Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee/Opinion of the Court

Mr. Justice GOLDBERG, delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case is the culmination of protracted litigation involving legislative investigating committees of the State of Florida and the Miami branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The origins of the controversy date from 1956, when a committee of the Florida Legislature commenced an investigation of the N.A.A.C.P. Upon expiration of this committee's authority, a new committee was established to pursue the inquiry. The new committee, created in 1957, held hearings and sought by subpoena to obtain the entire membership list of the Miami branch of the N.A.A.C.P.; production was refused and the committee obtained a court order requiring that the list be submitted. On appeal, the Florida Supreme Court held that the committee could not require production and disclosure of the entire membership list of the organization, but that it could compel the custodian of the records to bring them to the hearings and to refer to them to determine whether specific individuals, otherwise identified as, or 'suspected of being,' Communists, were N.A.A.C.P. members. 108 So.2d 729, cert. denied, 360 U.S. 919, 79 S.Ct. 1433, 3 L.Ed.2d 1535.

Because of the impending expiration of the authority of the 1957 committee, the Florida Legislature in 1959 established the respondent Legislative Investigation Committee to resume the investigation of the N.A.A.C.P. The authorizing statute, c. 59 207, Fla.Laws 1959, defining the purpose and operations of the respondent, declared:

'It shall be the duty of the committee to make as complete an     investigation as time permits of all organizations whose      principles or activities include a course of conduct on the      part of any person or group which would constitute violence,      or a violation of the laws of the state, or would be inimical      to the well-being and orderly pursuit of their personal and      business activities by the majority of the citizens of this      state. * *  * '

The petitioner, then president of the Miami branch of the N.A.A.C.P., was ordered to appear before the respondent Committee on November 4, 1959, and, in accordance with the prior decision of the Florida Supreme Court, to bring with him records of the association which were in his possession or custody and which pertained to the identity of members of, and contributors to, the Miami and state N.A.A.C.P. organizations. Prior to interrogation of any witnesses the Committee chairman read the text of the statute creating the Committee and declared that the hearings would be 'concerned with the activities of various organizations which have been or are presently operating in this State in the fields of, first, race relations; second, the coercive reform of social and educational practices and mores by litigation and pressured administrative action; third, of labor; fourth, of education; fifth, and other vital phases of life in this State.' The chairman also stated that the inquiry would be directed to Communists and Communist activities, including infiltration of Communists into organizations operating in the described fields.

Upon being called to the stand, the petitioner admitted that he was custodian of his organization's membership records and testified that the local group had about 1,000 members, that individual membership was renewed annually, and that the only membership lists maintained were those for the then current year.

The petitioner told the Committee that he had not brought these records with him to the hearing and announced that he would not produce them for the purpose of answering questions concerning membership in the N.A.A.C.P. He did, however, volunteer to answer such questions on the basis of his own personal knowledge; when given the names and shown photographs of 14 persons previously identified as Communists or members of Communist front or affiliated organizations, the petitioner said that he could associate none of them with the N.A.A.C.P.

The petitioner's refusal to produce his organization's membership lists was based on the ground that to bring the lists to the hearing and to utilize them as the basis of his testimony would interfere with the free exercise of Fourteenth Amendment associational rights of members and prospective members of the N.A.A.C.P.

In accordance with Florida procedure, the petitioner was brought before a state court and, after a hearing, was adjudged in contempt, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment and fined $1,200, or, in default in payment thereof, sentenced to an additional six months' imprisonment. The Florida Supreme Court sustained the judgment below, 126 So.2d 129, and this Court granted certiorari, 366 U.S. 917, 81 S.Ct. 1093, 6 L.Ed.2d 240; the case was argued last Term and restored to the calendar for reargument this Term, 369 U.S. 834, 82 S.Ct. 863, 7 L.Ed.2d 841.

We are here called upon once again to resolve a conflict between individual rights of free speech and association and governmental interest in conducting legislative investigations. Prior decisions illumine the contending principles.

This Court has repeatedly held that rights of association are within the ambit of the constitutional protections afforded by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. N.A.A.C.P. v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488; Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516, 80 S.Ct. 412, 4 L.Ed.2d 480; Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 8 S.Ct. 247, 5 L.Ed.2d 231; N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405. The respondent Committee does not contend otherwise, nor could it, for, as was said in N.A.A.C.P. v. Alabama, supra, 'It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the 'liberty' assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech.' 357 U.S., at 460, 78 S.Ct., at 1171. And it is equally clear that the guarantee encompasses protection of privacy of association in organizations such as that of which the petitioner is president; indeed, in both the Bates and Alabama cases, supra, this Court held N.A.A.C.P. membership lists of the very type here in question to be beyond the States' power of discovery in the circumstances there presented.

