Court Opinion

ID: 9423274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:06:53.5607+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:43.297797
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Stewart joins, dissenting.
The denial of certiorari in No. 245, Davis v. United States—where the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has already ordered a new trial on grounds wholly unrelated to alleged eavesdropping and at which trial petitioners will have a full opportunity to explore their contentions that the Government interfered with their constitutionally protected right to counsel — bears no solid relation to, still less furnishes justification for, what the Court has done in the present case. A brief statement of the circumstances of the Black disposition will reveal that in summarily vacating this final conviction and ordering a completely new trial the Court has acted prematurely.
*30In 1964, petitioner Black was convicted in the District Court of federal income tax violations. His conviction was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on November 10, 1965. 122 U. S. App. D. C. 347, 353 F. 2d 885. Certiorari was denied by this Court on May 2, 1966. 384 U. S. 927. Before Black’s petition for rehearing was filed here, the Solicitor General filed a memorandum bringing to the Court's attention the fact that in the course of an unrelated criminal investigation Black’s hotel suite had been “bugged” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and conversations between Black and his attorney electronically recorded. The Solicitor General further stated that in consequence of an investigation, instituted by him following his discovery of this occurrence, he was able to represent to the Court that none of the information so procured had been utilized in Black’s aforesaid prosecution. In a further memorandum, filed in compliance with a request from this Court, the Solicitor General has represented that it was not until late August 1965 that the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice learned that a listening device had been installed in Black’s hotel suite and not until April 21, 1966, that attorneys in the Tax Division, responsible for the prosecution, learned that any conversations between Black and his counsel had been overheard.
The Solicitor General recognizes that Black is entitled to a full exploration of the matter, and to that end suggests that the case be remanded to the District Court for a hearing and findings on the episode in question as it may bear on the validity of Black’s conviction. Black responds that this course is inadequate and contends that this Court should, without more, forthwith order dismissal of the indictment in this income tax prosecution.
Without anything more before it than the representations made by both sides, the Court today orders a totally *31new trial in spite of the fact that the disclosures com-xnendably made by the Solicitor General reveal no use of “bugged” material in Black’s prosecution, and no knowledge by prosecuting attorneys that material may have been improperly obtained. I agree, of course, that petitioner is entitled to a full-scale development of the facts, but I can see no valid reason why this unim-peached conviction should be vacated at this stage. In Davis, supra, exploration of the alleged eavesdropping episode is appropriate upon the retrial of the case since the original conviction has already fallen on other grounds. In the Black case, however, a new trial is not an appropriate vehicle for sorting out the eavesdropping issue because until it is determined that such occurrence vitiated the original conviction no basis for a retrial exists. The Court’s action puts the cart before the horse. The orderly procedure is to remand the case to the District Court for a hearing and findings on the issues in question. See United States v. Shotwell Mfg. Co., 355 U. S. 233. See also Remmer v. United States, 347 U. S. 227, 350 U. S. 377. Unless and until the facts on this issue have been resolved and their legal effect assessed favorably to petitioner, this conviction should remain undisturbed.
The only basis I can think of for justifying this decision is that any governmental activity of the kind here in question automatically vitiates, so as at least to require a new trial, any conviction occurring during the span of such activity. But I cannot believe that the Court, without even briefing or argument, intends to make any such sweeping innovation in the federal criminal law by today’s peremptory disposition of this case.