Linus C. PAULING et al., Appellants, v. Robert S. MCNAMARA et al., Appellees.
No. 17797.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued Nov. 15, 1963. Decided Dec. 23, 1963.
Petition for Rehearing En Banc Denied Jan. 23, 1964.
Certiorari Denied May 18, 1964. See 84 S.Ct. 1336.
Cases such as United States v. Provoo, Taylor v. United States, United States v. McWilliams, and United States v. Chase, cited by appellant, are not applicable here, because the delays involved in those cases wеre attributable to the prosecution.” King v. United States, 105 U.S. App.D.C. 193, 194, 195, 265 F.2d 567, 568, 569 (1959), cert. denied, 359 U.S. 998 [79 S.Ct. 1124, 3 L.Ed.2d 986] (1959). This implies that if the delays involved in the King case had been attributable to the prosecution they would have raised a serious constitutional question. Since the delays in the present case are attributable to the prosecution and in other respects are similar to those in King, that question is before us.
“We answer the constitutional question in favor оf the appellant and do not reach his other contentions. Because his right to a speedy trial was denied, the judgment of conviction must be vacated and the indictment dismissed.”
FAHY, Circuit Judge (dissenting).
The opinion of the division оf the court which decided this case August 15, 1963, reversing because of the view that appellant had been denied his right to a speedy trial, and directing the dismissal of the indictment, was limited to the facts of the case and laid down no general principle applicable to other cases involving the right to a speedy trial. For this reason I think the granting by the court of the petition for rehearing en banc was improvident. I would therefore vacate the order granting rehearing en banc so that the opinion of the division, rendered August 15, 1963, would be reinstated with judgment in accord therewith.
Mr. John C. Eldridge, Attorney, Department of Justice, for appellees. Asst. Atty. Gen. John W. Douglas, Messrs. David C. Acheson, U. S. Atty., Sherman L. Cohn and David J. McCarthy, Jr., Attorneys, Department of Justice, were оn the brief for appellees. Mr. Morton Hollander, Attorney, Department of Justice, also entered an appearance for appellees.
Miss Marie S. Klooz, Washington, D. C., filed a brief on behаlf of Austrian Pacifist Union, et al., as amici curiae, urging reversal.
Before BAZELON, Chief Judge, and BASTIAN and BURGER, Circuit Judges.
BURGER, Circuit Judge.
This appeal presents, for the second time in less than three years, an effort to enlist judicial power tо stop all nuclear testing, including underground tests.
The complaint1 filed by appellants sought a declaratory judgment to restrain and enjoin the Secretary of Defense and the members of the Atomic Energy Commission from detonating аny nuclear weapons that produce radiation or radioactive atomic nuclei or alternatively to issue such injunction effective only when, and if, a similar injunction is issued by the Supreme Court of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from which, it is alleged, similar relief is being sought.
The District Court granted appellee‘s motion to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that (1) plaintiffs had no standing to sue; (2) the complaint failеd to state a justiciable controversy, (3) the actions and powers challenged were plainly authorized by law and the Constitution, and (4) the holding of the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the
The District Court was plainly correct on all points.
In light of the historic limits on judicial power vis-a-vis the other coordinate branches of government and especially in light of our prior clear holding that a claim such as now asserted presents no justiciable controversy,2 it is difficult to escape an impression that the appellants, no matter what their motives, may be more interested in exploiting the judicial process as an implement of propaganda than in securing any judicial mandates that could conceivably be anticipated.
As recently as 1950 Mr. Justice Frankfurter restated in very broad terms the scope of federal judicial power:
“Limitation on ‘the judicial Power of the United States’ is expressed by the requirement that a litigant must have ‘standing to sue’ or, more comprehensively, that a federal court may entеrtain a controversy only if it is ‘justiciable.’ Both characterizations mean that a court will not decide a question unless the nature of the action challenged, the kind of injury inflicted, and the relationship between the parties are such that judicial determination is consonant with what was, generally speaking, the business of the Colonial courts and the courts of Westminster when the Constitution was framed.” Joint Anti-Fascist Refugeе Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 150, 71 S.Ct. 624, 95 L.Ed. 817 (1950) (separate opinion).
In our 1960 holding we tried, perhaps too tersely because the point seemed so plain, to make clear that decisions in the large matters of basic national policy, as оf foreign policy, present no judicially3 cognizable issues and hence the courts are not empowered to decide them. We paraphrase our earlier opinion in emphasizing that to tеmporize with these fundamental propositions by holding this case moot because the United States is presently committed to a suspension of atmospheric testing is to take some risk, however slight or remote, of seeming to invite further resort to the courts should testing be resumed. We are unwilling to suggest, even so indirectly, any erosion of the fundamental principle that the executive action challenged by the рleadings plainly falls in that area where the Executive and Legislative Branches are supreme and final, reviewable only by the electorate, not by the courts. The language of the Court in Chicago & Southern Air Lines v. Wаterman S.S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 111, 68 S.Ct. 431, 92 L.Ed. 568 (1948), is very much in point here:
“Such decisions are wholly confided by our Constitution to the political departments of the government, Executive and Legislative. They are delicate, complex, and involve large еlements of prophecy. They are and should be undertaken only by those directly responsible to the people whose welfare they advance or imperil. They are decisions of a kind for whiсh the Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility and which has long been held to belong in the domain of political power not subject to judicial intrusion or inquiry. [Citing Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 454, 59 S.Ct. 972, 83 L.Ed. 1385 (1939); United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 319-321, 57 S.Ct. 216, 81 L.Ed. 255 (1936); Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 302, 38 S.Ct. 309, 62 L.Ed. 726 (1918)].4”
Affirmed.
BAZELON, Chief Judge (dissenting).
This complaint was brought by 255 citizens of the United States and 26 other countries, including eight Nobel Laureates (one of whom has twice received the award). The plaintiffs charge that the defendants, together with their counterparts in the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, have “caused the detonation of nuclear weapons in the air, on the ground, and under water,” causing the plaintiffs “to be damaged genetically, somatically and psychologically.” They seek to enjoin such activity in the future.
Since the institution of this suit, the United States and 107 other nations have signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty:
“Seeking to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time, determined to continue negotiations to this end, and desiring to put an end to the contamination of man‘s environment by radioactive substances,
* * * * * *
“Each of the Parties to this Treaty undertakes to prohibit, to prevent, and not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion, or any other nuclear explosion, at any place under its jurisdiction or contrоl.
* * *
“in the atmosphere; beyond its limits, including outer space; or underwater, including territorial waters or high seas * * *”1
Accordingly, there is not such a likelihood that further injury will occur as to require decision of the delicate questions presented. I would therefore “reverse the judgment and remand the case to the District Court with directions to dismiss the complaint without prejudice.” See my opinion concurring in part and dissenting in pаrt in Pauling v. McElroy, 107 U.S.App.D.C. 372, 374, 278 F.2d 252, 254 (1960).
Though it disclaims doing so, the majority opinion seems to me to impugn the motives of appellants, which I think should not be done. Moreover the opinion attributes greater limitations to judicial power than the Constitution requires or the decision in this case makes necessary. See Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 164-165, 83 S.Ct. 554, 9 L.Ed.2d 644 (1963), and cases