Knowles v. United States

Citation280 F.2d 696
Decision Date18 June 1960
Docket NumberNo. 13734.,13734.
PartiesMary KNOWLES, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Mr. Henry W. Sawyer, III, of the bar of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, pro hac vice, Philadelphia, Pa., by special leave of court, with whom Mr. George Herbert Goodrich, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.

Mr. William Hitz, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. Oliver Gasch, U. S. Atty., Carl W. Belcher, Lewis Carroll and Miss Doris H. Spangenburg, Asst. U. S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before WASHINGTON, BASTIAN and BURGER, Circuit Judges.

WASHINGTON, Circuit Judge.

This is a contempt of Congress case, under 2 U.S.C.A. § 192. Tried by the District Court, a jury having been waived, appellant was found guilty on 52 counts of an indictment charging her with refusal to answer certain questions put to her by a Senate Subcommittee.1 She has appealed from the judgment of conviction.2 In this court, the Government has abandoned some of the counts of the indictment. It now claims that appellant was properly convicted under Count 1 of failing to answer the question "Did you, or do you, know Herbert Philbrick?" at a hearing held on July 29, 1955, and under some 27 other counts for failing to answer certain questions at a hearing held on September 15, 1955.

In convicting appellant on these counts, the trial judge found that the questions contained therein were pertinent to the subject under inquiry and that appellant "was fully apprised" of that subject. It appears that the trial judge believed the Committee was investigating "the Communist movement in New England," and that he considered she was sufficiently apprised of the subject because the Committee was not obliged "to proceed in the execution of its duties by a series of inquiries on precise topics embraced within the express subject matter delegated to it by the enabling resolutions." Appellant argued at trial and continues to urge that neither the subject under inquiry nor the pertinency of the questions was indisputably clear at the time of the Committee hearings.

The facts, briefly, are these: Appellant had on two earlier occasions, in 1953, appeared before the same Subcommittee. She was at that time advised by the Subcommittee that one Herbert Philbrick had, at a previous hearing, identified her as a member of the Communist Party. Appellant was then asked questions concerning Mr. Philbrick and others, and refused to answer by reason of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination. After the 1953 hearings, appellant was discharged from her position as a librarian in Norwood, Massachusetts, but obtained similar employment at a library maintained by a Quaker group in Pennsylvania. That group became subject to considerable pressure in the community to dismiss appellant from her position as librarian. It resisted this pressure, and was later presented with an award of $5,000 by the Fund for the Republic for the stand it had taken.

After these occurrences, which aroused much public interest, appellant was called again before the Subcommittee, appearing on July 29, 1955. At this hearing, no statement was made as to the Subcommittee's purpose in calling her, or as to the subject matter of the inquiry. The questions asked were of the same general nature as those appellant had refused to answer at the 1953 hearing, together with some concerning the events of the intervening years. When asked the Count 1 question ("Did you, or do you, know Herbert Philbrick?"), appellant replied:

"On this matter of acquaintances or nonacquaintances, or anything to do with Communist affiliations or nonaffiliations, I would like to tell the committee here what I have told my employers at the Plymouth Meeting Library Committee, that for many years now I have had no connection, formal, or any other way, with any organization that would be either on the Attorney General\'s list or would be a so-called subversive organization or left-wing organization. And I think that any other questions, including this question here would, in my opinion, and upon the advice of counsel, be beyond what I understand to be the jurisdiction of this committee and of its resolutions."3

Appellant was directed to answer. She made a further objection, as follows:

"The reason I feel that I cannot answer this question about Herbert Philbrick is that I think it invades constitutional rights as under the first amendment, and I feel even more strongly that these questions have no pertinency to the question of national security at the moment, and any relationships or nonrelationships are not valid points of inquiry at this time."4

The Chairman again directed her to answer, adding:

"The objections as to pertinency are overruled.
"We are charged by a Senate resolution to conduct a certain type of investigation. We are doing so. I must warn you that you may be cited for contempt if you do not answer."5

Appellant persisted in her refusal to answer the Count 1 question, and similar questions, but did answer questions not involving her association with other persons.

Some two months later, on September 15, 1955, appellant again was called upon to appear before the Subcommittee. After being asked a number of routine questions, which she answered, she was asked what her address was when she lived in Malden, Massachusetts. She replied:

"I would like at this time — tell me if you can hear this — I would like at this time to say that this is the third time that I have been called to Washington, and that on this occasion, as on the other occasions, I have the same thing to say: First, that I am not a Communist; that I am not a member of the Communist Party, and that for many, many years I have had no connection, direct or indirect, with any organization on the Attorney General\'s list.
"Further than that I have no knowledge of any matters concerning national security; I have no knowledge of any matters concerning the Internal Security Act of 1950 50 U.S.C.A § 781 et seq.; I have no knowledge of any matters of subversion, sabotage, or espionage, of infiltration, of violent overthrow of the Government, of any acts concerning any foreign powers or any other illegal act.
"In view of these things and the fact that I am a private citizen employed in a private institution under the care of a religious organization, I feel that I have no information that would be within the power or the jurisdiction of this duly organized committee to ask of me."6

The presiding officer then stated:

"Mrs. Knowles, you were called before this committee, I think, one time before. As I look back at the record I believe it was on May 21, 1953.
"At that time this committee was inquiring particularly into your association and affiliation with the Communist Party. We asked you at that time if you were a member of the Communist Party, and you declined to answer the question.
"Now certain matters have come to the information of this committee, and we are now seeking to bring up to date our record.
"Were you ever a member of the Communist Party Mrs. Knowles?"7

Appellant declined to answer, on the basis of the objections she had previously made. Nearly three hundred other questions were asked. Again, appellant refused to answer those which probed into her associations. She answered the...

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4 cases
  • Russell v. United States Shelton v. United States Whitman v. United States Liveright v. United States Price v. United States Gojack v. United States 8212 12, 128, s. 8
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • May 21, 1962
    ...668, 99 L.Ed. 964 (TR, p. 3); United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41, 73 S.Ct. 543, 97 L.Ed. 770 (TR, pp. 2—4); Knowles v. United States, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 148, 280 F.2d 696 (Cr. No. 1211—56); Watson v. United States, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 141, 280 F.2d 689 (Cr. No. 1151—54); Miller v. United State......
  • United States v. Tobin
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Columbia
    • June 15, 1961
    ...the pertinency of specific documents that would have called for a negation of possible irrelevancies. 61 Knowles v. United States, 1960, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 148, 151, 280 F.2d 696, 699. 62 This assumes that a proper objection was made on the grounds of pertinency. Barenblatt v. United States, ......
  • Gojack v. United States, 13464.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit
    • June 18, 1960
    ...689 — reversed. No. 13694 — Deutch v. United States, 108 U.S.App.D.C. ___, 280 F.2d 691 — affirmed. No. 13734 — Knowles v. United States, 108 U.S.App.D.C. ___, 280 F.2d 696 — No. 13737 — Shelton v. United States, 108 U.S.App.D.C. ___, 280 F.2d 701 — affirmed. No. 13871 — Liveright v. United......
  • Deutch v. United States, 13694.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit
    • June 18, 1960
1 books & journal articles
  • Congressional investigations: politics and process.
    • United States
    • American Criminal Law Review Vol. 44 No. 3, June 2007
    • June 22, 2007
    ...conviction for deliberately refusing to answer questions pertinent to the authorized subject matter); Knowles v. United States, 280 F.2d 696 (D.C. Cir. 1960) (stating that the record failed to show that the subject under inquiry and the pertinency of the questions were indisputably clear to......

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