Opinion ID: 2397396
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Categorical Immunity

Text: The plaintiff's first claim on the merits is that, by virtue of article second of our state constitution, as amended by article eighteen of the amendments; see footnote 4 of this opinion; which embodies the principle of the separation of powers, the governor is categorically immune from the obligation to testify, pursuant to the subpoena in the present case, before a legislative committee on matters concerning the performance of his official duties. More specifically, the plaintiff claims that: (1) historically speaking, there is a constitutionally based consensus that separation of powers principles bar a chief executive from such an obligation because a legislative subpoena for such testimony has never been heeded or enforced; (2) the constitutional prohibition against obligating the chief executive to testify before the legislature on matters relating to his official duties is particularly compelling in the context of impeachment proceedings; and (3) analogous federal court decisions confirm that a chief executive may not be obligated to testify on such matters. It is useful to begin by stating what the plaintiff does not claim. It does not claim that the doctrine of executive privilege, which in general shields the chief governmental executive and certain other high executive officials from being obligated to testify regarding certain subjects, creates a categorical immunity. Nor does the plaintiff claim that the governor is immune from being subpoenaed by the defendant by virtue of any other recognized testimonial privilege. Thus, the plaintiff's claim is based, not on notions of privilege, but on broad and categorical notions of immunity derived, in the plaintiff's view, from the separation of powers doctrine. We conclude, contrary to the plaintiff's claim, that the separation of powers provision of our state constitution does not provide the governor with categorical immunity from being subpoenaed to testify before the defendant engaged in its investigative, fact-finding and advisory duties regarding possible impeachment of the governor. We base this conclusion on the nature of the defendant's task, on the text of our constitution regarding an impeachment of a governor, on analogous federal case law, on the historical record regarding legislative powers in impeachment proceedings at the federal level, and on constitutional policy. Under its authorizing resolution, the defendant had the serious and important task of investigating misconduct of the governor, submitting to the House its findings of fact and recommendations, and, if it recommended impeachment, specifying the conduct of the governor underlying such a recommendation. The gravity of this task counsels strongly in favor of the defendant's ability to subpoena the governor, because it was the governor's conduct and intentions that the defendant was charged with investigating; the governor was, therefore, a unique source of such information. Furthermore, unlike the federal constitution, under which a president continues to exercise his full executive powers until and unless he is convicted by the Senate, under article fourth, § 18(b), of the state constitution, as amended by article twenty-two of the amendments, [i]n case of the impeachment of the governor ... the lieutenant-governor shall exercise the powers and authority and perform the duties appertaining to the office of governor until... the governor ... is acquitted .... See part I B 1 of this opinion. This provision underscores the great importance of the impeachment process under our constitution, of which the defendant's duties are an integral part, because, following the defendant's investigation and recommendation, the ensuing impeachment of a governor immediately transfers executive power to the lieutenant governor pending the trial in the Senate. There is, therefore, a compelling need for the defendant to have a full and accurate basis for its findings and recommendations because a recommendation of impeachment, if made, results in serious, immediate consequences. This further counsels in favor of permitting the defendant to obligate the governor's testimony, which enables the defendant to gather as much evidence as is reasonably possible. To paraphrase the United States District Court for the District of Columbia: It would be difficult to conceive of a more compelling need than that of this [state] for an unswervingly fair inquiry based on all the pertinent information. In re Report & Recommendation of June 5, 1972 Grand Jury, 370 F.Supp. 1219, 1230 (D.D.C.1974). [23] In addition, the defendant's ability to obtain evidence from the governor precisely because it is conducting an investigation into his conduct is in furtherance of the critical constitutional check, expressed in the separation of powers provision, on executive authority necessary to preserve the constitution's careful balance of powers, not in derogation of it. As this court recognized in Kinsella v. Jaekle, supra, 192 Conn. at 718, 475 A.2d 243, the very purpose of impeachment is to curb abuses of power by elected officials by granting the legislature the power to remove them. See A. Hamilton, Federalist No. 66 (Rev. Ed. 1901) pp. 429-30 (impeachment power is fully consistent with separation of powers because it acts as an essential check in the hands of [the legislative] body upon the encroachments of the executive); J. Labovitz, Presidential Impeachment (1978) p. 2 ([t]o avoid executive usurpation of power, the delegates sought to provide checks upon his conduct, including provisions for his removal through impeachment). By its nature the power to impeach is at once both investigatory and accusatory. It imports the inherent authority to conduct, within constitutional limitations, such investigations and hearings as may be necessary to resolve any question of impeachable conduct. Kinsella v. Jaekle, supra, at 725, 475 A.2d 243. The issuance of a subpoena by the defendant to compel witnesses to testify on matters relevant to this investigation is an indispensable component of the defendant's impeachment authority. See Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra, 103 U.S. at 190 (where question of impeachment is before controlling authority, we see no reason to doubt the right to compel the attendance of witnesses, and their answer to proper questions, in the same manner and by the use of the same means that courts of justice can in like cases); see also R. Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems (1973) pp. 141, 149 (impeachment power is exception to separation of powers principle); J. Turley, Congress As Grand Jury: The Role of the House of Representatives in the Impeachment of an American President, 67 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 735, 738 (1999) (the impeachment provisions are understood best as part of the separation of powersas a check on executive power). It would be constitutionally peculiar if the legislature, engaged in the impeachment process in order to vindicate the separation of powers provision, were categorically barred by that very provision from securing the testimony of the person who, not only is the target of the impeachment process, but who undoubtedly is the best source of information regarding the alleged conduct that gave rise to the impeachment process. [24] Although there is no case precisely on point in which a legislative impeachment committee, like the defendant in the present case, has sought to secure the testimony of a governor by way of a subpoena, the United States Supreme Court uniformly has rejected a sitting president's claim to categorical immunity, on the basis of the separation of powers, in similar contexts. In United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 706, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974), the court rejected President Richard M. Nixon's claim that the separation of powers categorically barred a subpoena duces tecum issued by the special prosecutor for production of the famous Watergate tapes. The court stated that the doctrine of the separation of powers ... without more, [cannot] sustain an absolute, unqualified [p]residential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances. Id. The court's rejection of a sweeping claim of executive privilege because it would place a serious impediment on a coordinate branch of government was reaffirmed in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 441, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977), wherein the court held that the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act's regulation of the disposition of presidential materials within the executive branch did not constitute, without more, a violation of the principle of separation of powers. Most recently, in Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 684, 117 S.Ct. 1636, 137 L.Ed.2d 945 (1997), the Supreme Court rejected President William J. Clinton's generalized separation of powers challenge to a federal court's authority to adjudicate a private civil action against a sitting president. In so doing, the court reiterated that the doctrine of separation of powers does not by itself confer an absolute, unqualified presidential privilege of immunity from suit by a private party, and that the significant burden on the president's time and attention in responding to a lawsuit while still president was insufficient as a matter of law to constitute a violation of the separation of powers doctrine. Id., at 691-706, 117 S.Ct. 1636. Indeed, in the historic trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr for treason, Chief Justice John Marshall, in ruling that President Thomas Jefferson could be compelled to comply with a subpoena duces tecum, assumed that the president of the United States may be subpoenaed, and examined as a witness.... United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 187, 191 (C.C.D.Va.1807); see also United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 30, 34-35 (C.C.D.Va.1807). In terms of the separation of powers, we see no persuasive reason why these holdings rejecting categorical immunity of the chief executive from judicial process should not apply to a similar claim of categorical immunity from legislative process issued in the course of the legislature's exercise of its core constitutional power to impeach. The weight of the historical record also supports the ability of the defendant to issue this subpoena to the governor. Various statements of United States presidents, from President George Washington through President Ulysses S. Grant have, in general terms, affirmed the right of the legislature, acting pursuant to its impeachment powers, to obtain evidence from the executive for that purpose. The most direct statements on the subject were made in 1846 by President James K. Polk: If the House of Representatives, as the grand inquest of the nation, should at any time have reason to believe that there has been malversation in office by an improper use or application of the public money by a public officer, and should think proper to institute an inquiry into the matter, all the archives and papers of the [e]xecutive [d]epartments, public or private, would be subject to the inspection and control of a committee of their body and every facility in the power of the [e]xecutive be afforded to enable them to prosecute the investigation. 4 J. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents (1897) p. 435. President Polk further stated that the impeachment power gave the House of Representatives the right to investigate the conduct of all public officers under the [g]overnment. This is cheerfully admitted. In such a case the safety of the [r]epublic would be the supreme law, and the power of the House in the pursuit of this object would penetrate into the most secret recesses of the [e]xecutive [d]epartment. It would command the attendance of any and every agent of the [g]overnment, and compel them to produce all papers, public or private, official or unofficial, and to testify on oath to all the facts within their knowledge.  [25] (Emphasis added.) Id., p. 434. Similarly, President Washington, in rejecting the House's request for papers concerning the negotiation of the Jay Treaty, specifically noted that the House's right to the documents would have been different if they had been sought for the purpose of impeachment. J. Labovitz, supra, p. 211, citing 4 Annals of Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 760-62 (1796). President John Quincy Adams stated that it would be a `mockery... to say that the House should have the power of impeachment extending even to the president ... and yet to say that the House had not the power to obtain the evidence and proofs on which impeachment was based.' M. Gerhardt, The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis (2d Ed. 2000) p. 114, quoting Cong. Globe, 27th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 580 (1842). Both President Andrew Jackson and President Grant echoed these acknowledgments. See 13 Reg. Deb. 202 (1837) (Jackson); 7 J. Richardson, supra, p. 362 (Grant) ([w]hat the House of Representatives may require as of right in its demand upon the [e]xecutive for information is limited to what is necessary for the proper discharge of its powers of legislation or of impeachment  [emphasis added]). In addition to these comments expressed on behalf of the executive branch, the legislative branch has deep historical roots in its records regarding its power to gather all of the necessary evidence in order to make an informed and appropriate evaluation in the exercise of the impeachment process. It was discussed as early as 1796, when it was stated on the floor of the House that the power of impeachment `certainly implie[s] a right to inspect every paper and transaction in any department, otherwise [it] could never be exercised with any effect.' J. Labovitz, supra, p. 211, citing 4 Annals of Cong., supra, p. 601. This sentiment was echoed in 1843 when a House committee, which was engaged in a dispute with President John Tyler about the production of documents that ultimately were produced, similarly explained: The House of Representatives has the sole power of impeachment. The President himself, in the discharge of his most independent functions, is subject to the exercise of this powera power which implie[s] the right of inquiry on the part of the House to the fullest and most unlimited extent.... If the House possesses the power to impeach, it must likewise possess all the incidents of that powerthe power to compel the attendance of all witnesses and the production of all such papers as may be considered necessary to prove the charges on which the impeachment is founded. If it did not, the power of impeachment conferred upon it by the Constitution would be nugatory. It could not exercise it with effect. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) J. Labovitz, supra, p. 211, quoting 27th Cong., 3d Sess., H.R.Rep. No. 271, pp. 4-6. More recently, the House Judiciary Committee that recommended the impeachment of President Nixon remarked: Whatever the limits of the legislative power in other contexts and whatever need may otherwise exist for preserving the confidentiality of Presidential conversationin the context of an impeachment proceeding the balance was struck in favor of the power of inquiry when the impeachment provision was written into the Constitution. House Judiciary Committee, Impeachment of Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, H.R.Rep. No. 93-1305, p. 209 (1974). As we have suggested, serious policy concerns also support the validity of the subpoena in the present case. The compelling governmental need for all of the relevant information, not just from third parties but from the governor whose conduct and intentions are under scrutiny, so that a decision by the defendant is based on as much information as it can reasonably gather, supports the right of the defendant to compel the testimony of the governor. The categorical immunity proposed by the plaintiff would place a serious impediment on the legislative branch's ability to discharge effectively its own core constitutional duty to exercise the impeachment power with which it has been entrusted. We recognize that the impeachment power is a strong legislative weapon and that, if left unchecked, the legislature could abuse its authority. The existence, however, of constitutional safeguardsa division of impeachment power between the House and the Senate, and the two-thirds supermajority vote requirement for conviction in the Senateprovide sufficient protection against such abuse. Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224, 236, 113 S.Ct. 732, 122 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993). Our state constitution provides the same structural protection. Conn. Const., art. IX, § 2; see Kinsella v. Jaekle, supra, 192 Conn. at 720, 475 A.2d 243. In addition, under our law, as we have explained, there is some recourse to the courts for judicial protection from constitutional abuse by the legislature. In sum, it would be constitutionally perverse to conclude that it would be a violation of the separation of powers doctrine for the legislature to discharge its constitutional responsibilities. Our state's impeachment process is reserved for the legislature to demand an accounting from the governor regarding alleged abuses of his power. The rejection by the framers of our constitution of the British practice of insulating the king from impeachment was to ensure that the chief executive would not be above the law. See Kinsella v. Jaekle, supra, 192 Conn. at 718-19, 475 A.2d 243. Allowing the chief executive officer to withhold information from the defendant on the basis of the separation of powers doctrine undercuts that goal by hindering the only constitutionally authorized process by which the legislature may hold him accountable for his