The First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of free speech and free association are fundamental and highly prized, and 'need breathing space to survive.' N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 433, 83 S.Ct. 328, 338, 9 L.Ed.2d 405. 'Freedoms such as these are protected not only against heavy-handed frontal attack, but also from being stifled by more subtle governmental interference.' Bates v. Little Rock, supra, 361 U.S., at 523, 80 S.Ct., at 416. And, as declared in N.A.A.C.P. v. Alabama, supra, 357 U.S., at 462, 78 S.Ct., at 1171, 'It is hardly a novel perception that compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute (an) * *  * effective *  *  * restraint on freedom of association *  *  *. This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations. * *  * Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs.' So it is here.

At the same time, however, this Court's prior holdings demonstrate that there can be no question that the State has power adequately to inform itself-through legislative investigation, if it so desires-in order to act and protect its legitimate and vital interests. As this Court said in considering the propriety of the congressonal inquiry challenged in Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 77 S.Ct. 1173, 1 L.Ed.2d 1273: 'The power * *  * to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process. That power is broad. It encompasses inquiries concerning the administration of existing laws as well as proposed or possibly needed statutes. It includes surveys of defects in our social, economic or political system for the purpose of enabling the Congress to remedy them.' 354 U.S., at 187, 77 S.Ct., at 1179. And, more recently, it was declared that 'The scope of the power of inquiry, in short, is as penetrating and far-reaching as the potential power to enact and appropriate under the Constitution.' Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 111, 79 S.Ct. 1081, 1085, 3 L.Ed.2d 1115. It is no less obvious, however, that the legislative power to investigate, broad as it may be, is not without limit. The fact that the general scope of the inquiry is authorized and permissible does not compel the conclusion that the investigatory body is free to inquire into or demand all forms of information. Validation of the broad subject matter under investigation does not necessarily carry with it automatic and wholesale validation of all individual questions, subpoenas, and documentary demands. See, e.g., Watkins v. United States, supra, 354 U.S., at 197-199, 77 S.Ct., at 1184. See also Barenblatt v. United States, supra, 360 U.S., at 127-130, 79 S.Ct., at 1094. When, as in this case, the claim is made that particular legislative inquiries and demands infringe substantially upon First and Fourteenth Amendment associational rights of individuals, the courts are called upon to, and must, determine the permissibility of the challenged actions, Watkins v. United States, supra, 354 U.S., at 198-199, 77 S.Ct., at 1184-1185; '(T)he delicate and difficult task falls upon the courts to weigh the circumstances and to appraise the substantiality of the reasons advanced in support of the regulation of the free enjoyment of the rights,' Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147, 161, 60 S.Ct. 146, 151, 84 L.Ed. 155. The interests here at stake are of significant magnitude, and neither their resolution nor impact is limited to, or dependent upon, the particular parties here involved. Freedom and viable government are both, for this purpose, indivisible concepts; whatever affects the rights of the parties here, affects all.

Significantly, the parties are in substantial agreement as to the proper test to be applied to reconcile the competing claims of government and individual and to determine the propriety of the Committee's demands. As declared by the respondent Committee in its brief to this Court, 'Basically, this case hinges entirely on the question of whether the evidence before the Committee (was) * *  * sufficient to show probable cause or nexus between the N.A.A.C.P. Miami Branch, and Communist activities.' We understand this to mean-regardless of the label applied, be it 'nexus,' 'foundation,' or whatever-that it is an essential prerequisite to the validity of an investigation which intrudes into the area of constitutionally protected rights of speech, press, association and petition that the State convincingly show a substantial relation between the information sought and a subject of overriding and compelling state interest. Absent such a relation between the N.A.A.C.P. and conduct in which the State may have a compelling regulatory concern, the Committee has not 'demonstrated so cogent an interest in obtaining and making public' the membership information sought to be obtained as to 'justify the substantial abridgment of associational freedom which such disclosures will effect.' Bates v. Little Rock, supra, 361 U.S., at 524, 80 S.Ct., at 417. 'Where there is a significant encroachment upon personal liberty, the State may prevail only upon showing a subordinating interest which is compelling.' Ibid.

