Bryson v. United States/Opinion of the Court

Petitioner asks this Court to set aside his 1955 jury conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 for having falsely and fraudulently denied affiliation with the Communist Party in an affidavit he had filed with the National Labor Relations Board, pursuant to § 9(h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act. This collateral proceeding was brought in the District Court for the Northern District of California in 1967, some 10 years after his original conviction was upheld over a variety of challenges on direct review. The District Court distinguished Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855, 86 S.Ct. 1840, 16 L.Ed.2d 973 (1966), and decided that § 9(h), which had been upheld in American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 70 S.Ct. 674, 94 L.Ed. 925 (1950), could no longer be thought constitutionally valid, particularly in light of United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 85 S.Ct. 1707, 14 L.Ed.2d 484 (1965). Having concluded that the Government had no right to ask the questions which petitioner answered falsely in his affidavit, the District Court ruled that petitioner's conviction under § 1001 should be 'without effect.' It therefore set aside petitioner's conviction and discharged his parole (unreported opinion).

On the Government's appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed because it found 'no significant differences' between this case and Dennis, and it therefore thought it unnecessary to consider the constitutionality of § 9(h), 403 F.2d 340 (1968). We granted certiorari, 393 U.S. 1079, 89 S.Ct. 879, 21 L.Ed.2d 771 (1969), and we now affirm.

* Petitioner bottoms his claim to relief on asserted constitutional deficiencies of § 9(h) of the National Labor Relations Act, enacted by Congress in 1947 out of concern that Communist Party influence on union officers created the risk of 'political strikes,' see American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U.S., at 387-389, 70 S.Ct., at 678-679. Under § 9(h), a union could participate in representation proceedings conducted by the NLRB or utilize the Board's machinery to protest employer unfair labor practices only if each of the union's officers had filed a 'non-Communist' affidavit. See n. 2, supra. Petitioner filed such an affidavit in 1951, and his subsequent conviction under § 1001 was based on a jury's determination that petitioner had knowingly and willfully lied in his affidavit by denying affiliation with the Communist Party.

About one year before petitioner filed the false affidavit, this Court had upheld § 9(h) after considering a variety of asserted constitutional deficiencies, American Communications Assn. v. Douds, supra. However, in 1959 Congress replaced § 9(h) with a provision that simply made it a crime for one who was or had recently been a Communist Party member to be a union officer, and this successor statute was subsequently held unconstitutional as a bill of attainder, United States v. Brown, supra.

Relying primarily on Brown, petitioner argues that § 9(h) was also a bill of attainder, prohibited by Art. I, § 9, cl. 3, of the Constitution. Petitioner also argues that the statute abridged First Amendment rights of speech, assembly, and association, and was so vague as to offend the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. We do not decide whether § 9(h)-now repealed for over 10 years-would today pass constitutional muster and whether Douds would be reaffirmed. Guided by Dennis v. United States, supra, we hold that the question of whether § 9(h) was constitutional or not is legally irrelevant to the validity of petitioner's conviction under § 1001, the general criminal provision punishing the making of fraudulent statements to the Government.

In Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855, 86 S.Ct. 1840, 16 L.Ed.2d 973 (1966), the petitioners had been convicted of a conspiracy to obtain fraudulently the services of the National Labor Relations Board by filing false affidavits in purported satisfaction of the requirements of § 9(h). Those petitioners, like the petitioner here, asked the Court to reverse douds and hold § 9(h) invalid. Deciding that "the claimed invalidity of § 9(h) would be no defense to the crime of conspiracy charged in (the) indictment," the Court refused in Dennis to 'reconsider Douds.' 384 U.S., at 867, 86 S.Ct., at 1848. The Court, drawing on United States v. Kapp, 302 U.S. 214, 58 S.Ct. 182, 82 L.Ed. 205 (1937), and Kay v. United States, 303 U.S. 1, 58 S.Ct. 468, 82 L.Ed. 607 (1938), stated:

'The governing principle is that a claim of     unconstitutionality will not be heard to excuse a voluntary,      deliverate and calculated course of fraud and deceit. One who     elects such a course as a means of self-help may not escape      the consequences by urging that his conduct be excused      because the statute which he sought to evade is      unconstitutional. This is a prosecution directed at     petitioners' fraud. It is not an action to enforce the     statute claimed to be unconstitutional.' 384 U.S., at 867, 86      S.Ct., at 1847.

