Court Opinion

ID: 9422405
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:02:26.706519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:36.489420
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Warren,
with whom Mr. Justice Douglas joins,
dissenting.
This case highlights the problem of defining constitutional limitations upon congressional committees endowed with compulsory process. And because I firmly believe that continued sanction of investigative powers leading to abridgment of individual rights seriously impairs the intent of the Framers of our Bill of Rights, I dissent from Mr. Justice Harlan’s treatment of the constitutional issue presented here. That issue may be simply stated: Is it a violation of the constitutional guarantee of due process of law for a legislative committee, under the circumstances of this case, to inquire into matters for which the witness is about to be tried under a pending criminal indictment?
*629The petitioner, already indicted and awaiting trial in a state court, was subpoenaed to testify before a congressional committee investigating union activity and union funds. When the questioning led to matters concerning facts upon which the state indictment was based,1 the dilemma the petitioner found facing him was this: if he answered truthfully his answers might aid the pending prosecution;2 if he answered falsely, he could have been prosecuted for perjury;3 and, if he relied on the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination, that fact could be admitted against him in the state criminal trial.4 Mr. Justice Harlan's opinion now holds that petitioner’s dilemma had a fourth horn; he may also be sent to jail for refusing to choose imposition of.one of these penalties. I believe that neither the Constitution nor our past decisions allow Congress to enlist the aid of the federal courts to do to this man what four members of the Court permit.
*630In 1821 this Court held for the first time in Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, that although the Constitution did not expressly grant to Congress the power to conduct investigations, such a power, within legislative competence, could be implied because it is inherent in the lawmaking process. This investigative function of Congress is, of course, entirely independent of the judicial branch of the Government in strict separation-of-power terms. However, Congress, no less than other branches of the Government, is bound to safeguard individual liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, and it is the duty of the courts to insure that the specific guarantees of liberty are preserved for witnesses before a legislative body just as they are guarded for the benefit of defendants in a criminal court trial. This duty cannot be performed nor can the judicial conscience be stilled by a kind of hand-washing statement that a legislative committee (in some instances a committee of a single person delegated with full investigative power) may finally determine for the courts, not only the importance and relevancy of a matter under investigation, but also that the committee has the constitutional power to ask the questions it wants to ask at the moment. A full Court decided in Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168, that the courts must ultimately determine who shall be sent to jail and that only the courts may determine whether questions asked by a committee are within Congress’ constitutional power of inquiry.5 And in our more recent cases, “[t]he *631central theme,” as we stated in Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S. 178, 195, has been “the application of the Bill of Rights as a restraint upon the assertion of governmental power in this form.” 6 This includes all provisions of the Bill of Rights — the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, as well as that Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.
Mr. Justice Harlan’s opinion fails to recognize that the essence of petitioner’s contention is that largely because of this Court’s decisions in Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, and United States v. Murdock, 284 U. S. 141, the interrogation on matters for which he had already been indicted was a violation of due process. Cf. Aiuppa v. United States, 201 F. 2d 287, 300. The duty of courts to safeguard an individual’s personal liberty and to protect him from being compelled to answer questions outside the constitutional power of Congress, to which I have referred above, is particularly pertinent when Congress has enlisted the aid of the federal courts to protect itself against contumacious conduct and recalcitrant witnesses. 2 *632U. S. C. § 192. In fulfilling their responsibilities under this statute the courts may not simply assume that every congressional investigation is constitutionally conducted merely because it is shown that great national interests lie in passing needed legislation.7 To do so would be to abdicate the responsibility placed by the Constitution upon the judiciary to insure that no branch of the Government transgresses constitutional limitations. See Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137.