alleged misconduct. See M. Gerhardt, supra, p. 115. The plaintiff contends, nonetheless, that, on the basis of federal history, there is a constitutionally based consensus that the separation of powers doctrine bars a chief executive from being obligated to testify, because such testimony never has been heeded or enforced. We are not persuaded. It is true that our constitutional separation of powers provision shares the history and purposes of its federal constitutional counterpart. For reasons indigenous to the history and development of this state, and this country, and for the same, self-evident purposes for which the concept of separation of powers was originally implemented, the Connecticut constitution, which, less than a decade ago, was redrafted and ratified by the people in the context of three hundred years of self-government, continued the separate magistracies of a popularly elected executive and legislature and an independent judiciary. The constitution defines and circumscribes the powers of these three magistracies of government. As Chief Justice Marshall observed in 1803: `To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?' Marbury v. Madison, [supra, 5 U.S. at 176]. Szarwak v. Warden, 167 Conn. 10, 45-46, 355 A.2d 49 (1974). We also acknowledge, as the plaintiff suggests, that [d]eeply embedded traditional ways of conducting government cannot supplant the [c]onstitution or legislation, but they [may] give meaning to the words of a text or supply them. Youngstown v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 610, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). Thus, the plaintiff maintains, a federal history of Congressional acquiescence to assertions of executive privilege [in response to Congressional demands for information regarding the performance by the president of his official duties] strongly suggests that separation of powers principles encompass the chief executive's right to refuse to testify before a legislative committee. The plaintiff's historical support for this proposition consists entirely, however, of various internal letters and memoranda from the office of the United States Attorney General, and certain presidential refusals, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to comply with Congressional resolutions and inquiries demanding information regarding the performance of presidential duties. [26] None of those instances, however, involved the exercise of the impeachment power. Suffice it to say that, contrary to the contention of the plaintiff, it cannot be said that there is such a deeply embedded history of executive noncompliance with legislative subpoenas regarding the conduct of the chief executive, federal or state, in the impeachment process, that it gives meaning to the separation of powers in such a way as to bar the subpoena in the present case. Indeed, as we have indicated, to the extent that historical sources have focused on the impeachment process, that history is to the contrary. We now turn to the plaintiff's second argument, namely, that the constitutional prohibition against obligating the chief executive to testify before the legislature on matters relating to his official duties is particularly compelling in the context of impeachment proceedings. In this regard, the plaintiff contends that the importance of interpreting the separation of powers principles so as to bar a testimonial subpoena to the chief executive is heightened in the context of an impeachment investigation.... [B]ecause the separation of powers machinery is placed under great strain in such circumstances, the delicate balance between the legislative and executive branch is uniquely vulnerable to severe and irreparable harm ... [and carries a] potential for distraction and intimidation [that] not only threatens the health of the executive branch, but also offers opportunities for abuse by the legislature of its extraordinary control over the chief executive's priorities and powers. (Citations omitted.) Thus, the plaintiff claims, impeachment is so threatening to the executive that the separation of powers doctrine requires the erection of high[er] walls between the legislative and executive branches than would ordinarily be the case. In this connection, the plaintiff relies on the history that, in the impeachment proceedings against both President Nixon and President Clinton, Congress did not issue a subpoena for their testimony, and that in the three gubernatorial impeachment proceedings in this century, no such subpoenas were issued. [27] The plaintiff also emphasizes that the defendant's function is simply investigative, as opposed to the function of the House of Representatives to which it must report, which actually decides whether to impeach. We reject these contentions. To the contrary, we think that, precisely because the present case is related to the impeachment process, the legislature is acting at the height of its powers and the plaintiff's claim to categorical immunity is at its nadir. Thus, we believe that alleged misconduct of a chief executive that is sufficient to warrant an impeachment inquiry should not, as the plaintiff's contention suggests, present a reason for exempting him from accountability; rather, it should have the opposite effect. [T]he impeachment power necessarily implies a congressional power to inquire about presidential wrongdoing, as well as a corresponding obligation on the part of the president to respond to such inquiries. F. Bowman III & S. Sepinuck, 'High Crimes & Misdemeanors': Defining the Constitutional Limits on Presidential Impeachment, 72 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1517, 1539 (1999); see M. Gerhardt, The Constitutional Limits to Impeachment and its Alternatives, 68 Tex. L. Rev. 1, 93 (1989) (the [p]resident is not above the ... law, there is no sound reason for exempting him from accountability, especially in the impeachment process); A. Cox, Executive Privilege, 122 Penn. L. Rev. 1383, 1435 (1974) ([h]istory gives no