Court Opinion

ID: 9425021
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:13:27.14272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:53.319411
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Powell,
concurring.
I add this brief statement to emphasize what seems to me to be the limited nature of the Court's holding. The Court does not hold that newsmen, subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, are without constitutional rights with respect to the gathering of news or in safeguarding their sources. Certainly, we do not hold, as suggested in Mr. Justice Stewart's dissenting opinion, that state and federal authorities are free to “annex” the news media as “an investigative arm of government.” The solicitude repeatedly shown by this Court for First Amendment freedoms should be sufficient assurance against any such effort, even if one seriously believed that the media — properly free and untrammeled in the fullest sense of these terms — were not able to protect themselves.
As indicated in the concluding portion of the opinion, the Court states that no harassment of newsmen will *710be tolerated. If a newsman believes that the grand jury-investigation is not being conducted in good faith he is not without remedy. Indeed, if the newsman is called upon to give information bearing only a remote and tenuous relationship to the subject of the investigation, or if he has some other reason to believe that his testimony implicates confidential source relationships without a legitimate need of law enforcement, he will have access to the court on a motion to quash and an appropriate protective order may be entered. The asserted claim to privilege should be judged on its facts by the striking of a proper balance between freedom of the press and the obligation of all citizens to give relevant testimony with respect to criminal conduct. The balance of these vital constitutional and societal interests on a case-by-case basis accords with the tried and traditional way of adjudicating such questions.*
In short, the courts will be available to newsmen under circumstances where legitimate First Amendment interests require protection.

It is to be remembered that Caldwell asserts a constitutional privilege not even to appear before the grand jury unless a court decides that the Government has made a showing that meets the three preconditions specified in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart. To be sure, this would require a “balancing” of interests by the court, but under circumstances and constraints significantly different from the balancing that will be appropriate under the court’s decision. The newsman witness, like all other witnesses, will have to appear; he will not be in a position to litigate at the threshold the State’s very authority to subpoena him. Moreover, absent the constitutional preconditions that Caldwell and that dissenting opinion would impose as heavy burdens of proof to be carried by the State, the court — when called upon to protect a newsman from improper or prejudicial questioning — would be free to balance the competing interests on their merits in the particular case. The new constitutional rule endorsed by that dissenting opinion would, as a practical matter, defeat such a fair balancing and the essential societal interest in the detection and prosecution of crime would be heavily subordinated.