Accommodation of the congressional need for particular information with the individual and national interest in assuring dispassionate protection for witnesses against unconstitutional encroachment upon their individual rights has proved to be an arduous task throughout this Nation's history. One principle, however, formulated to keep congressional power of punishment to compel testimony within the very narrowest of limits, seems to have withstood erosion by the passage of time and the ever-increasing complexities in carrying out the legislative function. That principle is that in exercising its power to compel testimony, Congress must utilize “[t]he least possible power adequate to the end proposed.” Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 230-231. And, in Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra, decided in 1880, this Court had occasion to emphasize the narrowness of this congressional power. In my opinion, the latter case is more like the instant one than any other in our reports and I believe the principles upon which it was decided call for a reversal of the conviction of petitioner here.8
*633It is important, I believe, to reiterate the basic concept enunciated there: that it is for the courts, and not for Congress, in insuring to all persons the safeguards of the Bill of Rights, to establish the constitutional standards which must be observed before people in this country can legally be sent to prison. The case arose in this manner : While a United States District Court, pursuant to its competent jurisdiction, was administering the estate of the bankrupt firm of Jay Cook & Company, which owed money to the United States Government, the House of Representatives passed a resolution to investigate a settlement made by the trustee. The basis for this action was that the settlement allegedly would be to the disadvantage of creditors, including the Government, and that the courts were powerless to afford adequate relief *634because of the settlement. Kilbourn was subpoenaed to appear as a witness and to bring records, papers and maps “pertinent to the question under inquiry.” Kilbourn refused and was convicted by the House of contempt. In holding that the House had exceeded its power, a unanimous Court forcefully announced restrictions upon the congressional power to punish for contempt and, at the same time, made it emphatically clear that those restrictions are equally applicable to the congressional power to compel testimony. Thus, when a committee attempts to exercise an extraordinary and unwarranted assumption of judicial power, this Court must strike it down, just as it has done in a situation in which the power to investigate infringed upon powers of law enforcement agencies. Cf. Quinn v. United States, 349 U. S. 155, 161.
When the circumstances of the instant case are compared to those which prompted the Court to void the conviction in Kilbourn, a striking similarity emerges. Indeed, the major difference in the circumstances of the two cases — that is, that this case involves a criminal indictment pending against the witness while Kilbourn involved only a civil suit — would seem to make this case even stronger than Kilbourn. The Court’s chief reliance for holding that Congress exceeded its powers in the Kilbourn case was that the transactions into which Congress inquired were pending in a court, that the investigation was one “judicial in its character, and could only be properly and successfully made by. a court of justice”; and, since the inquiry “related to a matter wherein relief or redress could be had only by a judicial proceeding, . . . that the power attempted to be exercised was one confined by the Constitution to the judicial and not to the legislative department of the government.” Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra, at 192-193. The Court summed up its view of the circumstances that showed an absence of congressional power to ask Kilbourn the questions it did with *635this statement: “The matter was still pending in a court, and what right had the Congress of the United States to interfere with a suit pending in a court of competent jurisdiction?”
In this case the particular subject of the Committee’s inquiry to which the petitioner objected was whether he had in the past been unfaithful to his union in administering its funds. An indictment was then pending against petitioner in a court of competent jurisdiction charging him with using those same funds for an unlawful purpose.9 The congressional committee, just as the House in Kil-bourn, had no power to grant the union relief or redress of any kind for that alleged breach of trust by petitioner. So far as Congress was concerned in Kilbourn, the differences between Jay Cook and its creditors were held to be their “private affair” about which Congress could not compel a witness to answer; thus, a pending civil case was enough to bar inquiries concerning the transactions in that litigation. There is far more reason, it seems to me, to apply that principle to this case where Congress attempts to compel a witness to supply testimony which could be used to help convict him of a crime.
