Court Opinion

ID: 9445614
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:34:24.547386+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:20.875156
License: Public Domain

WILBUR K. MILLER, Circuit Judge.
In May, 1953, the Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities was. investigating, through a subcommittee, the activities of Communists in the field of education. Marcus Singer, called as a witness, testified freely that some years before, when he was on the teaching staff of Harvard University, he had been a member of a Communist Party group and had frequently attended its meetings. But he repeatedly refused to answer when asked about others with whom he had associated in that activity, basing his refusal on honor, conscience and fear of self-incrimination. The subcommittee rejected his reliance on the Fifth Amendment and directed him to answer. He continued to refuse.
*350The House of Representatives adopted a resolution1 directing that his contumacy be certified to the United States Attorney for presentation to the grand jury. As a result Singer was indicted in 22 counts for refusing, in violation of 2 U.S.C. § 192,2 to answer as many questions propounded to him by the subcommittee. We are concerned here only with Count 11, under which Singer was convicted, fined $100.00, and given a suspended jail sentence of three months, from which conviction he appeals. This count was based on his refusal to answer the following question:
“Now, these people we have mentioned up to this time — Robert G. Davis, Wendell H. Furry, Isador Amdur, Norman Levinson, John H. Reynolds, Dirk Struik, William Ted Martin, Lawrence Arguimbau, and Helen Deane Markham — did they attend these meetings to which you testified yesterday?”
The principal reason for reversal urged by the appellant is that the District Court erred in rejecting his reliance on the Fifth Amendment as justifying his refusal to answer. He suggests that an affirmative answer to the question in Count 11 would have subjected him to real danger of prosecution under the Smith Act, 54 Stat. 671 (1940), 62 Stat. 808 (1948), 18 U.S.C. § 2385.) The pertinent portion of this statute is:
“Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—
"Shall be fined not more than $10,-000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.”
Singer’s previous disclosures to the subcommittee, briefly noted above, will be more fully summarized. The Communist Party group with which he met fairly regularly when he was teaching at Harvard University numbered 14 or 15 at the most, with seven or eight usually present at the meetings. The group was not disciplined as to attendance. Its members discussed Marxian philosophy, believed in its application, and attempted to apply it to present-day events. Singer considered himself a Communist, had supported the Communist program, and had contributed money to the Daily Worker and the Communist Party. He agreed that, from a long range viewpoint, Communism is a conspiracy to overthrow the government, but said that he himself did not conspire with anybody, and that he and the other members of his group did nothing subversive. The person who solicited him to join the group was on the staff at Harvard and those who attended its meetings were associated in some capacity with Harvard or Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Whether this testimony, freely given by the appellant to the subcommittee, was in itself incriminatory, we need not decide. For if it was, an answer to the Count 11 question would not have increased the danger of prosecution un-derTKi~Smith AcCas~we~shall show. On *351the other hand, if the freely-made disclosures were not incriminating, an affirmative answer to the critical question could not have made them so, as will appear. The result is the same in either event.
We consider the first alternative: that Singer’s testimony already given concerning his Communist Party group had stamped it as a “society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence” within the meaning of the Smith Act. If his testimony had that effect, Singer had incriminated himself before he was asked the Count 11 question, for he had also said he had affiliated with the group and knew its purposes. He told the subcommittee flatly that he considered himself a Communist. He thus indubitably identified himself, with the Communist cause. An admis-I sion that certain named persons, no matter who they were, attended the meetings could not have added to the self-incrimination which was already complete.
We turn to the second alternative: that Singer’s testimony already freely given concerning his Communist Party group did not identify it as a “society, group, or assembly” of the sort described, in the Smith Act. He insists it was not* such an organization but was an innocent j assembly of intellectuals; and that his j disclosures to the subcommittee were j therefore not incriminatory under the! Smith Act. But he argues he might/ have incriminated himself by an affirm-j ative answer to the Count 11 question because the nine persons about whom he was asked were what he terms “hard-corps 3 [sic] ” Communists, and one^of 1 them was then under indictment for conspiring to forcibly and violently overthrow the government of the Common- j wealth of Massachusetts.
