Court Opinion

ID: 9425256
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:12.665748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:54.341009
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
dissenting.
Appellant, indicted for carrying a dangerous weapon in violation of D. C. Code Ann. § 22-3204, was tried and convicted in the Superior Court of the District of Co*411lumbia, an Art. I court created by Congress1 under the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 473. His timely objection is that he was tried, convicted, and sentenced by a court not established under Art. III.
The judges of the court that convicted him
—hold office for a term of fifteen years,2 not for life as do Art. Ill judges;
—unlike Art. Ill judges,3 their salaries are not protected from diminishment during their continuance in office;
—unlike Art. Ill judges, they can be removed from office by a five-member Commission4 through *412less formidable means of procedure than impeachment. While two of the five members must be lawyers (one a member of the District Bar in active practice for at least five of the ten years prior to his appointment and one an active or retired federal judge serving in the District) the other three may be laymen. One of the three must be a layman. D. C. Code Ann. § 11-1522 (Supp. V, 1972).
In other words, these Superior Court judges are not members of the independent judiciary which has been one of our proudest boasts, by reason of Art. III. The safeguards accorded Art. Ill judges were designed to protect litigants with unpopular or minority causes or litigants who belong to despised or suspect classes. The safeguards surround the judge and give him a measure of protection against the hostile press, the leftist or rightist demands of the party in power, the glowering looks of those in the top echelon in whose hands rest the power of reappointment.
In the Constitutional Convention of 1787 it was proposed that judges “may be removed by the Executive on the application by the Senate and House of Represent*413atives.” The proposal was defeated, only Connecticut voting for it. Wilson apparently expressed the common sentiment: “The Judges would be in a bad situation if made to depend on any gust of faction which might prevail in the two branches of our Government.” 5
Without the independence granted and enjoyed by Art. Ill judges, a federal judge could more easily become the tool of a ravenous Executive Branch. This idea was reflected in Reports by Congress in 1965 and 1966,6 sponsoring a law that would give lifetime tenure to federal judges in Puerto Rico. The House Report stated: 7
“. . . Federal litigants in Puerto Rico should not be denied the benefit of judges made independent by life tenure from the pressures of those who might influence his chances of reappointment, which benefits the Constitution guarantees to the litigants in all other Federal courts.”
Art. I, § 8, cl. 17, of the Constitution provides: “The Congress shall have Power ... To exercise exclusive Legislation . . . over such District ... as may . . . become the Seat of the Government of the United States . . . .” This legislative power is plenary, giving Congress authority to establish the method by which the District of Columbia will be governed, and to alter from time to time the form of that government. District of Columbia v. Thompson Co., 346 U. S. 100, 104-110.
Legislative courts may be given executive and administrative duties, the examples being well known. But if they are given “judicial Power,” as are the judges of the *414present Superior Court of the District, those trials have guarantees that are prescribed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. First, as to jury trial, Art. Ill says: “The Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be by Jury.” But trial by jury is also guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment in all criminal prosecutions. Even Mr. Justice McReynolds and Mr. Justice Butler, not known as libertarians, thought “all” meant “all,” not permitting the exclusions of so-called “petty” offenses. District of Columbia v. Clawans, 300 U. S. 617, 633. Congress may not deprive an accused of that protection in a District of Columbia trial. District of Columbia v. Colts, 282 U. S. 63, 74; Callan v. Wilson, 127 U. S. 540.
The Fifth Amendment provides for the right to indictment; and Congress may not dispense with that right for a local criminal offense in the District of Columbia. United States v. Moreland, 258 U. S. 433.
The Sixth Amendment's guarantee extends to speedy and public trials, the right of confrontation, compulsory process and the assistance of counsel “[i]n all criminal prosecutions.”
The Fifth Amendment guarantees one against double jeopardy and gives the privilege against self-incrimination “in any criminal case,” and guarantees that no one shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . .”
The Eighth Amendment says that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Few, if any, of these guarantees, I assume, would be applicable to Art. I tribunals exercising legislative or *415administrative functions. But are any of them inapplicable in criminal prosecutions where the “judicial Power” of the United States is exercised?
I have been unable to see how that is possible. Yet if those aspects of “judicial Power,” as the term is used in Art. Ill, are all applicable, how can the requirements for an independent judiciary be made an exception? For it is as clearly required by Art. Ill for any exercise of “judicial Power” as are the other guarantees.