Applying these principles to the facts of this case, the respondent Committee contends that the prior decisions of this Court in Uphaus v. Wyman, 360 U.S. 72, 79 S.Ct. 1040, 3 L.Ed.2d 1090; 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; and Braden v. United States, 365 U.S. 431, 81 S.Ct. 584, 5 L.Ed.2d 653, compel a result here upholding the legislative right of inquiry. In Barenblatt, Wilkinson, and Braden, however, it was a refusal to answer a question or questions concerning the witness' own past or present membership in the Communist Party which supported his conviction. It is apparent that the necessary preponderating governmental interest and, in fact, the very result in those cases were founded on the holding that the Communist Party is not an ordinary or legitimate political party, as known in this country, and that, because of its particular nature, membership therein it itself a permissible subject of regulation and legislative scrutiny. Assuming the correctness of the premises on which those cases were decided, no further demonstration of compelling governmental interest was deemed necessary, since the direct object of the challenged questions there was discovery of membership in the Communist Party, a matter held pertinent to a proper subject then under inquiry.

Here, however, it is not alleged Communists who are the witnesses before the Committee and it is not discovery of their membership in that party which is the object of the challenged inquiries. Rather, it is the N.A.A.C.P. itself which is the subject of the investigation, and it is its local president, the petitioner, who was called before the Committee and held in contempt because he refused to divulge the contents of its membership records. There is no suggestion that the Miami branch of the N.A.A.C.P. or the national organization with which it is affiliated was, or is, itself a subversive organization. Nor is there any indication that the activities or policies of the N.A.A.C.P. were either Communist dominated or influenced. In fact, this very record indicates that the association was and is against communism and has voluntarily taken steps to keep Communists from being members. Each year since 1950, the N.A.A.C.P. has adopted resolutions barring Communists from membership in the organization. Moreover, the petitioner testified that all prospective officers of the local organization are thoroughly investigated for Communist or subversive connections and, though subversive activities constitute grounds for termination of association membership, no such expulsions from the branch occurred during the five years preceding the investigation.

Thus, unlike the situation in Barenblatt, Wilkinson and Braden, supra, the Committee was not here seeking from the petitioner or the records of which he was custodian any information as to whether he, himself, or even other persons were members of the Communist Party, Communist front or affiliated organizations, or other allegedly subversive groups; instead, the entire thrust of the demands on the petitioner was that he disclose whether other persons were members of the N.A.A.C.P., itself a concededly legitimate and nonsubversive organization. Compelling such an organization, engaged in the exercise of First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, to disclose its membership presents, under our cases, a question wholly different from compelling the Communist Party to disclose its own membership. Moreover, even to say, as in Barenblatt, supra, 360 U.S., at 129, 79 S.Ct., at 1094, that it is permissible to inquire into the subject of Communist infiltration of educational or other organizations does not mean that it is permissible to demand or require from such other groups disclosure of their membership by inquiry into their records when such disclosure will seriously inhibit or impair the exercise of constitutional rights and has not itself been demonstrated to bear a crucial relation to a proper governmental interest or to be essential to fulfillment of a proper governmental purpose. The prior holdings that governmental interest in controlling subversion and the particular character of the Communist Party and its objectives outweigh the right of individual Communists to conceal party membership or affiliations by no means require the wholly different conclusion that other groups-concededly legitimate-automatically forfeit their rights to privacy of association simply because the general subject matter of the legislative inquiry is Communist subversion or infiltration. The fact that governmental interest was deemed compelling in Barenblatt, Wilkinson, and Braden and held to support the inquiries there made into membership in the Communist Party does not resolve the issues here, where the challenged questions go to membership in an admittedly lawful organization.

Respondent's reliance on Uphaus v. Wyman, supra, as controlling is similarly misplaced. There, this Court upheld the right of the State of New Hampshire, in connection with an investigation of whether 'subversive' persons were within the State, to obtain a list of guests who attended a World Fellowship summer camp located in the State. In Uphaus this Court found that there was demonstrated a sufficient connection between subversive activity-held there to be a proper subject of governmental concern and the World Fellowship, itself, to justify discovery of the guest list; no semblance of such a nexus between the N.A.A.C.P. and subversive activities has been shown here. See III, infra. Moreover, contrary to the facts in this case, the claim to associational privacy in Uphaus was held to be 'tenuous at best,' 360 U.S., at 80, 79 S.Ct., at 1046, since the disputed list was already a matter of public record by virtue of a generally applicable New Hampshire law requiring that places of accommodation, including the camp in question, maintain a guest register open to public authorities. Thus, this Court noted that the registration statute 'made public at the inception the association they (the guests) now wish to keep private.' 360 U.S., at 81, 79 S.Ct., at 1046. Finally, in Uphaus, the State was investigating whether subversive persons were within its boundaries and whether their presence constituted a threat to the State. No such purpose or need is evident here. The Florida Committee is not seeking to identify subversives by questioning the petitioner; apparently it is satisfied that it already knows who they are.