This implies, we suppose, that appellant regarded himself and some of his colleagues in his Communist Party group as “soft-core” Communists, or innocent scholars, and feared that the mere presence of “hard-core” Communists at their meetings might make all those in attendance subject to prosecution under the Smith Act. Perhaps he was particularly fearful that the presence of the one hard-core Communist who had been accused of having hostile designs on Massachusetts might taint the whole group.
Such fears were unfounded. Singer said, “We were not subversive. * * * j We were intellectuals. We were schol-' ars.” This meant, of course, that the meetings of Singer’s Communist Party group were innocent gatherings, no matter who was present. For the effect of his testimony is that, if any of the hardcore nine attended any of the meetings, they did not intrude any radical view or proposal such as advocacy of unlawful action. The mere silent presence of thq hard-core nine at the gatherings of thej innocent intellectuals could not trans-| form the entire assemblage into a group' which advocated overthrow of government by force or violence.
Moreover, it does not appear that the nine persons named in Count 11 constituted a “society, group, or assembly” of the sort described in the statute, or that they constitued a group at all. Nor does it appear that the hard-core nine “had the purposes the Smith Act condemns.” They seem to have been nine individuals who happened to have the common denominator of hard-core Communism. To be sure, one of the nine had been indicted for conspiring against Massachusetts; but an indictment is not evidence. It follows that Singer’s admission that meetings of his Communist Party group were attended by some or all of the nine persons mentioned in Count 11 — meetings at which nothing subversive was done — would not have stamped the group itself as one in which membership is unlawful.
It is suggested that in a prosecution under the Smith Act the Government might be able to convince a jury that *352Singer’s Communist Party group was not what he said it was but actually ad-voeated overthrow of government by force. Of course that is possible, if the Government could unearth evidence not shown or suggested in the record before us. Singer subjected himself to the danger of that possibility by his voluntary disclosure that he had been a member of the group.
But the question is not whether the Government might conceivably be able to prove, by evidence now unknown, that Singer’s group itself actually was subversive. Rather, the question is, jyifflld Singer have..subjectedJffinself. to in■creased.....danger of prosecution by admitting the nine hard-core. .Communists I had attended meetings of his soft-core group? The answer must be in the negative because, as we have said, the silent presence at the meetings of some hardcore Communists would not have stamped the whole group as a society, group, or assembly of the sort described and denounced in the Smith Act. Even the ■silent presence of the one hard-core individual who had been accused of con.spiring against Massachusetts could not have that effect.
It cannot be that Singer, having identi-tied himself as a member of the Communist Party group, could properly refuse to say whether other named Communists attended its meetings, simply ibecause it is conceivable that later the Government might somehow^ obtain evi-.de^e"shbwlng'the"whole;_group was in fast, subversive. If that were true, any witness before the Un-American Activities Committee could refuse to answer any question merely because he might in the future be convicted of a Smith Act violation on evidence quite unrelated to the question asked.
The case before us is closely analogous to the case of Rogers v. United States, 1951, 340 U.S. 367, 71 S.Ct. 438, 95 L.Ed. 344, where the Supreme Court held that, having testified she had been treasiurer of the Communist Party in Denver, the witness was not protected by the Fifth Amendment in refusing to give the name of her successor to whom she tum-ed over the Party papers. Said the Court, “[Disclosure of acquaintance with her successor presents no more than a ‘mere imaginary possibility’ of inereas-ing the danger of prosecution.” 340 U.S. at pages 374-375, 71 S.Ct. at page 443. So it is here. Singer’s Fifth Amendment plea was properly rejected by the District Court. The other points he makes on appeal do not require discussion.
Affirmed,

. H.R.Res. No. 538, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. (1954).

. Section 192 is as follows:
“Every person who having been summoned as a witness by the authority of either House of Congress to give testimony or to produce papers upon any matter under inquiry before either House, or any joint committee established by a joint or concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress, or any committee of either House of Congress, willfully makes default, or who, having appeared, refuses to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000 nor less than $100, and imprisonment in a common jail for not less than one month nor more than twelve months.” § 192.

. Probably written inadvertently for “hard-core.” The term is not defined.