In so viewing this matter I do not overlook the argument in Mr. Justice Harlan’s opinion that this particular testimony was relevant to the congressional investigation of the handling of union funds by their officers in order to help Congress decide if it should enact legis*636lation in this field, and, if so, what kind of legislation it should enact. Conceding that under Anderson and Kil-bourn the Committee here had the power to ask general questions along this line, it does not follow that it could make detailed inquiries about the conduct of a witness that related specifically to a crime with which he was already charged and for which he was soon to be tried in a court of competent jurisdiction.10 Not only would it be contrary to the holding in Kilbourn to conclude otherwise, but it is incomprehensible to me how it can be urged that Congress needed the details of how petitioner committed this alleged crime in order to pass general legislation about union funds. It would be hard, indeed, I believe, to make rational proof that to refuse to Congress the power to compel testimony from a witness about a matter for which he is about to be tried criminally, would invade the area of “[t]he least possible power adequate” to enable Congress to legislate about union officers and union funds.
In my view, it is not a satisfactory approach to problems involving principles of constitutional dimension to look first to the interests of the Government and, if they loom large in the particular instance, to go no further. The countervailing principles embodied in our Bill of Rights do not demand attention only when the governmental interest lacks compulsion. The Bill of Rights demands much more than that. In judging whether Congress has used “[t]he least possible power adequate to the end proposed,” the courts must assure that any possible infringement on personal rights be minimized. In this determination the courts must consider factors such as the degree of need of the investigating committee for *637the particular information requested and whether the Committee is able to get the desired information from some evidentiary source other than from a witness presently under criminal indictment on a charge relating to those very facts. The fact that in this case Indiana appears to have had sufficient evidence to secure an indictment against the petitioner is adequate indication that independent sources of information were easily available to the Committee by which it could have obtained the very information it sought here without jeopardizing the constitutional rights of the petitioner by asking him about it. Moreover, it cannot be argued with persuasion that Congress would be met with an insurmountable barrier in gathering needed information if a defendant in a pending criminal trial could not be compelled to answer questions before a legislative committee relevant to that indictment. Congress has shown that it has at its command means for removing any such barrier. See Adams v. Maryland, 347 U. S. 179.
The process through which the result has been reached in Mr. Justice Harlan’s opinion seems to me to ignore the very reasons the Bill of Rights was incorporated into our Constitution. Those provisions were adopted as, and are intended to be, restraints upon actions by the Government which trespass upon personal liberties reserved to the individual in our society. If, as I believe, the Constitution has barred the Government from proceeding in a particular instance, despite the conceded validity of its interest in the testimony, the courts are duty bound to stand fast against any impairment of the individual’s guaranteed rights. Congress cannot, by imposing upon the courts the responsibility for committing persons to jail for contempt of its committees, expect or require the courts to apply lower standards than are compelled by the Bill of Rights, any more than it could direct the courts to suppress those same rights in judicial proceedings. The *638Bill of Rights, not Congress, establishes the standards which must be observed before people in this country may legally be sent to jail. A congressional committee has the power to compel testimony to aid it in shaping legislation, but it does not have the power merely to publicize a citizen’s shortcomings or to aid a State in convicting him of crime. I consider a procedure which pinions a citizen within a dilemma such as was created by the circumstances of this case, and which goes beyond “[t]he least possible power” adequate to accomplish Congress’ constitutionally permissible ends, a direct encroachment upon rights secured by due process of law. To send this man to jail for his refusal to answer questions that, because of the circumstances of this case, are outside the power of a committee to ask is, as Kilbourn v. Thompson held, a plain denial of that process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to our Federal Constitution. I would reverse the conviction.

