Court Opinion

ID: 9425327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:22.902964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:54.729763
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall join, concurring.
I agree with the Court that the issue tendered is justiciable, and that the complaint states a cause of action. Though I join the opinion of the Court, I amplify my own views as they touch on the merits.
I
Respondents, relying primarily on Gravel v. United States, 408 U. S. 606, urge that the report, concededly part and parcel of the legislative process, is immune from the purview of the courts under the Speech or Debate Clause of Art. I, § 6, of the Constitution.1 In Gravel we held that neither Senator Gravel nor his *326aides could be held accountable or questioned with respect to events occurring at the subcommittee hearing at which the Pentagon Papers were introduced into the public record. The immunity in that case attached to the Senator and his aides, and there is no intimation whatsoever that committee reports are sacrosanct from judicial scrutiny. In fact, the Court disclaimed any need to “address issues that may arise when Congress or either House, as distinguished from a single Member, orders the publication and/or public distribution of committee hearings, reports, or other materials.” 2 Id., at 626 n. 16.
“Legislative immunity does not, of course, bar all judicial review of legislative acts.” Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 503. “The purpose of the protection afforded legislators is not to forestall judicial review of legislative action but to insure that legislators are not distracted from or hindered in the performance of their legislative tasks by being called into court to defend their actions.” Id., at 505. This has been clear since Mr. Chief Justice Marshall’s seminal decision in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137. We always have recognized the “judicial power to determine the validity of legislative actions impinging on individual rights.” Gravel v. United States, supra, at 620.
In Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168, the Court’s first decision to consider the Speech or Debate Clause, the Court held unconstitutional a resolution of the House ordering the arrest of Kilbourn for refusing to honor a subpoena of a House investigating committee, since the House had no power to punish for contempt. Although the Court barred a claim for false imprisonment against Members of the House, it nevertheless *327reached the merits of Kilbourn’s claim and allowed an action against the House’s Sergeant at Arms, who had executed the warrant for Kilbourn’s arrest.
Dombrowski v. Eastland, 387 U. S. 82, involved suits for an injunction and for damages against a Senator who headed a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee and counsel to the subcommittee for wrongful and unlawful seizure of property in violation of the Fourth Amendment. We agreed that the complaint against the Senator must be dismissed because the record "does not contain evidence of his involvement in any activity that could result in liability.” Id., at 84. As respects counsel to the subcommittee we held, in reliance on Tenney v. Brandhove,, 341 U. S. 367, that the immunity granted by the Speech or Debate Clause “is less absolute, although applicable, when applied to officers or employees of a legislative body, rather than to legislators themselves.” 387 U. S., at 85. Accordingly, we remanded the case against counsel to the subcommittee for trial because there was “a sufficient factual dispute” to require a trial. Acts done in violation of the Fourth Amendment — like assaults with fists or clubs or guns — are outside the protective ambit of the Speech or Debate Clause; certainly violations of the Fourth Amendment are not within the scope of a legitimate legislative purpose.
A striking illustration of the same principle was stated in Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S. 178, 188: “The Bill of Rights is applicable to investigations as to all forms of governmental action. Witnesses cannot be compelled to give evidence against themselves. They cannot be subjected to unreasonable search and seizure. Nor can the First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, religion, or political belief and association be abridged.” And see Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U. S. 109, 153, 166 (dissenting opinions of Black and Beennan, JJ.). A witness subpoenaed to testify before a congressional *328committee may not be forced to reveal his beliefs. One’s conscience and thoughts are matters of privacy as is the whole array of one’s beliefs or values. And, as Watkins indicates, a witness refusing to so testify may not be punished for contempt. Violations of the commands of the First Amendment are not within the scope of a legitimate legislative purpose.
I cannot agree, then, that the question for us is “whether [public dissemination], simply because authorized by Congress, must always be considered 'an integral part of the deliberative and communicative processes by which Members participate in committee and House proceedings’ with respect to legislative or other matters before the House.” A legislator’s function in informing the public concerning matters before Congress or concerning the administration of Government is essential to maintaining our representative democracy. Unless we are to put blinders on our Congressmen and isolate them from their constituents, the informing function must be entitled to the same protection of the Speech or Debate Clause as those activities which relate directly and necessarily to the immediate function of legislating. See Gravel v. United States, supra, at 634-637 (Douglas, J., dissenting), id., at 649-662 (Brennan, J., dissenting). In my view the question to which we should direct our attention is whether the House Report infringes upon the constitutional rights of petitioners and therefore is subject to scrutiny by the federal courts.
