Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee

• Decision Date: 19 December 1960
• Citation: 126 So.2d 129
• Parties: Theodore R. GIBSON, Appellant, v. FLORIDA LEGISLATIVE INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 129

126 So.2d 129

Theodore R. GIBSON, Appellant, v. FLORIDA LEGISLATIVE INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Dec. 19, 1960.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 17, 1961.

G. E. Graves, Jr., Miami, and Robert L. Carter, New York City, for appellant.

Mark R. Hawes, St. Petersburg, for appellee.

THORNAL, Justice.

By direct appeal, we are requested to review an order of the circuit court upholding the validity of Chapter 59-207, Laws of Florida, 1959, and adjudging petitioner Gibson guilty of contempt of Court for failure to comply with a subpoena duces tecum issued by appellee Committee.

We must pass upon the constitutionality of Chapter 59-207, Laws of Florida, 1959. We must also determine whether the compelled response to the subpoena duces tecum would be violative of various constitutional rights asserted by appellant.

Appellant Gibson is admittedly the president of the Miami branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He had been such for at least five years prior to the critical hearing on November 5, 1959. At the time of the Committee hearing, appellant also admitted that he held in his custody the then current list containing the names of the members of Miami branch of the N.A.A.C.P. He had been served with a subpoena duces tecum directing him to have the list available at the hearing of the Committee on November 5, 1959. The record reveals that prior to the time appellant Gibson was called to testify, an investigator of appellee Committee identified by name some fifty-one persons whom he stated were known members of the Communist Party, or its affiliates. All of these had in times recently past resided or engaged in various activities in Dade County, Florida. The investigator identified fourteen of these people by name and Communist Party membership card number. He testified that these fourteen had been known to have participated in the affairs of Miami branch of the N.A.A.C.P. When appellant Gibson was called to testify the attorney for the appellee Committee identified an allegedly known Communist by name and requested Gibson to refer to the membership list and advise whether such allegedly known Communist was listed as a member of Miami branch of N.A.A.C.P. Gibson refused. He stated that he would not bring the list to the Committee hearing as required by the subpoena. For various reasons which we shall mention, he refused to comply with the prior decision of this Court in the same matter by having the list available for reference by him only, even though he had been assured that he would not be required to file the entire list in evidence where it would be subject to public inspection. Following the procedure delineated by the Statute, the appellee Committee requested the circuit judge to issue a rule nisi and grant to appellant an opportunity to answer the questions or else show cause why he should not be charged in contempt. The judge directed the witness to have the membership list available and answer the questions propounded. Again appellant declined. Thereupon, he was adjudged to be in direct contempt of Court and was sentenced to a term of six months in the Leon County jail and to pay a fine of $1,200. We are now requested to reverse this order.

It is the contention of the appellant Gibson that the order which compels him to 1959, is unconstitutional. He further contends that the order which compels him to have available the membership list of N.A.A.C.P. for reference by him only as an authentic basis for his testimony before the appellee Committee does violence to his rights of freedom of speech and assembly. Similar constitutional rights of all members of N.A.A.C.P. are allegedly violated.

The appellee Committee contends that the subject statute is constitutional. It asserts that the compelled disclosure of the associational relations of specifically identified alleged subversives does no violence to the constitutionally protected rights of appellant Gibson or other legitimate good faith members of N.A.A.C.P.

We consider it totally unnecessary to burden this opinion with any elaborate dissertation on the constitutionality of Chapter 59-207, Laws of Florida, 1959. For all practical purposes, this statute is identical with Chapter 57-125, Laws of Florida, 1957, which we upheld against the same identical assault by this same appellant in Gibson v. Florida Elgislative Investigation Committee, Fla., 108 So.2d 729, certiorari denied 360 U.S. 919, 79 S.Ct. 1433, 3 L.Ed.2d 1535. The 1959 statute is merely a legislative renewal and continuation of the authority of the appellee Committee which had its origin in the 1957 statute which we discussed in considerable detail in the case last cited. The points there made as the basis for the assault on the constitutionality of the statute are repeated in the instant appeal. The appellant certainly has a right to raise doubts as to the validity of an act of the Legislature. However, we do not deem it necessary to repeat in detail the reasons which we have heretofore given for upholding an identical act. We will here do no more than to hold Chapter 59-207, supra, constitutional on the authority of Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, supra.

In our opinion in the case last cited the constitutional rights of the rank and file bona fide members of Miami Branch of N.A.A.C.P. were frankly recognized and given judicial protection against illegal enserts in behalf of himself and for the benefit serts in behalf of himself and for the benefit of all other members of N.A.A.C.P. a constitutional freedom of speech and assembly which includes associational privacy. He relies on the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Because of the due process provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, appellant insists that the states are bound to recognize these so-called First Amendment rights.

While renewing his reliance on N. A. A. C. P. v. State of Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488, appellant urges additional support from Bates v. City of Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516, ...