Court Opinion

ID: 9460512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:52:45.925925+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:39.256546
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I must express a most vigorous dissent to the majority’s judicial stamp of approval upon the egregious invasion of constitutional rights of privacy which their opinion authorizes. At a time when the courts are more and more being called upon to protect an individual’s character from being unnecessarily besmirched, when much is being said and written about prison rehabilitation, I am amazed that any court should countenance — much less authorize — the curiosity satisfying efforts of three law school students who, merely to write a Law Review note, would pry into and seek to disclose the former transgressions of Air Force cadets. This is not a case in which the courts can attempt to justify their interposition on the theory that Congress has failed to act and that, therefore, the courts must legislate. Here there is a definite statute of prohibition which the majority now overrides.
When an Air Force cadet is accused of lying, stealing or cheating at the Academy, he is protected by the greatest possible confidentiality. This may arise in part from the fact that this charge has been made possible by the principle of toleration which in grammar schoolyard parlance means “tattletale” or as phrased in the record as “The backbone of the Honor Code is the toleration clause which requires that every cadet report any suspected violation of the Code” (App. 120). Thus, not only must the cadet be protected but also the non-tolerator (tattler).
The hearings, as would be expected, are as sacrosanct as are (or should be) jury room proceedings, namely, “all matters discussed at the hearing are confidential and should not be discussed outside the room with anyone other than an Honor Representative” (App. 164-65). The summaries of each case are kept confidentially restricted except in a small area.
In passing the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, Congress carefully and specifically excluded from public gaze:
(6) personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy
If doctor-patient files are protected, how much the more should files dealing with quasi-criminal or possible charac*271ter-besmirching facts to be kept secret. The disclosure of disease, be it venereal or mental, can be remedied or cured. The drawing of a bar sinister across the escutcheon of a young man entering upon his life’s career, cannot be erased.
The Air Force officials, mindful of their duty to protect their cadets, responded in a manner which should have received the highest judicial commendation instead of disapproval. The Academy’s Honor and Ethics Executive, in rejecting plaintiffs’ request for the case summaries, stated:
I regret that Academy policy requires denial of public access to honor case files, including selected ones in the Honor Code Reading Files. All of these cases are documented as ‘For Official Use Only’ and are disseminated for internal use only to the Honor Representatives and those few staff personnel who have a continuing need to understand the workings of the Cadet Honor Code. It would be in poor faith with all cadets who have met honor hearings to allow their cases to come into the public eye. To permit the use of honor cases for such purpose would tend to set a precedent that may operate to the detriment of innocent persons.
To be accused or found guilty of an honor violation is an emotionally trying experience that should, in due respect for the rights of the individual concerned, be as limited as possible. Society in general does not understand the difference in the lying, cheating and stealing that constitutes a Cadet Honor violation as opposed to the degree of criminality required in society at large to cause an equally serious type of censor [sic: censure]. The problems of such misunderstanding and the unnecessary embarrassment that could result seems to exceed the value to be gained from making the case files available to the public.
In denying the request, the Commandant of Cadets stated (App. 30):
The Air Force Academy will be unable to provide you sample ethics cases. The sample ethics cases used in the Honor Code Reading File are designated ‘For Official Use Only’. It is intended that these cases will be used for the edification of the Cadet Wing and Academy staff only. Indiscriminate release of this information to persons without a need to know could be counter to the best interest of the individuals concerned and the Air Force Academy.
When the request reached the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, the futility of any attempted deletion was pointed out in the statement (App. 35):
A release of the honor hearing eases and ethics cases would constitute an unwarranted invasion into the privacy of former cadets of the Academy. Some cases may be recognized by the reader by the circumstances alone without the identity of the cadet given. This being the case then the reader could easily connect the incident with the particular cadet involved. Additionally, they are internal documents which are not meant for mass circulation. They are stamped ‘For Official Use Only’ and are afforded subscribed routing and handling procedures.
The reasons for confidentiality and non-disclosure cannot be better summarized than by the Commandant’s Executive for Honor and Ethics, who stated:
There is no way of determining just how these facts will or could be used. This data could find its way to the relatives, friends and classmates of cadets and supply the missing link in disclosing the identity of a guilty cadet. No person who has made a mistake and been punished should have to have this mistake follow him for the rest of his life.
And, indeed, merely to satisfy the desire of plaintiffs to write a Law Review note, no court should aid and abet a project which could result in having a *272cadet’s “mistake follow him for the rest of his life.” (App. 211a).
Deletion of names suggested by the majority would be of no avail. In addition to names, identifiable facts would have to be eliminated. Eliminating all determinative essentials would only create a hypothetical situation.
As the Commandant of Cadets so logically explained:
The use of these case files or write-ups, even if the identity of the individual were not given, could still be an invasion of privacy as the incident may have been so notorious that the reader would immediately recognize the cadet who was the subject of the Honor or Ethics Hearing. In certain instances, the Cadet Wing has given the Honor Committee the prerogative to grant discretion to a cadet who has been voted guilty and to allow him to return to the Cadet Wing. The man who has learned his life-long lesson of honor can be a great asset to the Wing and to the Air Force. His retention is therefore not only justified; it is desired. . . . Therefore, every effort is made to avoid disclosure of the cadet’s name so that he may return to the Wing unblemished to continue his education.
The majority recognize that their decision even with anonymous disclosure “could expose the formerly accused men to lifelong embarrassment, perhaps disgrace, as well as practical disabilities, such as loss of employment or friends.” These accused cadets are the real parties in interest; yet, as the majority concedes, “none of the parties to this lawsuit is committed first and foremost to tlie interests of affected cadets.” Even the unborn child is in many situations entitled to his (or her) guardian ad li-tem and Gideon1 was deemed to be entitled to be heard through counsel. But accused cadets are to be subjected to possible lifelong disgrace or loss of employment without any spokesman.
Of course, Congress never intended any such result. Nor does the Act so decree. Lest any implication to this effect might be gleaned therefrom, Congress wrote therein a specific prohibition against an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Consider briefly the majority’s suggested protection against “this potential for serious harm”. First, the Air Force must remove from all case summaries, estimated in open court as involving one hundred to two hundred summaries, all proper names. Then these nameless but not factless summaries are to be turned over to the District Court. There the majority are sure that “the combined skills of court and Agency, * * * will yield edited documents * * * sufficient * * * to safeguard affected persons in their legitimate claims of privacy.” But for what purpose and at what cost? The purpose is clear, i. e., to have the Air Force and the District Court co-author a student contribution to a legal periodical. Time cost is another matter. Assuming only one hundred and fifty summaries, vital name excision should be capable of accomplishment in ten minutes per summary — an inconsequential twenty-five hours. However, careful Court editing to eliminate identifying facts would be much more time-consuming. Seventy-five hours of Court time would be conservative. In these days when there is so much clamor about the desirability of speedy trials, I am unwilling to subscribe to, or acquiesce in, any opinion which saddles such a needless burden upon an important branch of our military forces and, in my opinion, an equally important judicial branch. Hence, I dissent.

. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 325, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1933).