The legislative history of the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970 makes abundantly clear that one main purpose was the creation of some political leverage over Superior Court judges. As the Senate Report states:
“In drafting the tenure provision of the amended bill, the committee was conscious both of the inexactness of the art of judicial selection and of the importance of tenure in attracting the most competent men to the bench. The committee recognized that the constitutional requirement of 'good behavior’ tenure has played a significant role in the historic high quality of the Federal bench. On the other hand, the committee was aware that virtually no State has provided such tenure for its judges, an apparent recognition that the opportunity to review the quality of a judge’s performance also has its obvious advantages. The committee, therefore, sought a tenure provision that would combine the attractiveness of the federal system with the opportunity for some review of the judge’s work.
“At present, the only means available to rid the local bench of a sick or venal judge is through the process of impeachment by the House of Repre*416sentatives and trial by the U. S. Senate. To believe that the Congress at this time in our history has the time to police the local judiciary through the impeachment process is just not realistic. That process has not even proven viable when the conduct of Federal, good-behavior tenure judges is drawn into question.” S. Rep. No. 91-405, pp. 8, 11.
In O’Donoghue v. United States, 289 U. S. 516, the Court held unconstitutional an Act of Congress reducing the salaries of trial and appellate judges in the District of Columbia. It held that inherent in the separation of powers was the idea that “the acts of each shall never be controlled by, or subjected, directly or indirectly, to, the coercive influence of either of the other departments.” Id., at 530. Since the District was formed of portions of two of the original States, the Court concluded it was “not reasonable to assume that the cession stripped them of these [rights, guarantees, and immunities of the Constitution], and that it was intended that at the very seat of the national government the people should be less fortified by the guaranty of an independent judiciary than in other parts of the Union.” Id., at 540. The Court concluded that while Congress could not confer administrative or legislative functions on Art. Ill courts, it could grant such functions to District courts by reason of Art. I. Id., at 546. But that power, it held, may not be used “to destroy the operative effect of the judicial clause within the District.” Ibid. The present Act does precisely that. Hence today we make a major retreat from O’Donoghue.
Much is made of the fact that many States (about three-fourths of them) have their judges at all levels elected by the people. That was one of the basic Jacksonian principles. But the principle governing federal *417judges is strongly opposed.8 Hamilton stated the proposition in No. 79 of the Federalist (J. Cooke ed. 1961):
“Next to permanency in office, nothing can contribute more to the independence of the judges than a fixed provision for their support. The remark made in relation to the president, is equally applicable here. In the general course of human nature, a power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will. And we can never hope to see realised in practice the complete separation of the judicial from the legislative power, in any system, which leaves the former dependent for pecuniary resources on the occasional grants of the latter. The enlightened friends to good government, in every state, have seen cause to lament the want of precise and explicit precautions in the state constitutions on this head. Some of these indeed have declared that permanent salaries should be established for the judges; but the experiment has in some instances *418shewn that such expressions are not sufficiently definite to preclude legislative evasions. Something still more positive and unequivocal has been evinced to be requisite. The plan of the convention accordingly has provided, that the judges of the United States 'shall at stated times receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.’
''This, all circumstances considered, is the most eligible provision that could have been devised. It will readily be understood, that the fluctuations in the value of money, and in the state of society, rendered a fixed rate of compensation in the constitution inadmissible. What might be extravagant to day, might in half a century become penurious and inadequate. It was therefore necessary to leave it to the discretion of the legislature to vary its provisions in conformity to the variations in circumstances; yet under such restrictions as to put it out of the power of that body to change the condition of the individual for the worse. A man may then be sure of the ground upon which he stands, and can never be deterred from his duty by the apprehension of being placed in a less eligible situation. The clause which has been quoted combines both advantages. The salaries of judicial offices may from time to time be altered, as occasion shall require, yet so as never to lessen the allowance with which any particular judge comes into office, in respect to him.”
