Opinion ID: 109729
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Bill of Attainder

Text: Under Art. I, § 9, cl. 3, as construed and applied by this Court since the time of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, Title I violates the Bill of Attainder Clause. In contrast to Title II of Pub. L. 93-526, the Public Documents Act, which establishes a National Study Commission to study questions concerning the preservation of records of all federal officials, Title I commands the Administrator to seize all tape recordings involv[ing] former President Richard M. Nixon and all Presidential historical materials of Richard M. Nixon .... §§ 101 (a)(1), (b)(1). By contrast with Title II, which is general legislation, Title I is special legislation singling out one individual as the target. Although the prohibition against bills of attainder has been addressed only infrequently by this Court, it is now settled beyond dispute that a bill of attainder, within the meaning of Art. I, is by no means the same as a bill of attainder at common law. The definition departed from the common-law concept very early in our history, in a most fundamental way. At common law, the bill was a death sentence imposed by legislative Act. Anything less than death was not a bill of attainder, but was, rather, a bill of pains and penalties. This restrictive definition was recognized tangentially in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 179 (1803), [29] but the Court soon thereafter rejected conclusively any notion that only a legislative death sentence or even incarceration imposed on named individuals fell within the prohibition. Mr. Chief Justice Marshall firmly settled the matter in 1810, holding that legislative punishment in the form of a deprivation of property was prohibited by the Bill of Attainder Clause: A bill of attainder may affect the life of an individual, or may confiscate his property, or may do both. Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87, 138. (Emphasis supplied.) The same point was made 17 years later in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213, 286, where the Court stated: By classing bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts together, the general intent becomes very apparent; it is a general provision against arbitrary and tyrannical legislation over existing rights, whether of person or property.  (Emphasis supplied.) More than 100 years ago this Court struck down statutes which had the effect of preventing defined categories of persons from practicing their professions. Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277 (1867) (a priest); Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333 (1867) (a lawyer). Those two cases established more broadly that punishment for purposes of bills of attainder is not limited to criminal sanctions; rather, [t]he deprivation of any rights, civil or political, previously enjoyed, may be punishment. . . . Cummings, supra, at 320. Mr. Chief Justice Warren pointed out that the Constitution, in prohibiting bills of attainder, did not envision a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition. . . . United States v. Brown, 381 U. S. 437, 442 (1965). To the contrary, the evil was a legislatively imposed deprivation of existing rights, including property rights, directed at named individuals. Mr. Justice Black, in United States v. Lovett, 328 U. S. 303, 315-316 (1946), stated: [The cases] 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. (Emphasis supplied.) The only punishment in Lovett, in fact, was the deprivation of Lovett's salary as a Government employeean indirect punishment for his bad associations. Under our cases, therefore, bills of attainder require two elements: first, a specific designation of persons or groups as subjects of the legislation, and, second, a Garland-Cummings-Lovett-Brown -type arbitrary deprivation, including deprivation of property rights, without notice, trial, or other hearing. [30] No one disputes that Title I suffers from the first infirmity, since it applies only to one former President. The issue that remains is whether there has been a legislatively mandated deprivation of an existing right.
Since George Washington's Presidency, our constitutional tradition, without a single exception, has treated Presidential papers as the President's personal property. This view has been congressionally and judicially ratified, both as to the ownership of Presidential papers, Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F. Cas. 342 (No. 4,901) (CC Mass. 1841) (Story, J., sitting as Circuit Justice), and, by the practice of Justices as to ownership of their judicial papers. Congress itself has consistently legislated on this assumption. I have noted earlier that appropriation legislation has been enacted on various occasions providing for Congress' purchase of Presidential papers. See Hearing before a Special Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Operations on H. J. Res. 330, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 28 (1955). Those hearings led Congress to establish a nonmandatory system of Presidential libraries, again explicitly recognizing that Presidential papers were the personal property of the Chief Executive. In the floor debate on that measure, Congressman John Moss, a supporter of the legislation, stated: Finally, it should be remembered that Presidential papers belong to the President . . . . 101 Cong. Rec. 9935 (1955). Indeed, in 1955 in testimony pertaining to this proposed legislation, the Archivist of the United States confirmed: The papers of the Presidents have always been considered to be their personal property, both during their incumbency and afterward. This has the sanction of law and custom and has never been authoritatively challenged. Hearing on H. J. Res. 330, supra, at 32. Similarly, the GSA Administrator testified: As a matter of ordinary practice, the President has removed his papers from the White House at the end of his term. This has been in keeping with the tradition and the fact that the papers are the personal property of the retiring Presidents. Id., at 14. (Emphasis supplied.) In keeping with this background, it was not surprising that the Attorney General stated in an opinion in September 1974: To conclude that such materials are not the property of former President Nixon would be to reverse what has apparently been the almost unvaried understanding of all three branches of the Government since the beginning of the Republic, and to call into question the practices of our Presidents since the earliest times. 