Opinion ID: 329716
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Application of United States v. Calandra

Text: 69 All parties in this case are agreed that the raid of 11 August 1967 on the McSurelys' home constituted an unlawful search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. 77 The Fourth Amendment applies to Congressional committees. 78 If the defendants collaborated with Ratliff in that raid, they will be liable in damages to the same extent as the Commonwealth Attorney. The defendants may not invoke the Speech or Debate Clause in this situation to immunize them from suit. 70 The plaintiffs, however, go a step further. They argue that the conduct of the defendants in inspecting the materials after they were unlawfully seized from the McSurelys and basing subpoenas thereon was itself an independent violation of the Fourth Amendment. As authority for the proposition that Brick's examination of the documents in Ratliff's possession was independently violative of the McSurelys' constitutional rights, the plaintiffs cite a statement to that effect in this court's decision in United States v. McSurely. 79 Although it seems clear that the majority in McSurely considered that Brick had committed an independent Fourth Amendment violation, it is not certain to what extent their view was premised on the assumption that because the original search by Ratliff was illegal, any attempt by the Subcommittee to use the fruits of that search in its investigation must be equally illegal. Certainly, under the majority's theory of the case, a finding that Brick Himself committed an unlawful search and seizure was not necessary to its holding. 80 In any event, we are of the view that neither the principal rationale of McSurely nor the majority's statements with respect to the constitutionality of Brick's actions can be reconciled with the Supreme Court's recent landmark decision in United States v. Calandra. 81 After outlining the rationale of that opinion, we will apply it to the facts of the instant case.
71 In United States v. Calandra the Supreme Court held that the exclusionary rule did not bar a grand jury from subpoenaing Calandra in order to ask him questions based on evidence illegally seized during a search of his place of business. The Court observed first that grand juries traditionally have had broad investigatory powers. 82 Because they do not finally adjudicate guilt or innocence, they are allowed to operate unimpeded by the evidentiary and procedural restrictions applicable to a criminal trial. 83 To permit witnesses to invoke the exclusionary rule and insist on suppression hearings might not only halt the orderly process of an investigation but also necessitate extended litigation of issues only tangentially related to the grand jury's primary objective. 84 In sum, the application of the rule would greatly interfere with the discharge of the grand jury's function. Second, the Court emphasized: 72 (T)he (exclusionary) rule is a judicially-created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved. 85 73 Noting the speculative and undoubtedly minimal advance in the deterrence of police misconduct which would be achieved by application of the rule in an Investigative setting, the Court concluded that this impediment to the grand jury's function could not be justified. 86 74 Finally, the Court made clear that the grand jury was not empowered itself to violate an individual's constitutional rights, 87 but rejected the argument made in this connection that a grand jury's questions based upon unlawfully seized evidence themselves constituted an Independent violation of Calandra's Fourth Amendment rights. 88 75 The purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to prevent unreasonable governmental intrusions into the privacy of one's person, house, papers, or effects. The wrong condemned is the unjustified governmental invasion of these areas of an individual's life. That wrong, committed in this case, is fully accomplished by the original search without probable cause. Grand jury questions based on evidence obtained thereby involve no independent governmental invasion of one's person, house, papers, or effects, but rather the usual abridgment of personal privacy common to all grand jury questioning. Questions based on illegally obtained evidence are only a derivative use of the product of a past unlawful search and seizure. They work no new Fourth Amendment wrong. 89 76 The Supreme Court in Calandra did not directly address the issue whether an action for personal damages would lie against the members of a grand jury or its agents for utilizing information derived from an unlawful search and seizure. Nevertheless, the Court's reasoning, appears largely to answer the question. In the first place, such an action could not be premised on a violation of the Fourth Amendment, since the Court made clear that the constitutional wrong is fully accomplished by the original unlawful search. Some other basis would have to be found for the suit, such as a statutory or common law invasion of privacy. 77 It would appear extremely counterproductive, however, on the one hand to grant a grand jury the right to consider and base questions on materials derived from an unlawful search and, on the other, to expose the members of the grand jury or their agents to personal liability for exercising that right. It is impossible for a prosecutor to determine whether certain materials may or may not be useful in a grand jury investigation without examining them beforehand. So long as such an examination and copying of data is conducted in the good faith belief that the information may be relevant to the grand jury's task, it is implicit in the Court's decision that this activity is within the lawful scope of the prosecutor's duty and, therefore, immune from suit. The only situation in which it would appear that an action for damages might succeed is that where an agent of the grand jury examined and retained or passed on material which he knew to be wholly unrelated to the grand jury's task. 78 A similar principle would seem to apply to a grand jury's decision to turn information over to another governmental entity for investigation. If, for example, the grand jury had obtained materials whether or not originally unlawfully seized which it determined might contain evidence of income tax evasion, those materials could be forwarded to the Internal Revenue Service for further analysis. Only if the grand jury knew the IRS could derive no legitimate use from the materials would such a distribution be actionable.