In the absence of directly determinative authority, we turn, then, to consideration of the facts now before us. Obviously, if the respondent were still seeking discovery of the entire membership list, we could readily dispose of this case on the authority of Bates v. Little Rock, and N.A.A.C.P. v. Alabama, supra; a like result would follow if it were merely attempting to do piecemeal what could not be done in a single step. Though there are indications that the respondent Committee intended to inquire broadly into the N.A.A.C.P. membership records, there is no need to base our decision today upon a prediction as to the course which the Committee might have pursued if initially unopposed by the petitioner. Instead, we rest our result on the fact that the record in this case is insufficient to show a substantial connection between the Miami branch of the N.A.A.C.P. and Communist activities which the respondent Committee itself concedes is an essential prerequisite to demonstrating the immediate, substantial, and subordinating state interest necessary to sustain its right of inquiry into the membership lists of the association.

Basically, the evidence relied upon by the respondent to demonstrate the necessary foundation consists of the testimony of R. J. Strickland, an investigator for the Committee and its predecessors, and Arlington Sands, a former association official.

Strickland identified by name some 14 persons whom he said either were or had been Communists or members of Communist 'front' or 'affiliated' organizations. His description of their connection with the association was simply that 'each of them has been a member of and/or participated in the meetings and other affairs of the N.A.A.C.P. in Dade County, Florida.' In addition, one of the group was identified as having made, at an unspecified time, a contribution of unspecified amount to the local organization.

We do not know from this ambiguous testimony how many of the 14 were supposed to have been N.A.A.C.P. members. For all that appears, and there is no indicated reason to entertain a contrary belief, each or all of the named persons may have attended no more than one or two wholly public meetings of the N.A.A.C.P., and such attendance, like their membership, to the extent it existed, in the association, may have been wholly peripheral and begun and ended many years prior even to commencement of the present investigation in 1956. In addition, it is not clear whether the asserted Communist affiliations and the association with the N.A.A.C.P., however slight, coincided in time. Moreover, except for passing reference to participation in annual elections, there is no indication that membership carried with it any right to control over policy or activities, much less that any was sought. The reasoning which would find support for the challenged inquiries in Communist attendance at meetings from which no member of the public appears to have been barred is even more attenuated, since the only prerogative seemingly attaching to such attendance was the right to listen to the scheduled speaker or program. Mere presence at a public meeting or bare membership-without more-is not infiltration of the sponsoring organization.

It also appears that a number of the 14 persons named by Strickland were no longer even residents of Florida; as to these people, it is difficult to see any basis for supposing that they would be current-much less influential-members of the Miami branch of the N.A.A.C.P., and no other pertinent reason for the inquiry as to them could be found because, as the petitioner testified, the only membership records available related to the then current year.

Strickland did refer to one informant as having been instructed to infiltrate the N.A.A.C.P. and 'other organizations.' But any persuasive impact this recitation might otherwise have had is neutralized by the same informant's disclosure that his response to this command was simply to attend N.A.A.C.P. meetings 'on occasions' and by the absence of any other substantial indication of infiltration. This is not a case in which, after a proper foundation has been laid, a Communist is himself interrogated about his own alleged subversive activities or those of the Communist Party, all as part of an inquiry related to what this Court has held to be a legitimate legislative purpose to investigate the activities of the party or its knowing members.

The testimony of Sands, the other assertedly important witness, added not even a semblance of anything more convincing with regard to the existence of a connection between subversion and the N.A.A.C.P. Sands, whose officership in the association predated 1950 and who admitted that he was uncertain even as to his then current membership in the N.A.A.C.P., merely corroborated to some extent certain of Strickland's references to attendance at N.A.A.C.P. meetings by a few of the persons identified as Communists. However, this too must have related to some time in the unspecified past, since Sands admitted that he had not even been to an N.A.A.C.P. meeting in two years. Sands also noted that one of the asserted Communists, a lawyer, had represented the association in a 'murder case,' but there is no explanation as to how this fact might indicate or support a conclusion of Communist influence.

Nor does the fact that the N.A.A.C.P. has demonstrated its antipathy to communism and an awareness of its threat by passage of annual antisubversion resolutions carry with it any permissible inference that it has, in fact, been infiltrated, influenced, or in any way dominated or used by Communists. Indeed, given the gross improbability of a Communist dominated or influenced organization denouncing communism, the more reasonable inference would seem to be to the contrary.

