SACHER v. UNITED STATES.
No. 828
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided May 19, 1958.
356 U.S. 576
Solicitor General Rankin, Assistant Attorney General Tompkins, Philip R. Monahan and Doris H. Spangenburg for the United States.
PER CURIAM.
The petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is granted. Charged in a three-count indictment for violation of
The broad scope of authority vested in Congress to conduct investigations as an incident to the “legislative Powers” granted by the Constitution is not questioned. Seе Watkins v. United States, supra, at 215. But when Congress seeks to enforce its investigating authority through the criminal process administered by the federal judiciary, the safeguards of criminal justice become operative. The subject matter of inquiry before the subcommittee at which petitioner appeared as a witness concerned the recantation of prior testimony by a witness named Matusow. In the сourse of the hearing, the questioning of petitioner entered upon a “brief excursion,” 99 U. S. App. D. C. 360, 367, 240 F. 2d 46, 53, into proposed legislation barring Communists from practice at the federal bar, a subject not within the subcommittee‘s scope of inquiry as authorized by its parеnt committee. Inasmuch as petitioner‘s refusal to answer related to questions not clearly pertinent to the subject on which the two-member subcommittee conducting the hearing had been authorized to take testimony, the conditions necessary to sustain a conviction for deliberately refusing to answer questions pertinent to the authorized subject matter of a cоngressional hearing are wanting. Watkins v. United States, supra. The judgment of the
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BURTON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, concurring.
In joining the Court‘s opinion, I am constrained to write these few words with reference to my Brother CLARK‘S suggestion that the Court should hear argument in this case. As the limited scope of the Subcommittee‘s authority is not in dispute, the controlling issue is whether the pertinency of the questions put to petitioner was of such “undisputable clarity” as to justify his punishment in a court of law for refusing to answer them. Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S. 178, 214. That issue can only be determined by scrutiny of the record, and a full-dress argument could hardly shed further light on the matter. In such circumstances prompt disposition of the cаse before us certainly constitutes sound judicial administration. For my part, it is abundantly evident that the pertinency of none of the three questions involved can be regarded as undisputably clear, as indeed is evidenced by the different interpretations of the record advanced by the members of this Court and of the Court of Appeals who have considered the issue.
MR. JUSTICE CLARK, with whom MR. JUSTICE WHITTAKER concurs, dissenting.
Petitioner concedes that the subject matter under inquiry, the Matusow recantation, “was clearly defined by the subcommittee and [he] was specifically notified as to what that subject was at the time he was sub-
The third question, covered by the third count of the indiсtment, was whether petitioner was or ever had been “a member of the Lawyers’ Section of the Communist Party, U. S. A.” I think it obvious that the “briеf excursion” into proposed legislation barring Communist lawyers from the federal courts did not carry as far as this question, which was vital to a matter in which the Committee properly was interested—petitioner‘s role in a Communist conspiracy to proсure Matusow‘s recantation. The context of the question clearly relates it to the recantation rather than the proposed legislation. Just prior to asking about membership in the Lawyers’ Section of the Party, the Committee asked three timеs whether petitioner had attended a birthday party for one Alexander Bittelman. Petitioner replied that he did not remembеr. The Committee already had reports that he was at the party, which numbered 50 high Communists among its guests, and that information was one of the reasons why he was called before the Committee. He then was asked if he had “any connection with the legal commission or law commission of the Communist Party,” for the Committee also had information that either he or one Nathan Witt probably wаs the head of a group of important Communists constituting a lawyers’ commission to formulate legal strategy for the party. Upоn answering that he
Whеn the question is viewed in context, it seems to me that pertinency is clearly established. Petitioner is a seasoned lawyer with trial experience. Both questions and answers may go afield in the examination of a witness—a truism to every trial practitioner—but that fact cannot license a witness’ refusal to answer questions which are relevant.
In any event the Government should be given a chance to present oral argument on the pertinency of the question under the third count before petitionеr is freed. Opportunity for a hearing is particularly important here because the issue is one that confronts the Committees of the Congress day after day. For these reasons I dissent from the summary reversal of petitioner‘s conviction.