79 The Supreme Court's reasoning in Calandra appears directly applicable to the instant case. If anything, a Congressional committee has even broader investigatory powers than a grand jury. 90 The primary purpose of a Congressional hearing is to gather data upon which to base policy determinations which inform the legislative process. Such wide-ranging inquiries are extremely ill-adapted to the evidentiary and procedural restrictions applicable to a criminal trial. 91 Equally important, not only does a Congressional investigating committee not finally determine guilt or innocence, but it cannot even indict an individual. It is difficult to conceive of a more inappropriate setting for protracted controversy over the legality of the method by which information in the hands of a committee was originally secured. 92 80 Moreover, the incremental deterrent effect on police misconduct which application of the exclusionary rule to Congressional proceedings would achieve is certainly even more negligible than that which would be achieved by its invocation in grand jury proceedings. The extremely remote influence such an extension of the rule could be expected to have on police discipline simply does not justify its obvious informational and litigatory costs. 93 81 In sum, it would appear under Calandra that a Congressional committee should enjoy at least the same prerogative as a grand jury to use material which has been unlawfully seized. As with the grand jury, the Congressional committee may not be privileged to utilize such information if its agents have actively participated in the original unlawful seizure. Outside of that circumstance, however, a committee commits no new Fourth Amendment wrong by examining and copying documents originally unlawfully secured. 82 Judge Leventhal, in his partial dissent, however, argues that Brick's examination of the McSurely materials after the original unlawful seizure was itself violative of the Fourth Amendment because he knew the materials had been unlawfully seized and because a three-judge federal court had ordered Ratliff to hold the materials in safekeeping. Certainly, after Calandra, the fact that Brick knew the documents had come wrongfully into Ratliff's possession could not render his own examination unlawful. That a grand jury knows its information springs from an illegal search does not prevent it from examining the fruits of that search, and basing questions thereon, in the pursuit of a lawful investigation. A Congressional committee, as we detailed above, is entitled to the same prerogative. 83 That Ratliff had been ordered to hold the materials in safekeeping also does not render Brick's examination violative of the Fourth Amendment. The three-judge court's order was simply a function of its finding that the materials had been unlawfully seized. There was no implication in the order that investigatory bodies which would otherwise be entitled to utilize unlawfully seized materials were barred from such utilization by the court's formal ruling. This does not mean Brick could have broken into Ratliff's office to obtain access to the materials. Such an entry would have been in violation of Ratliff's Fourth Amendment rights. Ratliff himself, however, invited the Subcommittee to come to Pikeville to examine the materials. He alerted the Subcommittee to the fact that the product of his search of the McSurelys' home might be relevant to its investigation. 84 Calandra makes clear that a grand jury or, we submit, a Congressional committee has the right in its investigatory capacity to use the product of a past unlawful search and seizure. The Supreme Court emphasized that such use works no new Fourth Amendment wrong on the owners of the seized property. Since effective utilization of materials requires their examination, it is difficult to conceive, after Calandra, how the inspection by one authorized government agent of documents in the custody of another can be characterized as an unconstitutional search. The constitutional violation is completed with the original taking. 94 85 Calandra's Reasoning might not foreclose a common law action for invasion of privacy against an agent of the grand jury who inspects and retains documents he knows are wholly unrelated to the grand jury's task; however, we need not decide that question here. We do decide, as discussed in Part IV, that the protection accorded by the Speech or Debate Clause to legislative investigations immunizes a Congressional investigator from liability for this kind of non-criminal activity. Thus, the plaintiff's claim that Brick knowingly brought to Washington copies of papers which did not pertain to the Subcommittee's inquiry fails as a matter of law to state a viable cause of action. 86 We are left, then, with the allegation that the defendants may have disseminated some or all of the 234 copies of documents obtained by the Subcommittee to individuals or agencies outside of Congress particularly the Internal Revenue Service. We noted in Part IV that such dissemination would not be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause. Nevertheless, as with a grand jury, we think a Congressional committee lawfully may forward to appropriate Executive agencies information which it believes relates to their legitimate functions particularly in a case, such as this, where the agency has itself requested the information. 95 Dissemination to private individuals of unlawfully seized material would not, however, fall within the scope of a committee's authority. Likewise, the distribution to executive agencies of materials a committee knows has no reasonable relationship to the agencies' task might be an actionable invasion of privacy.