Court Opinion

ID: 9426847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:05.483467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:03.431628
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
The First Amendment protects the individual’s right to speak and to believe in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience. But if he believes in peace at any price and speaks out against a strong military, the President may decide not to nominate him for the office of Secretary of Defense. If he already occupies a comparable policymaking office, the President may remove him as a result of his exercise of First Amendment rights. The fact that the Constitution protects the exercise of the right does not mean that it also protects the speaker’s “right” to hold high public office.1
The Fifth Amendment protects the individual’s right to remain silent. The central purpose of the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination is to avoid unfair criminal trials. It is an expression of our conviction that the defendant in a criminal case must be presumed innocent, and that the State has the burden of proving guilt without resorting to an inquisition of the accused.2
*811Just as constitutionally protected speech may disclose a valid reason for terminating the speaker’s employment, so may constitutionally protected silence provide a valid reason for refusing or terminating employment in certain sensitive public positions. Thus a person nominated to an office which may not be filled without the consent of the Senate could exercise his right not to incriminate himself during questioning by a Senate committee, but no one would doubt the Senate’s constitutional power to withhold its consent for that very reason. Nor can there be any doubt concerning the President’s power to discharge any White House aide who might assert his Fifth Amendment privilege in response to a charge that he had used his office to conceal wrongdoing or to solicit illegal campaign contributions.
I see no reason why there should be any greater doubt concerning a state governor’s power to discharge an appointed member of his personal staff who asserts his Fifth Amendment privilege before a grand jury investigating accusations of influence peddling in state government.3 And since a constitutional limitation on the power of the “government,” see ante, at 806, applies equally to the legislature and the executive, a statutory restriction is no more objectionable than an executive order.
My comments thus far have related to policymaking officials who seek or occupy positions which have no exact counterpart in the private sector of the economy. In our democracy, their power to govern is ultimately derived from, and dependent upon, the sanction of the citizenry they serve. *812Their performance in office not only must satisfy high standards of competence and efficiency but must also inspire confidence in the integrity of their leadership.4 For that reason, conditions may appropriately be attached to the holding of high public office that would be entirely inappropriate for the vast majority of government employees whose work is not significantly different from that performed in the private sector.5
The Court has decided in the past that workers such as sanitation men employed by a state-chartered municipality may not be threatened with the loss of their livelihood in order to compel them to waive their privilege against self-incrimination.6 Neither that decision, nor any in its line,7 controls this case. For rules which protect the rights of government workers whose jobs are not fundamentally different from positions in other areas of society are not automatically applicable to policymaking officials of government.8
*813Appellee Cunningham (hereinafter appellee) is a policymaking official occupying a sensitive position in the government of the State of New York. He is chairman of the State Democratic Committee and of the Bronx County Democratic Executive Committee. By virtue of holding those party positions he performs several important statutory offices for the State of New York.9 If “heed is to be given to the realities of political life, [he is one of] the instruments by which government becomes a living thing.” Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73, 84. The leaders of a major political party “are not acting in matters of merely private concern like the directors or agents of business corporations. They are acting in matters of high public interest, matters intimately connected with the capacity of government to exercise its functions unbrokenly and smoothly.” Id., at 88.
The State has a legitimate interest, not only in preventing actual corruption, but also in avoiding the appearance of corruption10 among those it favors with sensitive, policy-making office. If such a person wishes to exercise his constitutional right to remain silent and refuses to waive his privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, I see no rea*814son why the State should not have the power to remove him from office.11
I recognize that procedures are available by which the State may compel any of its employees to render an accounting of his or her office in exchange for a grant of immunity.12 *815But the availability of that alternative does not require us to conclude that our highest public officers may refuse to respond to legitimate inquiries and remain in office unless they are first granted immunity from criminal prosecution. The Fifth Amendment does not require the State to pay such a price to effect the removal of an officer whose claim of privilege can only erode the public's confidence in its government.
The New York statute, if enforced, will require the state chairman to make a choice between silence and public service. Appellee was on notice on this possibility when he accepted his offices.13 He has an unquestioned constitutional right to choose either alternative. The choice may indeed be a difficult one for him to make. In constitutional terms, however, I see no difference between his choice and that confronted by many other public-spirited citizens who are at once asked to serve their country and to respond publicly to any suggestion of wrongdoing that may be advanced by any hostile or curious witness. The fact that such a choice may be difficult is not a reason for saying that the State has no power to require an officeholder or officeseeker to make it.
I respectfully dissent.

 It is often incorrectly assumed that whenever an individual right is sufficiently important to receive constitutional protection, that protection implicitly guarantees that the exercise of the right shall be cost free. Nothing could be further from the truth. The right to representation by counsel of one’s choice, for example, may require the defendant in a criminal case to pay a staggering price to employ the lawyer he selects. Insistence on a jury trial may increase the cost of defense. The right to send one’s children to a private school, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, may be exercised only by one prepared to pay the associated tuition cost.

