United States v. Nelson, Cr. 1796-50.

• Decision Date: 12 February 1952
• Docket Number: Cr. 1796-50.
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. NELSON.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

103 F. Supp. 215

UNITED STATES v. NELSON.

Cr. 1796-50.

United States District Court District of Columbia.

February 12, 1952.

"The Court. This is a strange and unusual case. It marks probably the only place in the world where an independent judiciary sits in judgment of contempt of the legislative branch of the government which is itself completely independent and which in turn has passed a statute setting up the provisions for contempts of the legislative branch. The case is also unusual in that a person of foreign birth, who is now a naturalized citizen, has been brought before the bar of justice on this particular charge.

"When America accepts people into its fold, it must act with calculated risk. Most of them turn their backs on the old way and accept the new life. Others, like Lot's wife, look back and are turned into pillars of salt, their ideologies appearing to be frozen. Never in the history of the world have the great clashes between individualism and collectivism, or between the free world and the countries behind the iron curtain, been more in evidence than at the present time.

"This is an unusual and interesting case in that while the defendant did not take the stand — and as a principle of American justice no adverse inference is drawn by the Court from that fact — he nevertheless offered in his defense four documents, three of which came from the files of the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives. One was published approximately nine months before the hearing in question, to-wit, September 8, 1948. Another is a foreward of a document released June 8, 1949, the very day of the hearing. And if one could read them impassionately, one could gather that this defendant is either the most famous or infamous Communist that ever roamed the continental limits of the United States.

"It may, however, be a real tribute to the American way of life that a federal court, appointed for life and free of pressures from politics or any other source, can sit in judgment as to whether this man did or did not commit a contempt before another branch of the American Government. American courts must not fall into the errors of those who in times of stress shut off the liberties of the people.

"On this anniversary of the birth of the Great Emancipator, we remember the words of that martyred president when he said, almost 90 years ago, that `our fathers brought forth a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.'

"The truth of the matter is, though we fought among ourselves in that period, we may be defending the individual liberties of the world at some future date. So the question still is, whether a nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

"Even Satan would get a fair trial in the American federal courts. The principles of law involved are more important to America than the personality of this defendant."

Charles M. Irelan, U. S. Atty., William Hitz, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., for United States.

Milton H. Friedman, New York City, Ralph E. Powe, Washington, D. C., for Steve Nelson.

KIRKLAND, District Judge.

The defendant in this case is charged with violating 2 U.S.C.A. § 192, in an indictment setting forth thirty-five separate counts. He appeared as a witness before a subcommittee of the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives, on June 8, 1949. During the course of his testimony before the subcommittee, he refused to answer numerous questions, thirty-five of which are set forth in the indictment and constitute the separate counts thereof.

It is patently clear from the record that the defendant properly claimed the privilege of the Fifth Amendment, the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, in refusing to answer questions numbered as counts 1 through 32 both inclusive, as well as question numbered 35. In some instances the witness used the expression "on the same grounds" in refusing to answer. There is no doubt that in so stating he was referring to the self-incrimination provision and that the committee so understood. Question 10, was answered early in his examination, and questions 33 and 34 were also answered by the witness in the morning session. The member who propounded these questions in the afternoon was absent at the morning session, and the record so discloses. The subject-matter of the questions as well as the information contained in the foreword to the report of the hearings before the subcommittee on June 8, 1949, clearly show that answers to these questions might have incriminated the witness or provided a link in a chain of evidence which could lead to a prosecution under the Smith Act, 18 U.S. C.A. § 2385.

The defendant was a well-known communist and a naturalized American citizen born in Jugoslavia. He did not take the stand in his own behalf, but relied entirely upon the record, which the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives promulgated. He relied specifically on the foreword of the Committee Print of the "Hearings Regarding Steve Nelson", which reproduced the testimony given at the hearing on June 8, 1949. He also relied on the Committee Report on Soviet Espionage Activities in connection with the Atom Bomb, dated September 28, 1948, and the Committee Report on Atomic Espionage dated September 29, 1949,...