43 Op. Atty. Gen. No. 1, pp. 1-2 (1974). I see no escape, therefore, from the conclusion that, on the basis of more than 180 years' history, the appellant has been deprived of a property right enjoyed by all other Presidents after leaving office, namely, the control of his Presidential papers. Even more starkly, Title I deprives only one former President of the right vested by statute in other former Presidents by the 1955 Actthe right to have a Presidential library at a facility of his own choosing for the deposit of such Presidential papers as he unilaterally selects. Title I did not purport to repeal the Presidential Libraries Act; that statute remains in effect, available to present and future Presidents, and has already been availed of by former President Ford. The operative effect of Title I, therefore, is to exclude, by name, one former President and deprive him of what his predecessorsand his successorhave already been allowed. This invokes what Mr. Justice Black said in Lovett, could not be constitutionally done: 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. 328 U. S., at 317. (Emphasis supplied.) But apart from Presidential papers generally, Title I on its face contemplates that even the former President's purely family and personal papers and tape recordings are likewise to be taken into custody for whatever period of time is required for review. Some items, such as the originals of tape recordings of the former President's conversations, will never be returned to him under the Act. I need not, and do not, inquire into the motives of Congress in imposing this deprivation on only one named person. Our cases plainly hold that retribution and vindictiveness are not requisite elements of a bill of attainder. The Court appears to overlook that Mr. Chief Justice Warren in United States v. Brown, supra , concluded that retributive motives on the part of Congress were irrelevant to bill-of-attainder analysis. To the contrary, he said flatly: It would be archaic to limit the definition of punishment to `retribution.' Indeed, he expressly noted that bills of attainder had historically been enacted for regulatory or preventive purposes: Historical considerations by no means compel restriction of the bill of attainder ban to instances of retribution. A number of English bills of attainder were enacted for preventive purposesthat is, the legislature made a judgment, undoubtedly based largely on past acts and associations . . . that a given person or group was likely to cause trouble . . . and therefore inflicted deprivations upon that person or group in order to keep it from bringing about the feared event. 381 U. S., at 458-459. Under the long line of our decisions, therefore, the Court has the heavy burden of demonstrating that legislation which singles out one named individual for deprivationwithout any procedural safeguardsof what had for nearly 200 years been treated by all three branches of Government as private property, can survive the prohibition of the Bill of Attainder Clause. In deciding this case, the Court provides the basis for a future Congress to enact yet another Title I, directed at some future former President, or a Member of the House or the Senate because the individual has incurred public disfavor and that of the Congress. Cf. Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969). As in United States v. Brown , Title I, in contrast to Title II, does not set forth a generally applicable rule, 381 U. S., at 450; it is beyond doubt special legislation doing precisely the evil against which the prohibitions of the bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts . . . were aimed. Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat., at 286. The concurring opinions make explicit what is implicit throughout the Court's opinion, i. e., (a) that Title I would be unconstitutional under separation-of-powers principles if it applied to any other President; (b) that the Court's holding rests on appellant's being a legitimate class of one, ante, at 472; and (c) that the Court's holding will not be a precedent. Ante, at 486. Nothing in our cases supports the analysis of MR. JUSTICE STEVENS, ibid. Under his view, appellant's resignation and subsequent acceptance of a pardon set him apart as a `legitimate class of one.' The two events upon which he relies, however, are beside the point. Correct analysis under the Bill of Attainder Clause focuses solely upon the nature of the measure adopted by Congress, not upon the actions of the target of the legislation. Even if this approach were analytically sound, the two events singled out are relevant only to two possible theories: first, that appellant is culpably deserving of punishment by virtue of his resignation and pardon; or second, that appellant's actions were so unique as to justify legislation confiscating his Presidential materials but not those of any other President. The first point can be disposed of quickly, since the Bill of Attainder Clause was, of course, intended to prevent legislatively imposed deprivations of rights upon persons whom the Legislature thought to be culpably deserving of punishment. The remaining question, then, is whether appellant's uniqueness permits individualized legislation of the sort passed here. It does not. The point is not that Congress is powerless to act as to exigencies arising during or in the immediate aftermath of a particular administration; rather, the point is that Congress cannot punish a particular individual on account of his uniqueness. If Congress had declared forfeited appellant's retirement pay to which he otherwise would be entitled, instead of confiscating his Presidential materials, it would not avoid the bill-of-attainder prohibition to say that appellant was guilty of unprecedented actions setting him apart from his predecessors in office. In short, appellant's uniqueness does not justify serious deprivations of existing rights, including the statutory right abrogated by Title I to establish a Presidential library. The novel arguments advanced in the several concurring opinions serve to emphasize how clearly Title I violates the Bill of Attainder Clause; MR. JUSTICE STEVENS although finding no violation of the Clause, admirably states the case which, for me, demonstrates the unconstitutionality of Title I: The statute before the Court does not apply to all Presidents or former Presidents. It singles out one, by name, for special treatment. Unlike all former Presidents in our history, he is denied custody of his own Presidential papers; he is subjected to the burden of prolonged litigation over the administration of the statute; and his most private papers and conversations are to be scrutinized by Government archivists. The statute implicitly condemns him as an unreliable custodian of his papers. Legislation which subjects a named individual to this humiliating treatment must raise serious questions under the Bill of Attainder Clause. Ante, at 484.