 E. Griswold, The Fifth Amendment Today 1-8 (1955); L. Levy, Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self-Incrimination (1968); Pittman, The Colonial and Constitutional History of the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination in America, 21 Va. L. Rev. 763 (1935). The *811privilege has engendered a great deal of legal scholarship over the years. See Dean Griswold’s thoughtful review of the literature and of his own writings in The Right to be Let Alone, 55 Nw. U. L. Rev. 216 (1960). See also Friendly, The Fifth Amendment Tomorrow: The Case for Constitutional Change, 37 U. Cin. L. Rev. 671, 706-708 (1968).

 See, e. g., Scott v. Philadelphia Parking Auth., 402 Pa. 151, 154, 166 A. 2d 278, 280-281 (1960); Mitchell v. Chester Housing Auth., 389 Pa. 314, 328, 132 A. 2d 873, 880 (1957).

 Note, A Constitutional Analysis of the Spoils System, 57 Iowa L. Rev. 1320, 1321 n. 12 (1972); Note, 17 Vill. L. Rev. 750, 753-754 (1972); Note, 26 Vand. L. Rev. 1090, 1092 n. 12 (1973).
A line of cases in the Seventh Circuit has addressed the distinction between policymaking and nonpolicymaking state employees, Indiana State Employees Assn., Inc. v. Negley, 501 F. 2d 1239 (1974); Adams v. Walker, 492 F. 2d 1003, 1007 (1974); Illinois State Employees Union, Council 34 v. Lewis, 473 F. 2d 561, 574 (1972), cert. denied, 410 U. S. 928; Gould v. Walker, 356 F. Supp. 421 (ND Ill. 1973). See Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 570, and n. 3.

 See Orloff v. Willoughby, 345 U. S. 83, 90-92; Napolitano v. Ward, 457 F. 2d 279 (CA7 1972).

 Sanitation Men v. Sanitation Comm’r, 392 U. S. 280.

 Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U. S. 70; Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U. S. 273; Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U. S. 493.

 Cf. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U. S. 347, 367-368 (plurality opinion); Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U. S. 634, 642-643; United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 115, 122-123 (Douglas, J., dissenting in part); Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 240-241 (Brandeis, J. dissenting); Indiana State Employees Assn., Inc. v. Negley, supra; Mow Sun Wong v. *813Hampton, 500 F. 2d 1031, 1040 (CA9 1974), aff’d, 426 U. S. 88, 95-96; Leonard v. Douglas, 116 U. S. App. D. C. 136, 321 F. 2d 749 (1963).

 Appellee selects nominees for commissioner of the State Board of Elections which administers New York elections, N. Y. Elec. Law § 468 (McKinney Supp. 1976-1977). He has similar powers with respect to local election officers, §§31, 40, 45 (McKinney 1964). The committees he chairs have the power to designate candidates for office in party primary elections, § 131 (2), to fill vacancies which occur in the party slate in Bronx County, §§ 131, 140, and to nominate Democratic electors for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States, § 131 (1).

 See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 25-27. To the extent that it legitimizes the Government’s concern with the integrity of the election process, Buckley is particularly apposite here. The majority of the appellee’s statutory powers concern the administration and enforcement of New York’s election laws.

 Of course, it may not do so because it wishes to punish him for the exercise of his right, or as a substitute punishment for the crimes of which he might be suspected. But the State does have a legitimate interest in the integrity, and in the appearance of integrity, of those serving in its governing core. Cf. In re Daley, 549 F. 2d 469, 474-477 (CA7 1977).
Appellee’s removal from a statutorily recognized state political office does not deprive him of his right to associate for political reasons, see ante, at 807-808. The impact on this right is surely no more significant than the impact of the statute on his privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. For § 22 leaves appellee free to participate in Democratic Party political activities in all the capacities recognized as protected by our right-to-associate cases.
Nor does this case present the question whether the imposition of the five-year ban on holding state office contained in § 22 may be invalid as a penalty.

 The failure to tender immunity was the critical missing element which invalidated the discharges of the policeman in Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U. S. 273, and the sanitation men in Sanitation Men v. Sanitation Comm’r, 392 U. S. 280, 284-285:
“If appellant, a policeman, had refused to answer questions specifically, directly, and narrowfy relating to the performance of his official duties, without being required to waive his immunity with respect to the use of his answers or the fruits thereof in a criminal prosecution of himself, Garrity v. New Jersey, supra, the privilege against self-incrimination would not have been a bar to his dismissal.” Gardner v. Broderick, supra, at 278.
I recognize that Gardner v. Broderick and Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U. S. 493, make it clear that law enforcement officers are indistinguishable from other government employees as far as the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination is concerned. In view of the large measure of state power and public trust we grant our police, I am not sure that I would have joined those decisions. But extension of the largest measure of the Fifth Amendment privilege to the police does not require its further extension to this case. See supra, at 812 (text to n. 7).

 Section 22 was enacted in 1949, years before appellee gained his chairmanships.