Finally, the Committee can find no support for its inquiry into the membership list from Strickland's suggestion that Sands had once uncertainly told him (Strickland) that one or possibly two of the group of 14 may have 'made a talk' to the local N.A.A.C.P. chapter, again at some unspecified time in the past. There is no indication that the subject of the 'talks' was in any way improper and, in any event, such isolated incidents can not be made to do the work of substantial evidence of subversive influence or infiltration. The same is true of the few additional vague and somewhat unspecific references to other minor and nondirective participation in the affairs of the local group.

This summary of the evidence discloses the utter failure to demonstrate the existence of any substantial relationship between the N.A.A.C.P. and subversive or Communist activities. In essence, there is here merely indirect, less than unequivocal, and mostly hearsay testimony that in years past some 14 people who were asserted to be, or to have been, Communists or members of Communist front or 'affiliated organizations' attended occasional meetings of the Miami branch of the N.A.A.C.P. 'and/or' were members of that branch, which had a total membership of about 1,000.

On the other hand, there was no claim made at the hearings, or since, that the N.A.A.C.P. or its Miami branch was engaged in any subversive activities or that its legitimate activities have been dominated or influenced by Communists. Without any indication of present subversive infiltration in, or influence on, the Miami branch of the N.A.A.C.P., and without any reasonable, demonstrated factual basis to believe that such infiltration or influence existed in the past, or was actively attempted or sought in the present-in short without any showing of a meaningful relationship between the N.A.A.C.P., Miami branch, and subversives or subversive or other illegal activities-we are asked to find the compelling and subordinating state interest which must exist if essential freedoms are to be curtailed or inhibited. This we cannot do. The respondent Committee has laid no adequate foundation for its direct demands upon the officers and records of a wholly legitimate organization for disclosure of its membership; the Committee has neither demonstrated nor pointed out any threat to the State by virtue of the existence of the N.A.A.C.P. or the pursuit of its activities or the minimal associational ties of the 14 asserted Communists. The strong associational interest in maintaining the privacy of membership lists of groups engaged in the constitutionally protected free trade in ideas and beliefs may not be substantially infringed upon such a slender showing as here made by the respondent. While, of course, all legitimate organizations are the geneficiaries of these protections, they are all the more essential here, where the challenged privacy is that of persons espousing beliefs already unpopular with their neighbors and the deterrent and 'chilling' effect on the free exercise of constitutionally enshrined rights of free speech, expression, and association is consequently the more immediate and substantial. What we recently said in N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, supra, with respect to the State of Virginia is as appears from the record, equally applicable here: 'We cannot close our eyes to the fact that the militant Negro civil rights movement has engendered the intense resentment and opposition of the politically dominant white community * *  * .' 371 U.S., at 435, 83 S.Ct., at 339.

Of course, a legislative investigation-as any investigation must proceed 'step by step,' Barenblatt v. United States, supra, 360 U.S., at 130, 79 S.Ct., at 1094, but step by step or in totality, an adequate foundation for inquiry must be laid before proceeding in such a manner as will substantially intrude upon and severely curtail or inhibit constitutionally protected activities or seriously interfere with similarly protected associational rights. No such foundation has been laid here. The respondent Committee has failed to demonstrate the compelling and subordinating governmental interest essential to support direct inquiry into the membership records of the N.A.A.C.P.

Nothing we say here impairs or denies the existence of the underlying legislative right to investigate or legislate with respect to subversive activities by Communists or anyone else; our decision today deals only with the manner in which such power may be exercised and we hold simply that groups which themselves are neither engaged in subversive or other illegal or improper activities nor demonstrated to have any substantial connections with such activities are to be protected in their rights of free and private association. As declared in Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 245, 77 S.Ct. 1203, 1209 (opinion of The Chief Justice), 'It is particularly important that the exercise of the power of compulsory process be carefully circumscribed when the investigative process tends to impinge upon such highly sensitive areas as freedom of speech or press, freedom of political association, and freedom of communication of ideas * *  * .'

To permit legislative inquiry to proceed on less than an adequate foundation would be to sanction unjustified and unwarranted intrusions into the very heart of the constitutional privilege to be secure in associations in legitimate organizations engaged in the exercise of First and Fourteenth Amendment rights; to impose a lesser standard than we here do would be inconsistent with the maintenance of those essential conditions basic to the preservation of our democracy.

The judgment below must be and is reversed.

Reversed.