Court Opinion

ID: 9426087
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:47.029576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.988784
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Stewart join, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court that the Speech or Debate Clause protects the actions of the Senate petitioners in this case from judicial interference, and that the House aspects of this case should be reconsidered by the District Court. As our cases have consistently held, however, the Speech or Debate Clause protects legislators and their confidential aides from suit; it does not immunize congressional action from judicial review. I write today only to emphasize that- the Speech or Debate Clause does not entirely immunize a congressional subpoena from challenge by a party not in a position to assert his constitutional rights by refusing to comply with it.
I
When the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security subpoenaed the records of the bank account of respondent USSF (hereinafter respondent), respondent brought this suit in the District of Columbia against the Members of the Subcommittee, its counsel, and the bank to declare invalid and restrain enforcement of the subpoena. Suit was brought in the District of Columbia because the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had held one week before in a suit against the same Subcommittee and its counsel that jurisdiction and venue lay only in the District of Columbia. Liberation News Service v. Eastland, 426 F. 2d 1379 (1970). Having sued in the District of Columbia, however, respondent found that it could not get proper service on the New York *514bank. Consequently, the only parties that it brought before the courts were the Senators and their counsel.
As the Court points out, the District Court properly entertained the action in order to provide a forum in which respondent could assert its constitutional objections to the subpoena, since a neutral third party could not be expected to resist the subpoena by placing itself in contempt. Ante, at 501 n. 14; see Perlman v. United States, 247 U. S. 7, 12 (1918); United States v. Doe, 455 F. 2d 753, 756-757 (CA1), vacated sub nom. Gravel v. United States, 408 U. S. 606 (1972); see also United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683, 691 (1974). But a court’s inquiry in such a setting is necessarily quite limited once defendants entitled to do so invoke the privilege of the Speech or Debate Clause, as was done here. If the Senators’ actions were within the “legitimate legislative, sphere,” the matter ends there and they are answerable no further to the court. If their counsel’s actions were in aid of that activity, then as a confidential employee of the Members, he is equally shielded from further judicial interference. Compare Gravel v. United States, supra, at 616-622, with Doe v. McMillan, 412 U. S. 306, 314-316 (1973).1
*515The Court applies this well-settled doctrine to the present case and holds that since the issuance of the subpoena fell within the sphere of legitimate legislative activity, the proceedings against the petitioners must come to an end. I do not read the Court to suggest, however, nor could I agree, that the constitutionality of a congressional subpoena is always shielded from more searching judicial inquiry. For, as the very cases on which the Court relies demonstrate, the protection of the Speech or Debate Clause is personal. It extends to Members and their counsel acting in a legislative capacity; it does not preclude judicial review of their decisions in an appropriate case, whether they take the form of legislation or a subpoena.
II
Modern legislatures, and particularly the Congress, may legislate on a wide range of subjects. In order to discharge this function, and their related informing function, they may genuinely need á great deal of information in the exclusive possession of persons who would not make it available except under the compulsion of a subpoena. When duly subpoenaed, however, such a person does not shed his constitutional right to withhold certain classes of information. If he refuses to testify or to produce documents and invokes a pertinent privilege, he still runs the risk that the legislature will cite' him for contempt.2 At trial he may defend on the basis of the constitutional right to withhold information from the legislature, and his right will be respected *516along with the legitimate needs of the legislature. As the Court said in Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S. 178, 188 (1957):
“The Bill of Rights is applicable to [congressional] 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.”
Accord. Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, 372 U. S. 539 (1963); see Quinn v. United States, 349 U. S. 155, 161 (1955); Reinstein & Silverglate, Legislative Privilege and the Separation of Powers, 86 Harv. L. Rev. 1113, 1173-1176 (1973).
The Speech or Debate Clause ■ cannot be used to avoid meaningful review of constitutional objections to a subpoena simply because the subpoena is served on a third party. Our prior cases arising under the Speech or Debate Clause indicate only that a Member of Congress or his aide may not be called upon to defend a subpoena against constitutional objection, and not that the objection will not be heard at all.
The privilege of the Speech or Debate Clause extends to Members of Congress when their action is “essential to legislating,” in order to assure the independence of the legislators and their freedom from vexatious and distracting litigation. See United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S. 169, 180-182 (1966); United States v. Brewster, 408 U. S. 501, 512 (1972). Further, “a Member and his aide are to be 'treated as one’ ” under the Clause, “insofar as the conduct of the latter would be a protected legislative act if performed by the Member himself.” Gravel v. United States, 408 U. S., at 616, 618. At the same time, however, the Speech or Debate Clause does not insulate *517legislative functionaries carrying out nonlegislative tasks. Doe v. McMillan, 412 U. S., at 315.
Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168 (1881), was an action to recover damages for false imprisonment. The Court held that the Speech or Debate Clause afforded the defendant Members of Congress a good defense since they had taken no part in Kilbourn’s arrest other than to vote that the Sergeant at Arms accomplish it. The Sergeant at Arms, however, was held to answer for carrying out their unconstitutional directive; and Kilbourn later recovered $20,000 from him. See Kilbourn v. Thompson, MacArth. & M. 401, 432 (Sup. Ct. D. C. 1883). The basis for the Court’s holding was not, however, as the Court seems at one point to suggest, ante, at 508, that the arrest was inessential to legislating. We have already twice observed that the “resolution authorizing Kilbourn’s arrest . . . was clearly legislative in nature. But the resolution was subject to judicial review insofar as its execution impinged on a citizen's rights as it did there. That the House could with impunity order an unconstitutional arrest afforded no protection for those who made the arrest.” Gravel, supra, at 618 (emphasis added); Doe v. McMillan, supra, at 315 n. 9.
This case does not present the questions of what would be the proper procedure, and who might be the proper parties defendant, in an effort to get before a court a constitutional challenge to a subpoena duces tecum issued to a third party.3 As respondent’s counsel conceded at oral argument, this case is at an end if the Senate peti*518tioners are upheld in their claim of immunity, as they must be.4

 Dombrowski v. Eastland, 387 U. S. 82 (1967), was a damages action against the same Chairman and Counsel Sourwine of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security, based on allegations of a conspiracy with state officials to violate the plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights. The Court distinguished between the Senator and counsel, remanding only the case involving the latter for trial because there was disputed evidence in the record giving “more than merely colorable substance” to the claims against him, id., at 84; the record contained no evidence of the Senator’s involvement in any activity that could give rise to liability. The Court noted that the doctrine of immunity for acts within the legislative sphere is “less absolute, although applicable, when applied to officers or employees of a legislative body, rather than to legislators themselves.” Id., at 85. In the present case, where counsel is alleged *515only to have joined with the Senators in causing the subpoena to be issued, we have no occasion to distinguish between Mr. Sourwine and the Senators.

 In the federal system, this is done by the appropriate chamber referring the matter to the United States Attorney for presentation to a grand jury, indictment, and trial in the federal courts. See 2 U. S. C. §§ 192-194.

 See the opinion below, 159 U. S. App. D. C. 352, 370, 488 F. 2d 1252, 1270 (1973); Liberation News Service v. Eastland, 426 F. 2d 1379, 1384 n. 10 (CA2 1970); cf. Stamler v. Willis, 415 F. 2d 1365, 1369 (CA7 1969).

 In the House aspects of this case, where the banks to which the subpoenas were directed are within the jurisdiction of the District Court, this would not necessarily be true if that court were to determine that the issues are not moot.