Party in the period before 1946. She refused to answer questions about activities and associations that were unlimited in time or directed to the period after 1946 on the ground that her answers might tend to incriminate her, and the District Court sustained the claim of privilege. At the close of the Government's examination, petitioner's counsel stated that, 'I won't cross-examine the witness at this point. I will put her on on direct.' 3
Thereafter petitioner took the stand as a witness in her own behalf. She comprehensively reaffirmed the truth of the statements made at the time of her naturalization, and, although she admitted membership in the Young Communist League from about 1930, claimed that she had resigned in 1935 and had not engaged in any Communist activities from 1935 until her naturalization in 1946. Not content to rest there, petitioner went on to testify that she had never taught or advocated the overthrow of the existing government or belonged to any organization that did so advocate, that she believed in fighting for this country and would take up arms in its defense in event of hostilities with Soviet Russia, and that she was attached to the principles of the Constitution and the good order and happiness of the United States. 4 This testimony was directed to petitioner's present disposition towards the United States, and was not limited to the period before 1946.
The conduct for which petitioner was found guilty of contempt was her sustained disobedience of the court's direction to answer pertinent questions on cross-examination after her claim of the privilege against self-incrimination had been overruled. On the first argument in this Court, petitioner stood on the validity of her claim of privilege as the essential ground for reversal here of the judgment of the Court of Appeals. It was taken for granted by petitioner no less than by the Government that for a party insistently to block relevant inquiry on cross-examination subjects him to punishment for contempt in the exercise of the power vested in the federal courts throughout our history. Act of Sept. 24, 1789, s 17, 1 Stat. 83; Act of Mar. 2, 1831, 4 Stat. 487488; R.S. § 725; Judicial Code, 1911, § 268, 36 Stat. 1163; 18 U.S.C. 401, 18 U.S.C.A. § 401.
Our problem is illumined by the situation of a defendant in a criminal case. If he takes the stand and testifies in his own defense his credibility may be impeached and his testimony assailed like that of any other witness, and the breadth of his waiver is determined by the scope of relevant cross-examination. '(H)e has no right to set forth to the jury all the facts which tend in his favor without laying himself open to a cross-examination upon those facts.' Fitzpatrick v. United States, 178 U.S. 304, 315, 20 S.Ct. 944, 949, 44 L.Ed. 1078; and see Reagan v. United States, 157 U.S. 301, 304305, 15 S.Ct. 610, 611, 39 L.Ed. 709. The reasoning of these cases applies to a witness in any proceeding who voluntarily takes the stand and offers testimony in his own behalf. It is reasoning that controls the result in the case before us.
On the other hand, when a witness voluntarily testifies, the privilege against self-incrimination is amply respected without need of accepting testimony freed from the antiseptic test of the adversary process. The witness himself, certainly if he is a party, determines the area of disclosure and therefore of inquiry. Such a witness has the choice, after weighing the advantage of the privilege against self-incrimination against the advantage of putting forward his version of the facts and his reliability as a witness, not to testify at all. He cannot reasonably claim that the Fifth Amendment gives him not only this choice but, if he elects to testify, an immunity from cross-examination on the matters he has himself put in dispute. It would make of the Fifth Amendment not only a humane safeguard against judicially coerced self-disclosure but a positive invitation to mutilate the truth a party offers to tell. '(T)here is hardly justification for letting the defendant affirmatively resort to perjurious testimony in reliance on the Government's disability to challenge his credibility.' Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62, 65, 74 S.Ct. 354, 356, 98 L.Ed. 503. The interests of the other party and regard for the function of courts of justice to ascertain the truth become relevant, and prevail in the balance of considerations determining the scope and limits of the privilege against self-incrimination. 5 Petitioner, as a party to the suit, was a voluntary witness. She could not take the stand to testify in her own behalf and also claim the right to be free from cross-examination on matters raised by her own testimony on direct examination.
The questions which petitioner refused to answer undoubtedly called for responses which might have tended to incriminate her. Nevertheless, the Court holds that she can be imprisoned for contempt on the ground that a defendant in a civil action who voluntarily takes the stand to testify waives his privilege against self-incrimination to the extent of relevant cross-examination. Thus in substance the majority has extended the rule heretofore applied in criminal prosecutions to civil proceedings. I think this further encroachment on the privilege is unwarranted. I would reverse the petitioner's conviction on the basis of the general rule stated in Arndstein v. McCarthy, 254 U.S. 71, 41 S.Ct. 26, 65 L.Ed. 138; 262 U.S. 355, 43 S.Ct. 562, 67 L.Ed. 1023; 266 U.S. 34, 45 S.Ct. 16, 69 L.Ed. 158, that a witness in a civil case does not forfeit the right to claim his privilege unless he makes disclosures which amount to 'an actual admission of guilt or incriminating facts.' 262 U.S. at page 359, 43 S.Ct. at page 563. * Petitioner concededly made no such disclosures.