1 — 1 hH
The House authorized its District Committee “to conduct a full and complete investigation and study of : . . (1) the organization, management, operation, and administration of any department or agency of the government of the District of Columbia; (2) the organization, management, operation, and administration of any independ*329ent agency or instrumentality of government operating solely in the District of Columbia.” 3
It was pursuant to this investigation and study that the report in effect brands certain named students as juvenile delinquents. As stated by Judge Wright in his dissent below:
“The material included in the Committee report is not, as the majority contends, merely 'somewhat derogatory.’ One disciplinary letter, for example, alleges that a specifically named child was 'involved in the loss of fifty cents’ and 'invited a male substitute to have sexual relations with her, gapping her legs open for enticement.’ Similar letters accused named children of disrespect, profanity, vandalism, assault and theft. Of the 29 test papers published in the report, 21 bore failing grades. Yet appellants seek only to prohibit use of the children’s names without their consent. They do not contest the propriety of the investigation generally, nor do they seek to enjoin the conclusions or text of the report. Indeed, they do not even challenge the right of Congress to examine and summarize the confidential material involved. They wish only to retain their anonymity.” 148 U. S. App. D. C. 280, 300, 459 F. 2d 1304, 1324.
We all should be painfully aware of the potentially devastating effects of congressional accusations. There are great stakes involved when officials condemn individuals by name. The age of technology has produced data banks into which all social security numbers go; and following those numbers go data in designated categories concerning the lives of members of our communities. Arrests go in, though many arrests are unconstitutional. Acts of juvenile delinquency are per*330manently recorded and they and other alleged misdeeds or indiscretions may be devastating to a person in later years when he has outgrown youthful indiscretions and is trying to launch a professional career or move into a position where steadfastness is required.
Congress, in naming the students without justification exceeded the “sphere of legitimate legislative activity.” Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S., at 376. There can be no question that the resolution authorizing the investigation and study expressed a legitimate legislative purpose. Nevertheless, neither the investigatory nor, indeed, the informing function of Congress authorizes any “congressional power to expose for the sake of exposure.” Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S., at 200. To the contrary, there is simply “no general authority to expose the private affairs of individuals without justification in terms of the functions of the Congress.” Id., at 187. The names of specific students were totally irrelevant to the purposes of the study. The functions of the Committee would have been served equally well if the students had remained anonymous.
It is true, of course, that members of Congress may, even in a case such as this, retain their immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause. But in this case, both the Public Printer and the Superintendent of Documents, official agencies entrusted by Congress with printing responsibilities, are named as defendants. And in the context of this case, such defendants may be held responsible for their actions. See Powell v. McCormack, supra; Dombrowski v. Eastland, supra; Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra.
At the very least petitioners are entitled to injunctive relief. The scope of the injunction and against whom it should operate only can be determined upon remand after a full hearing on the facts. We cannot say whether there is a threat of future public distribution or whether *331it will be feasible for any person subject to the equitable powers of the court to excise the students’ names from reports previously distributed. With respect to damages — that is, whether respondents, including the members of the District of Columbia Government if a valid claim is stated against them, are protected by the doctrine of official immunity as set forth in the opinion for the Court — I agree that it is a matter for the lower courts in the first instance.

 That Clause in relevant part provides:
“[A]nd for any Speech or Debate in either House, [Senators and Representatives] shall not be questioned in any other Place.”

 The Committee report was transmitted to the House by the Chairman of the Committee, was referred to the Calendar of the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, and was ordered to be printed.

 H. Res. 76, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 115 Cong. Rec. 2784.