That theory is opposed to the Jacksonian philosophy concerning election of state judges. But the present statutory scheme for control over Superior Court judges is even opposed to the Jacksonian theory. In the District of Columbia the people do not elect these Art. I *419judges. Nor do they “recall” them as is done in some States. The Superior Court judges are named by the President and confirmed by the Senate and they are removable by a commission appointed by the President. The Superior Court judge has no opportunity to put his problems, his conduct, his behavior on the bench to the people. The gun of the commission is held at his head. All of the normal vices of a dependent, removable judiciary are accentuated in the District of Columbia.
The matter of “law and order” naturally assumes in the minds of a majority of the people in the District an acute and special problem. A minority, however, sits as overlord, causing tensions to mount. The case of Harry Alexander, a judge on the Superior Court, has become prominent. Great pressures have been put on him to conform — or else. The problem goes not only to the viability of life in the District but to the vitality of the guarantees in Art. III and in the Bill of Rights. Those guarantees run to every “person”; and the judges on the Art. III courts who sit in the District dispense justice evenly and never undertake to ration it. But some judges, like the Bill of Rights, are in the minds of some a threat to our security.
They, however, insure our security by administering justice evenhandedly. The ideals of Art. III and the Bill of Rights provide the mucilage which holds majorities and minorities together in the federal segment of our Nation, and make tolerable the existence of nonconformists who do not walk to the measure of the beat of the Chief Drummer.
We take a great step backward today when we deprive our federal regime in the District of that judicial independence which helps insure fearless and evenhanded dispensation of justice. No federal court exercising Art. Ill judicial power should be made a minion of any cabal that from accidents of politics comes into the ascendancy *420as an overlord of the District of Columbia. That effort unhappily succeeds today and is in disregard of one of our most cherished constitutional provisions.
As Mr. Justice Black and I put it in our dissent in Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U. S. 530, 589, 598, the essential problem in dealing with a “judicial” function exercised by an Art. I court concerns the standards and procedures employed. If the power exercised is “judicial power” defined in Art. Ill, as was true in the present case, then the standards and procedures must conform to Art. III, one of which is an independent judiciary.
There have been many proposals in our history that are kin to those approved today; and the important ones are reviewed by Prof. Kurland.9 To date efforts to tamper with the federal judiciary have not been successful, unless it be the bizarre decision of this Court in Chandler v. Judicial Council, 382 U. S. 1003, 1004, in which Mr. Justice Black and I dissented. The States, of course, have mostly gone the other way.10 But as Prof. Kurland observed:11
“[T]he various devices that the States have recently adopted for policing their judiciaries are little more than polite blackmail, suggestions that the bar is unhappy with the judge’s behavior and he’d better shape up or else. I shudder to think how [easily] the federal courts might have been deprived of the *421services of Judge Learned Hand under such a system as California’s. For politeness to counsel and a willingness to tolerate fools gladly were not among his virtues, and it is only such virtues and that of regular attendance at the court house that the policing systems seem capable of evoking from timid judges.”
The way to achieve what is done today is by constitutional amendment. President Andrew Johnson in 1868 said:12
“It is strongly impressed on my mind that the tenure of office by the judiciary of the United States during good behavior for life is incompatible with the spirit of republican government, and in this opinion I am fully sustained by the evidence of popular judgment upon this subject in the different States of the Union.
“I therefore deem it my duty to recommend an amendment to the Constitution by which the terms of the judicial officers would be limited to a period of years, and I herewith present it in the hope that Congress will submit it to the people for their decision.”
Manipulated judiciaries are common across the world, especially in communist and fascist nations. The faith in freedom which we profess and which is opposed to those ideologies assumes today an ominous cast. It is ominous because it indirectly associates the causes of crime with the Bill of Rights rather than with the sociological factors of poverty caused by unemployment and disemployment, the abrasive political tactics used *422against minorities, the blight of narcotics and the like. Those who hold the gun at the heads of Superior Court judges can retaliate against those who respect the spirit of the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment and who stand firmly against the ancient practice of using the third degree to get confessions and who fervently believe that the end does not justify the means.
I would reverse the judgment below.

