Court Opinion

ID: 9450833
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:59:16.622506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:28.516836
License: Public Domain

BURGER, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I concur in the result reached because reversal is required under the holding of the Supreme Court’s Yellin decision and our own Shelton decision, since Appellant cannot be held to have known that the subpoena was unauthorized when he responded to it. As Í read the majority opinion this ground would be unavailable to Liveright if the record revealed facts sufficient to have charged him with knowledge of the infirmity of the subpoena, since he made no timely objection.
Were the present question here for the first time I should indeed hesitate before deciding that a Congressional Resolution relating to the internal workings of its own committees confers enforceable rights on witnesses called before such committees. These resolutions are addressed by the Congress to its own membership for their own internal functioning. However, I am bound to apply these precedents so recently reaffirmed by this court. Shelton v. United States, 117 U.S.App.D.C. 155, 327 F.2d 601 (1963). But I now doubt the wisdom of our going to such lengths to achieve a desired end and to avoid resolution of constitutional questions posed by the conflict between Congress’ right to inquire and a person’s right to be left alone. To see that this is our announced purpose for reading Congressional Resolutions as vesting rights in witnesses, rather than finding what rights the Constitution provides in the circumstances, one need only scan the line of cases in the past ten years. See, e.g., Shelton v. United States, supra. Neither the occasional abuse of the congressional power of investigation nor the neglect of it at times can alter the hard fact that Congress cannot legislate without information. Sooner or later Congress may be expected to refine its procedures and internal restraints beyond the point where judges *477can find fault. To me it would make more sense to face the constitutional questions than to indulge in the strained rationalizations which underlie much of the law in this field.