affirmative support to presidential claims of privilege to withhold information from the House of Representatives while it is considering impeachment). In this regard, there are two significant differences between our state constitution and the federal constitution. The first is that, unlike the federal constitution, which lodges all executive power in the president, [28] and, accordingly, mentions only that office, as well as the office of the vice president, who is elected along with the president, our state constitution refers to the executive branch as consisting of, not only the governor and lieutenant governor, who is elected along with the governor, but also the secretary of the state, treasurer, comptroller and attorney general, as well as the division of criminal justice and a council on gubernatorial incapacity. See Conn. Const., art. IV. Although, it is true, that, under article fourth, § 5, of the Connecticut Constitution [29] [t]he supreme executive power of the state shall be vested in the governor, it cannot be said of the governor, as it is appropriately said of the president, that he or she is the executive branch of the government. The second difference from the federal constitution for purposes of the present case is even more significant. As we already have noted, our constitution requires an impeached governor to step down temporarily until the outcome of the impeachment trial in the Senate. Furthermore, as we have also noted, it is the defendant in this case that is charged with the grave responsibility of finding the facts and making recommendations regarding the impeachable misconduct, if any, of the governor. These provisions convince us that the defendant plays, not a subordinate or preliminary role in the impeachment process, as the plaintiff's arguments suggest, but a vitally important role. Furthermore, the defendant's role in that process cannot be separated from that of the House itself, as the plaintiff's argument also suggests. It is, as we have indicated, an integral part of the process by which the House of Representatives decides whether to impeach. Moreover, the plaintiff's contention that the subpoena violates the separation of powers because having to testify will take the governor away from his duties as chief executive is sufficiently answered by the Supreme Court's decision in Clinton v. Jones, supra, 520 U.S. 681, 117 S.Ct. 1636, 137 L.Ed.2d 945. If the separation of powers doctrine does not give the president categorical immunity from suit by a private party while in office, it does not, a fortiori, do so with respect to a legislative subpoena to the governor by a duly authorized impeachment investigative committee. Indeed, the concern expressed in Clinton v. Jones, supra, at 691-92, 117 S.Ct. 1636, namely, that the president should not be exposed to undue and prolonged distraction from his official duties by a private lawsuit arising out of his prepresidential conduct, is particularly inapt in the present context. In this respect, there is no evidence in the record that suggests that the defendant would unduly prolong the governor's attendance in compliance with the subpoena, nor can it reasonably be maintained that the procedure would be overly burdensome in a spatial sensethe plaintiff and the defendant are located in the same building. Given our constitutional order, and given that the impeachment process is part and parcel of the separation of powers, designed to check abuses of power, it is part of the governor's official duties to respond to demands for his testimony by a duly authorized legislative impeachment panel. Finally, we reject the plaintiff's contention that the governor is categorically immune from this subpoena, on the basis of federal court decisions that, in the plaintiff's view, strongly suggest that a chief executive may not be obligated to testify regarding his official duties. See, e.g., United States v. Nixon, supra, 418 U.S. at 713, 94 S.Ct. 3090; Nixon v. Fitzgerald, supra, 457 U.S. 731, 102 S.Ct. 2690, 73 L.Ed.2d 349; Clinton v. Jones, supra, 520 U.S. 681, 117 S.Ct. 1636, 137 L.Ed.2d 945. These cases do not support the plaintiff's claim. First, the portion of the decision in United States v. Nixon, supra, at 713, 94 S.Ct. 3090, on which the plaintiff relies involved the ability of the president to invoke a claim of privilege on the return of the subpoena, at which time the court would rule on the claim of privilege, balancing the claim of privilege against the need for the information. The president's assertion of confidentiality in that case is in no way analogous to the claim of categorical immunity from compliance with the subpoena that the plaintiff argues for in the present case. Second, Nixon v. Fitzgerald, supra, at 751, 102 S.Ct. 2690, held that the president is absolutely immune from a civil suit by a private party for his official duties or conduct at the outer perimeter of those duties, because diversion of his energies by concern with private lawsuits would raise unique risks to the effective functioning of government. The present case does not involve such a lawsuit. Finally, the portion of the decision in Clinton v. Jones, supra, at 691-92, 117 S.Ct. 1636, on which the plaintiff relies is the court's statement that it was not deciding whether a court could compel the president to appear at a particular time and place, and that his governmental duties would command appropriate accommodation for such testimony. The court's practical regard for the president's busy schedule; id., at 692, 117 S.Ct. 1636; is quite different from the plaintiff's claim of categorical immunity in the present case. Thus, those cases did not involve a claim of categorical immunity from testimony in an impeachment proceeding, on the basis of the separation of powers. Without belaboring the point, it suffices to say that the cases that we have cited and discussed herein persuade us that federal law provides no support for the proposition of categorical immunity that the plaintiff presents.