 D. C. Code Ann. § 11-101 (Supp. V, 1972) provides, “The judicial power in the District of Columbia is vested in . . . (2) The following District of Columbia courts established pursuant to article I of the Constitution: (A) The District of Columbia Court of Appeals. (B) The Superior Court of the District of Columbia.”

 D. C. Code Ann. § 11-1502 (Supp. V, 1972).

 By Art. III, § 1, federal judges “hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.”

 A Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure is established with the power “to suspend, retire, or remove” one of these judges. D. C. Code Ann. § 11-1521 (Supp. V, 1972). The President names three members, the Commissioner of the District names one, and the Chief Judge of the District Court names the fifth. There are three alternate members. The President names the Chairman. Id., § 11-1522. All members are appointed for a term of six years. Id., § 11-1523. A judge must be removed if he has committed a felony and been finally convicted. Id., § 11-1526 (a)(1). He shall be removed if the Commission finds
“(A) willful misconduct in office,
“(B) willful and persistent failure to perform judicial duties, or
“(C) any other conduct which is prejudicial to the administration of justice or which brings the judicial office into disrepute.” Ibid.
He shall be involuntarily retired if “(1) the Commission deter*412mines that the judge suffers from a mental or physical disability (including habitual intemperance) which is or is likely to become permanent and which prevents, or seriously interferes with, the proper performance of his judicial duties, and (2) the Commission files in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals an order of involuntary retirement and the order is affirmed on appeal or the time within which an appeal may be taken from the order has expired.” Id., § 11-1526 (b).
The Act also contains elaborate provisions for the suspension of the judge without salary, or with retirement salary, or with salary dependent on the circumstances described in §§ 11-1526 (c)(1), (2), and (3). The Act contains the procedure which the Commission must follow and the notice and hearing to which the judge is entitled. Id., § 11-1527.

 Madison, 2 Journal of the Federal Convention 257 (G. Hunt ed. 1908).

 H. R. Rep. No. 135, 89th Cong., 1st Sess.; S. Rep. No. 1504, 89th Cong., 2d Sess.

 H. R. Rep. No. 135, supra, n. 6, at 2.

 See Brown, The Rent in Our Judicial Armor, 10 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 127 (1941); Hyde, Judges: Their Selection and Tenure, 22 N. Y. U. L. Q. Rev. 389 (1947); E. Haynes, Selection and Tenure of Judges (1944); Kurland, The Constitution and the Tenure of Federal Judges: Some Notes from History, 36 U. Chi. L. Rev. 666 (1969).
James Bryce, writing in 1888, said: “Any one of the three phenomena I have described — popular elections, short terms, and small salaries — would be sufficient to lower the character of the judiciary. Popular elections throw the choice into the hands of political parties, that is to say, of knots of wirepullers inclined to use every office as a means of rewarding political services, and garrisoning with grateful partisans posts which may conceivably become of political importance. Short terms . . . oblige the judge to remember and keep on good terms with those who have made him what he is, and in whose hands his fortunes lie. They induce timidity, they discourage independence.” 1 American Commonwealth, c. 42, p. 507 (3d ed. 1905).

 Kurland, supra, n. 8.

 The California system is discussed by Jack E. Erankel, Executive Secretary of the California Commission On Judicial Qualifications, in Removal of Judges: California Tackles an Old Problem, 49 A. B. A. J. 166 (1963). Mr. Frankel was quoted with approval in the Senate Report proposing the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970. S. Rep. No. 91-405, p. 11.

 Kurland, supra, n. 8, at 668.

 8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents 3841 (J. Richardson ed. 1897).