Deutch v. United States

• Decision Date: 12 June 1961
• Docket Number: No. 233,233
• Citation: 6 L.Ed.2d 963,81 S.Ct. 1587,367 U.S. 456
• Parties: Bernhard DEUTCH, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

367 U.S. 456

81 S.Ct. 1587

6 L.Ed.2d 963

Bernhard DEUTCH, Petitioner,

v UNITED STATES.

No. 233.

Argued March 22, 23, 1961.

Decided June 12, 1961.

Mr. Henry W. Sawyer, III, Philadelphia, Pa., for petitioner.

Mr. Kevin T. Maroney, Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Justice STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

Once again we are called upon to review a criminal conviction for refusal to answer questions before a subcommittee of the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives.¹ See Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155, 75 S.Ct. 668, 99 L.Ed. 964; Emspak v. United States, 349 U.S. 190, 75 S.Ct. 687, 99 L.Ed. 997; Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 77 S.Ct. 1173, 1 L.Ed.2d 1273; Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 79 S.Ct. 1081, 3 L.Ed.2d 1115; Wilkinson v. United States, 365 U.S. 399, 81 S.Ct. 567, 5 L.Ed.2d 633; Braden v. United States, 365 U.S. 431, 81 S.Ct. 584, 5 L.Ed.2d 653. The petitioner was brought to trial in the District Court for the District of Columbia upon an indictment which charged that he had violated 2 U.S.C. § 192, 2 U.S.C.A. § 192, by refusing to answer five questions 'which were pertinent to the question then under inquiry' by the subcommittee. He waived a jury and was convicted upon four of the five counts of the indictment. The judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 143, 280 F.2d 691, and we brought the case here because of doubt as to the validity of the conviction in the light of our pre- vious decisions. ² 364 U.S. 812, 81 S.Ct. 62, 5 L.Ed.2d 44. A careful review of the trial record convinces us that the District Court should have ordered an acquittal.

At the trial the Government's case consisted largely of documentary evidence. That evidence showed that a subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American Activities conducted hearings in Albany, New York, in July of 1953, and again in early April of 1954. The petitioner was not present on either occasion. He was subpoenaed to appear before the subcommittee in Albany on April 9, 1954, but, at the request of his counsel, it was agreed that he should appear instead before the subcommittee three days later in the Old House Office Building in Washington, D.C.

He appeared there on the appointed day, accompanied by counsel, and without further ado his interrogation began. The petitioner freely answered all preliminary questions, revealing that he was then twenty-four years old and a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. He stated that his early education had been in the public schools of Brooklyn, New York, from where he had gone to Cornell University in 1947 for four years as an undergraduate and two additional years as a graduate student.

The subcommittee's counsel then made the following statement:

'Mr. Deutch, during hearings at Albany last week, the committee heard testimony regarding the existence of a Communist Party group or cell operating among undergraduates at Cornell University, among certain graduates at Cornell and in the city of Ithaca.

'In connection with that testimony, the committee was informed that you were a member of one or more of those groups. If so, I would like to ask you certain matters relating to your activity there.

'Were you a member of a group of the Communist Party at Cornell?'

The petitioner answered, 'under protest,' that he had indeed been a member of the Communist Party while at Cornell.³ He then testified freely and without further objection as to his own activities and associations. He stated that 'from the age of 13 or 14 I had read many books on Marxism and at that time was very much impressed with trying to solve certain of the injustices we have nowadays.' He said that when he got to college 'I felt if I had ideas I shouldn't be half pregnant about them, so when I came to college I was approached and joined.' He stated that the approach to join the Party had been made by a student.

As to the general nature of his Communist Party activities at Cornell, he said 'about all that happened were bull sessions on Marxism, and some activities like giving out a leaflet or two. The people I met didn't advocate the overthrowing of the Government by force and violence, and if they had I wouldn't have allowed it.' He testified that he had known one faculty member at Cornell who was a Communist, but that this person had quit the Party. He stated that he had once received from 'a personal friend,' who was not connected with the Cornell faculty, a $100 contribution to give to the Party. He stated that he had been the only graduate student at Con ell who was a Communist, and that, as the 'head' (and lone member) of the 'graduate group,' he had attended meetings in a private house where a 'maximum of 4 or 5' people were present. Many of his answers indicated a lack of awareness of the details of Communist activities at Cornell.⁴ The petitioner testified that as of the time of the hearings he was no longer a member of the Communist Party, but he volunteered the information that '(t)o a great extent it is only fair to say I am a Marxist today—I don't want to deny that.'