 Mr. Justice Harlan seems to question the relation of the questions asked by the Committee with the subject matter of the state indictment (see pp. 617-618, ante). Of course Congress’ concern was whether union funds had been used for an unlawful purpose, whereas the State was concerned with how the funds had been unlawfully used. However, a truthful answer to the question asked by the Committee would a fortiori have answered the State’s inquiry if in fact the petitioner had used union funds in violation of state law. As stated by Mr. Justice Brennan in his concurring opinion (see p. 623, ante): . . [T]he congressional inquiry and the state prosecution crossed paths when the Committee learned that union funds might have been used in a corrupt attempt to forestall an earlier indictment in another county ... for the same alleged [offense].”

 Davidson v. State, 205 Ind. 564, 569, 187 N. E. 376, 378.

 18 U. S. C. § 1621.

 Crickmore v. State, 213 Ind. 586, 592-593, 12 N. E. 2d 266, 269; State v. Schopmeyer, 207 Ind. 538, 194 N. E. 144. And, by our decisions, such a use by the state court would not be barred. Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46; Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78.

 103 U. S. 168, 197:
“If they [the House of Congress] are proceeding in a matter beyond their legitimate cognizance, we are of opinion that this can be shown, and we cannot give our assent to the principle that, by the mere act of asserting a person to be guilty of a contempt, they thereby establish their right to fine and imprison him, beyond the power of any court or any other tribunal whatever to inquire into the grounds on which the order was made. This necessarily grows out of the nature of an *631authority which can only exist in a limited class of cases, or under special circumstances; otherwise the limitation is unavailing and the power omnipotent.”

 This principle is not a new or novel one. Again in Kilbourn, the Court made this observation (103 -U. S., at 190-191):
“It is believed to be one of the chief merits of the American system of written constitutional law, that all the powers intrusted to government, whether state or national, are divided into the three grand departments, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. That the functions appropriate to each of these branches of government shall be vested in a separate body of public servants, and that the perfection of the system requires that the lines which separate and divide these departments shall be broadly and clearly defined. It is also essential to the successful working of this system that the persons intrusted with power in any one of these branches shall not be permitted to encroach upon the powers confided to the others, but that each shall by the law of its creation be limited to the exercise of the powers appropriate to its own department and no other.”

 “The tendency of modern decisions everywhere is to the doctrine that the jurisdiction of a court or other tribunal to render a judgment affecting individual rights, is always open to inquiry, when the judgment is relied on in any other proceeding.” Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra, at 197-198. (Emphasis added.)

 I am certain that it will come as a great surprise to many to learn that Kilbourn has been “severely discredited,” as stated in Mr. Justice Harlan’s opinion (p. 614, note 16, ante), and that it no longer *633stands to prevent the congressional body of our Government from encroaching upon the exercise of judicial power. The reference to United States v. Rumely, 345 U. S. 41, 46, where Mr. Justice Frankfurter indicated in a dictum designed to reserve decision upon a suggested limit of Congress’ investigative power, that Kilbourn contained “loose language,” is hardly the method this Court has chosen to overrule or “discredit” decisions in the past. Indeed, neither have we chosen to do so in footnotes. Moreover, Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s reliance in Rumely on McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U. S. 135, 170-171, and Sinclair v. United States, 279 U. S. 263, to support his statement that “substantial inroads” have been made on Kilbourn is rather confusing in light of our recent pronouncement in Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S. 178, 194, that: “In McGrain . . . and Sinclair . . . , the Court applied the precepts of Kilbourn to uphold the authority of the Congress to conduct the challenged investigations.” (Emphasis added.)
Kilbourn has also been cited favorably or without a question of its continued validity in other recent decisions of the Court: e. g., Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U. S. 109, 133 (opinion by Harlan, J.); Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367, 377 (opinion by Frankfurter, J.: “This Court has not hesitated to sustain the rights of private individuals when it found Congress was acting outside its legislative role. Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168.”); Uphaus v. Wyman, 360 U. S. 72, 84 (dissenting opinion).

 Contrary to the implication drawn in Mr. Justice Harlan's opinion that the principle to which I would adhere in the instant case would also apply “to inquiries calling for answers that might be used to the prejudice of the witness in any future judicial proceeding” (p. 613, note 16, ante), it seems obvious that nothing in this opinion gives support to such an inference. In fact, I believe a careful reading of it would make clear that it is specifically because of the pending nature of the state indictment that due process has been violated by this inquiry.

 The State’s delay subsequent to the Committee’s investigation in bringing the petitioner to trial seems hardly relevant to our inquiry. The speed with which the State’s judicial process moves cannot justify an otherwise unconstitutional exercise of federal legislative power.