In my judgment the rule of waiver now applied in criminal cases, although long accepted, is itself debatable and should not be carried over to any new area absent the most compelling justification. By likening the position of a defendant who voluntarily takes the stand in a civil case to that of an accused testifying on his own behalf in a criminal prosecution the majority unfortunately fails to give due consideration to material differences between the two situations. For example failure of a criminal defendant to take the stand may not be made the subject of adverse comment by prosecutor or judge, nor may it lawfully support an inference of guilt. 18 U.S.C. 3481, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3481; Wilson v. United States, 149 U.S. 60, 13 S.Ct. 765, 37 L.Ed. 650. On the other hand the failure of a party in a civil action to testify may be freely commented on by his adversary and the trier of fact may draw such inferences from the abstention as he sees fit on the issues in the case. Bilokumsky v. Tod, 263 U.S. 149, 153154, 44 S.Ct. 54, 5556, 68 L.Ed. 221. Thus to apply the criminal rule of waiver to a civil proceeding may place a defendant in a substantial dilemma. If he testifies voluntarily he can be compelled to give incriminating evidence against himself; but, unlike a defendant in a criminal case, if he remains off the stand his silence can be used against him as 'evidence of the most persuasive character.' Bilokumsky v. Tod, supra, 263 U.S. at page 154, 44 S.Ct. at page 56.
The Court brushes aside this dilemma by assuming that a civil defendant can control the scope of his waiver when he voluntarily takes the stand because he 'determines the area of disclosure and therefore of inquiry.' I do not believe this assumption is correct. While it is true that a party can determine the area of his own disclosures on direct examination, the scope of permissible cross-examination is not restricted to the matters raised on direct but may include other and quite different matters if they will aid the court or jury to appraise the credibility of the witness and the probative value of his testimony. Such questions, which may range over a broad area and refer to matters collateral to the main issues, cannot be foreclosed by the witness and often cannot even be anticipated by him. See, e.g., Radio Cab, Inc., v. Houser, 76 U.S.App.D.C. 35, 128 F.2d 604; Atkinson v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. Co., 10 Cir., 197 F.2d 244. See also Powers v. United States, 223 U.S. 303, 314316, 32 S.Ct. 281, 283284, 56 L.Ed. 448.
The reason offered by the Court for compelling a civil defendant to incriminate himself or be imprisoned for contempt is that to do otherwise would be to accept testimony untested by cross-examination and thus extend 'a positive invitation to mutilate the truth a party offers to tell.' If punishment for contempt were the only method of protecting the other party and the trier from a one-sided, distorted version of the truth the substantial encroachment made by the majority on the privilege against self-incrimination might be somewhat more tolerable. But it is not. For example, as an obvious alternative, such one-sided testimony might be struck in full or part, if the occasion warranted, with appropriate directions by the judge for the jury to disregard it as unreliable. And in some instances where the prejudice to the opposing party was extreme and irremediable the court might even enter judgment in his favor. See Hammond Packing Co. v. State of Arkansas, 212 U.S. 322, 349354, 29 S.Ct. 370, 379 381, 53 L.Ed. 530. Compare National Union of Marine Cooks v. Arnold, 348 U.S. 37, 75 S.Ct. 92, 99 L.Ed. 46. By such means the trial judge could protect the right of the opposing party to a fair trial. At the same time the witness would not be treated as having waived his privilege so that he could be punished by fine or imprisonment for refusing to incriminate himself.
The trial judge made his final ruling on the question of waiver on the morning of February 18, 1955. He repeated his statement that Mrs. Brown had waived her privilege by taking the stand. * The petitioner, believing that her conduct was privileged, continued to refuse to answer. No further evidence was offered after the petitioner's refusal to answer the questions put to her on cross-examination by the Government. On that same afternoon the trial judge delivered his opinion finding 'by clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence, that the defendant did procure her citizenship illegally and fraudulently.' He then proceeded to hold the petitioner in contempt for her refusal to answer. It is true that at this time he advised the petitioner that she had waived her privilege by the testimony which she had given but it was of little help coming at the same time as the sentence.