While the petitioner's answers to the many questions put to him about his own activities and conduct were thus fully responsive, he refused to answer five questions he was asked concerning other people. He declined to give the names of the faculty member who had been a Communist, of the friend who had made the $100 contribution, of the student who had originally approached him about joining the Communist Party, and of the owners of the house where the meetings had been held. He also declined to say whether he was acquainted with one Homer Owen. For his refusal to answer these questions he was indicted, tried, and convicted.⁵

The reason which the petitioner gave the subcommittee for his refusal to answer these questions can best be put in his own words:

'Sir, I am perfectly willing to tell about my own activities, but do you feel I should trade my moral scruples by informing on someone else? * * * I can only say that whereas I do not want to be in contempt of the committee, I do not believe I can answer questions about other people, but only about myself. * * * I happen to have been a graduate student—the only one there, and the organization is completely defunct, and the individual you are interested in wasn't even a professor. The magnitude of this is really beyond reason.'

The chairman of the subcommittee ruled that it was the petitioner's duty nevertheless to answer the questions:

'That decision does not rest with you as to whether or not the scope of this inquiry—as to whether or not certain individuals are important now or not. That is the responsibility of we Representatives to determine. That determination cannot rest with you. It may be very true that the individual to whom you have referred is no longer a member of the Communist Party. However, that is a supposition on your part—and a supposition which the committee cannot accept. * * * I think that it is only fair to advise the witness—again advise the witness—that any scruples he may have due to a desire to protect friends and acquaintances, is not a legal reason for declining to answer the questions which are now being put to you, and which will be put to you by counsel.'

In an effort to prove the pertinence of the questions which the petitioner had refused to answer, the Government offered at the trial the transcripts of the opening statements of Subcommittee Chairman Kearney at the Albany hearings in 1953 and 1954 and of Subcommittee Chairman Velde at a hearing in Chicago in 1954, as well as an additional portion of the transcript of the 1954 Albany hearing. One witness, the counsel for the Committee on Un-American Activities, testified. A review of this evidence convinces us that the Government failed to prove the charge in the indictment that the questions which the petitioner refused to answer were 'pertinent to the question then under inquiry' by the subcommittee before which he appeared.

The Chairman's opening statement at the Albany hearing in 1953 consisted largely of a paraphrase of the Committee's authorizing resolution and a general summary of the Committee's past activities.⁶ The only statement of a specific purpose was as follows:

'The committee, in its course of investigation, came into possession of reliable information indicat- ing Communist Party activities within the Albany area. The committee decided that this information was of such a character as to merit an investigation to determine its nature, extent, character, and objects.'

At the opening of the Albany hearings in 1954 the Chairman stated that the subcommittee would 'resume this morning the investigation of Communist Party activities within the capital area.' He made clear that the hearings were 'a continuation of the open hearings which were conducted in Albany' in 1953. He pointed out that testimony at the 1953 hearings had 'related to the efforts of the Communist Party to infiltrate industry and other segments of society in the capital area.' 'This committee,' he said, '* * * is investigating communism within the field of labor where it has substantial evidence that it exists.'

The opening statement of the Chairman of the subcommittee which held hearings in Chicago in 1954 is the same statement that was before this Court in Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 210, 77 S.Ct. 1173, 1191, 1 L.Ed.2d 1273. As was pointed out in the Watkins opinion, Mr. Velde 'did no more than paraphrase the authorizing resolution and give a very general sketch of the past efforts of the Committee.'⁷ Moreover, the statement indicated that that subcommittee hearing was directed primarily towards investigation of activities in the Chicago area: 'We are here in Chicago, Ill., realizing that this is the center of the great midwestern area of the United States. It cannot be said that subversive infiltration has had a greater,...