Court Opinion

ID: 9446328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:52:24.092033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:37.135549
License: Public Domain

FAHY, Circuit Judge,
with whom EDGERTON, Chief Judge, and BAZE-LON, Circuit Judge, concur (dissenting).
When the case was here before, prior to the Watkins decision of the Supreme Court, I dissented on the ground that the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary had *415empowered a subcommittee consisting of a single member to do no more than to administer oaths and to take sworn testimony.1 This, I thought, did not authorize the subcommittee consisting of the Chairman alone to rule upon appellant’s objections to the production of documents called for by a subpoena duces tecum issued under authority of the parent Subcommittee. Contrary views prevailed in this court, after which the Supreme Court granted certiorari and remanded the case to us for reconsideration in the light of Watkins. 354 U.S. 929, 77 S.Ct. 1392, 1 L.Ed.2d 1533.
Under Watkins a delegation by Congress or by the Senate or the House of Representatives to an investigative committee must “spell out that group’s jurisdiction and purpose with sufficient particularity. Those instructions are embodied in the authorizing resolution. That document is the committee’s charter.” 354 U.S. at page 201, 77 S.Ct. at page 1186. There the Court was considering the question of the committee’s authorized scope of inquiry as it bore upon the pertinency of questions asked a witness. But the force of Watkins cannot be confined to issues of pertinency. Watkins requires as well clarity and certainty in the delegation of whatever power is sought to be exercised to compel obedience by a witness on pain of punishment for crime for not obeying. In that light Watkins fortifies the basis of my previous dissent. The charter here was the resolution of the parent Subcommittee delegating specified authority to) a one-member subcommittee. To repeat, this subcommittee, before whom appellant appeared, was given authority only to administer oaths and to take sworn testimony. Its charter is expressed only in those terms. The broader authority claimed is not to be implied. Moreover, the reason for the particular character of the limited delegation is known. It was to avoid the defense of no quorum, that is, of no competent tribunal, in event a witness were prosecuted for perjury for testimony given under oath before a single member. See Christoffel v. United States, 338 U.S. 84, 69 S.Ct. 1447, 93 L. Ed. 1826. This purpose was accomplished by constituting one member a quorum to administer oaths and to take sworn testimony.
Like considerations fortify the dissenting opinion of Chief Judge Edgerton, in which Judge Bazelon concurred, when the case was here before. The Chief Judge stated,
“Appellant was entitled, and in effect asked, to have his objection to the subpoena considered by ‘this committee’, i. e. the subcommittee. It was not so considered. Under Senate rules, the chairman was a quorum ‘for the purpose of administering oaths and taking sworn testimony’, but he was not a quorum for other purposes.”
98 U.S.App.D.C. 324, 334, 235 F.2d 821, 831. “Other purposes” would include consideration of and decision upon appellant’s repeated requests that he be not required to produce the membership lists called for by the subpoena duces tecum.
For these reasons I think the judgment of conviction should be reversed and the appellant discharged.
EDGERTON, Chief Judge, and BAZELON, Circuit Judge.
*416Besides joining fully with Judge Fahy, we think the conviction should be reversed for the additional reason stated in our former dissent. 98 U.S.App.D.C. 324, 333, 235 F.2d 821, 830.

. Tr. 45-56. This action was in accordance with S.Res. 366, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., the resolution to which the Internal Security Subcommittee owes its authority. This resolution provides :
A majority of the members of the [Judiciary] committee, or duly authorized subcommittee thereof, shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business, except that a lesser number, to be fixed by the committee, or by such subcommittee, shall constitute a quorum for the purpose of administering oaths and fating sworn testimony.
96 Cong.Rec. 16872 (1950). See my dissent in Sacher v. United States, 102 U.S. App.D.C. 273, 252 F,2d 837, note 1.