We find the principle of Dennis no less applicable in the case before us. First, none of the elements of proof necessary for petitioner's conviction under § 1001 has been shown to depend on the validity of § 9(h). Petitioner suggests in this collateral proceeding that when he filed his affidavit he misunderstood the meaning of the statutory term 'affiliated,' a word which he claims is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. But the trial court narrowly defined the term in an instruction later explicitly approved by this Court in Killian v. United States, 368 U.S. 231, 254-258, 82 S.Ct. 302, 314-317, 7 L.Ed.2d 256 (1961). Moreover, the jury's verdict reflects a determination that petitioner's false statement was knowingly and willfully made. This negates any claim that petitioner did not know the falsity of his statement at the time it was made, or that it was the product of an accident, honest inadvertence, or duress. Insofar as petitioner in this collateral proceeding attempts to suggest the contrary, he is simply trying to impeach the jury's verdict, upheld after careful review on direct appeal.

As another element of the offense, § 1001 requires that the false statement be made 'in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States.' Petitioner argues that if § 9(h) was unconstitutional, then the affidavit requirement was not within the 'jurisdiction' of the Board, and therefore the false statement was not punishable under § 1001. Because there is a valid legislative interest in protecting the integrity of official inquiries, see United States v. Bramblett, 348 U.S. 503, 75 S.Ct. 504, 99 L.Ed. 594 (1955); United States v. Gilliland, 312 U.S. 86, 93, 61 S.Ct. 518, 522, 85 L.Ed. 598 (1941), we think the term 'jurisdiction' should not be given a narrow or technical meaning for purposes of § 1001, Ogden v. United States, 303 F.3d 724, 742-743 (C.A.9th Cir. 1962); United States v. Adler, 380 F.2d 917, 921-922 (C.A.2d Cir. 1967). A statutory basis for an agency's request for information provides jurisdiction enough to punish fraudulent statements under § 1001.

In this case, the Board received petitioner's affidavit pursuant to explicit statutory authority, which only a short time before had been upheld as constitutional in Douds. Given that under § 9(h) the Board's 'power to act on union charges (was) conditioned on filing of the necessary affidavits,' Leedom v. International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelting Workers, 352 U.S. 145, 148-149, 77 S.Ct. 154, 156, 1 L.Ed.2d 201 (1956), the Board certainly had the apparent authority, granted by statute, necessary for purposes of § 1001. Thus, we hold that irrespective of whether Douds would be reaffirmed today, petitioner made a false statement in a 'matter within the jurisdiction' of the Board.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Government has proved the elements necessary for a conviction under § 1001, the petitioner would have us say that the invalidity of § 9(h) would provide a defense to his conviction. But after Dennis it cannot be thought that as a general principle of our law a citizen has a privilege to answer fraudulently a question that the Government should not have asked. Our legal system provides methods for challenging the Government's right to ask questions -lying is not one of them. A citizen may decline to answer the question, or answer it honestly, but he cannot with impunity knowingly and willfully answer with a falsehood.

Petitioner argues, and the District Court also found, that Dennis is distinguishable, and that its teachings therefore have no relevance in this instance. The first distinction offered is that Dennis involved a conviction for conspiracy, whereas this petitioner was prosecuted under § 1001 for individually making a false statement. We see nothing in that fact that makes Dennis less applicable in this instance. The cases are indeed very similar in that both involve the use of false affidavits 'to circumvent the law and not to challenge it- a purported compliance with (§ 9(h) was) designed to avoid the courts, not to invoke their jurisdiction.' 384 U.S., at 865, 86 S.Ct., at 1846.

Petitioner also attempts to distinguish Dennis on the ground that the behavior involved in the present case was less culpable than that found punishable in Dennis, and that this petitioner, unlike the petitioners in Dennis, did not 'flout' the law for he had 'every right to believe' that he had not perjured himself. If apart from attempting to impeach the jury's verdict, see n. 8, supra, petitioner is suggesting that the principles of Dennis depend on an assessment of moral culpability beyond the jury's determination of guilt, he simply misconceives the basis of Dennis. Dennis can hardly be read as instructing courts to impose an extra punishment on a defendant found to have been dishonest by refusing to consider a constitutional argument that is legally relevant to his defense. Dennis refused to reconsider Douds because of the legal conclusion that the constitutionality of § 9(h) was not relevant to the validity of the conspiracy prosecution.

Petitioner finally contends that the Court should not follow Dennis because 'its strictures * *  * have no relevance at all to postconviction proceedings.' Of course, federal courts have jurisdiction to consider constitutional claims on collateral review, but a substantive defense that is not legally relevant on direct review becomes no more relevant because asserted on collateral review.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK concurs, dissenting.