Knapp v. Schweitzer/Opinion of the Court

Petitioner is a partner in a New York manufacturing firm engaged in interstate commerce, some of whose employees have been organized by a local union of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Petitioner was subpoenaed to appear before a New York grand jury conducting an inquiry regarding bribery of labor representatives, conspiracy and extortion, constituting crimes under state law. Petitioner, duly sworn, was asked a question concerning the union's representation in certain wage negotiations with petitioner's firm; he refused to answer on the ground that his answer might tend to incriminate him. The grand jury then granted petitioner immunity from prosecution, applying N.Y. Penal Law, McKinney's Consol.Laws, c. 40, §§ 381, 2447, which provides that one duly granted immunity

'shall not be prosecuted or subjected to any penalty or     forfeiture for or on account of any transaction, matter or      thing concerning which, in accordance with the order by      competent authority, he gave answer or produced evidence, and      that no such answer given or evidence produced shall be      received against him upon any criminal proceeding.' §      2447(2).

Having been thus granted immunity, petitioner was directed to answer the question. He again refused to do so on the ground of possible self-incrimination.

In a subsequent appearance before the grand jury, petitioner was asked, and was directed to answer by the foreman, fourteen other questions concerning relations and transactions between petitioner and union officials. Petitioner again invoked the privilege against self-incrimination. On application of the foreman of the grand jury, respondent Schweitzer, as judge of a New York Court of General Sessions, ordered petitioner to return to the grand jury and make answer to the questions put to him.

After further refused to answer, petitioner was once more ordered to appear before respondent Schweitzer; when he did so, the respondent district attorney moved that petitioner be punished for contempt of court. In opposition to this application petitioner stood on his refusal to answer inasmuch as the immunity granted by the grand jury did not protect him against federal prosecution. Respondent Schweitzer adjudged petitioner in contempt of court and sentenced him to serve thirty days in jail and to pay a fine of $250. People v. Knapp, 4 Misc.2d 449, 157 N.Y.S.2d 820.

Petitioner applied to the Supreme Court of New York for reversal of the contempt conviction and for an order prohibiting respondents from proceeding further in the matter. He alleged that his danger of self-incrimination was attributable to the prosecutorial potentialities of § 302 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 61 Stat. 136, 157, 29 U.S.C. § 186, 29 U.S.C.A. § 186, making it unlawful

'for any employer to pay or deliver, or to agree to pay or     deliver, any money or other thing of value to any      representative of any of his employees who are employed in an      industry affecting commerce' (§ 302(a)),

and to the fact that the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York had 'made public announcement of his intention to cooperate with the (respondent) District Attorney * *  * in the prosecution of criminal cases in the field of the subject matter out of which petitioner's commitment arose.' The petition for reversal of the contempt conviction was denied by the Supreme Court; this judgment was unanimously affirmed in the Appellate Division, 2 A.D.2d 579, 157 N.Y.S.2d 158, and, without opinion, by the Court of Appeals of New York, 2 N.Y.2d 913, 161 N.Y.S.2d 437, 141 N.E.2d 825, which duly amended its remittitur to show that it had passed on and rejected petitioner's claim of a privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment, 2 N.Y.2d 975, 162 N.Y.S.2d 613, 142 N.E.2d 649. We granted certiorari, 355 U.S. 804, 78 S.Ct. 23, 2 L.Ed.2d 27, to consider this constitutional question.

Petitioner does not claim that his conviction of contempt for refusal to answer questions put to him in a state proceeding deprived him of liberty or property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; that such a claim is without merit was settled in Twining v. State of New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 29 S.Ct. 14, 53 L.Ed. 97. His contention is, rather, that, because the Congress of the United States has in the exercise of its constitutional powers made certain conduct unlawful, the Fifth Amendment gives him the privilege, which he can assert against either a State or the National Government, against giving testimony that might tend to implicate him in a violation of the federal act. Because of the momentum of adjudication whereby doctrine expands from case to case, such a claim carries dangerous implications. It may well lead to the contention that when Congress enacts a statute carrying criminal sanctions it has as a practical matter withdrawn from the States their traditional power to investigate in aid of prosecuting conventional state crimes, some facts of which may be entangled in a federal offense. To recognize such a claim would disregard the historic distribution of power as between Nation and States in our federal system.

The essence of a constitutionally formulated federalism is the division of political and legal powers between two systems of government constituting a single Nation. The crucial difference between federalisms is in a wide sweep of powers conferred upon the central government with a reservation of specific powers to the constituent units as against a particularization of powers granted to the federal government with the vast range of governmental powers left to the constituent units. The difference is strikingly illustrated by the British North America Act, 1867, 30 Vict., c. 3, and the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900, 63 & 64 Vict., c. 12. It is relevant to remind that our Constitution is one of particular powers given to the National Government with the powers not so delegated reserved to the States or, in the case of limitations upon both governments, to the people. Except insofar as penal remedies may be provided by Congress under the explicit authority to 'make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution' the other powers granted by Art. I, § 8, the bulk of authority to legislate on what may be compendiously described as criminal justice, which in other nations belongs to the central government, is under our system the responsibility of the individual States.

The choice of this form of federal arrangement was the product of a jealous concern lest federal power encroach upon the proper domain of the States and upon the rights of the people. It was the same jealous concern that led to the restrictions on the National Government expressed by the first ten amendments, colloquially known as the Bill of Rights. These provisions are deeply concerned with procedural safeguards pertaining to criminal justice within the restricted area of federal jurisdiction. They are not restrictions upon the vast domain of the criminal law the belongs exclusively to the States. Needless to say, no statesman of his day cared more for safeguarding the liberties that were enshrined in the Bill of Rights than did James Madison. But it was his view that these liberties were already protected against federal action by the Constitution itself. 'My own opinion,' he wrote to Thomas Jefferson, 'has always been in favor of a bill of rights; provided it be so framed as not to imply powers not meant to be included in the enumeration. At the same time I have never thought the omission a material defect, nor been anxious to supply it even by subsequent amendment, for any other reason than that it is anxiously desired by others. I have favored it because I supposed it might be of use, and if properly executed could not be of disservice. I have not viewed it in an important light 1. Because I conceive that in a certain degree, though not in the extent argued by Mr. Wilson, the rights in question are reserved by the manner in which the federal powers are granted. * *  * ' Plainly enough the limitations arising from the manner in which the federal powers were granted were limitations on the Federal Government, not on the States. The Bill of Rights that Madison sponsored because others anxiously desired that these limitations be made explicit patently was likewise limited to the Federal Government. If conclusive proof of this were needed, it is afforded by the fact that when Madison came to sponsor the Bill of Rights in the House of Representatives as safeguards against the Federal Government he proposed that like safeguards against the States be placed in the United States Constitution. Congress, however, rejected such limitations upon state power.

While the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 did not change the distribution of powers between the States and the Federal Government so as to withdraw the basic interests of criminal justice from the exclusive control of the States, it did impose restrictions upon the States in the making and in the enforcement of the criminal laws. It did this insofar as the 'fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions,' Hebert v. State of Louisiana, 272 U.S. 312, 316, 47 S.Ct. 103, 104, 71 L.Ed. 270; Palko v. State of Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 58 S.Ct. 149, 82 L.Ed. 288; Malinski v. People of State of New York, 324 U.S. 401, 412-416, with 438, 65 S.Ct. 781, 786-788, 798, 89 L.Ed. 1029, are implied in the comprehensive concept of due process of law. But this concept does not blur the great division of powers between the Federal Government and the individual States in the enforcement of the criminal law.

Generalities though these observations be, they bear decisively on the issue that has been tendered in this case. To yield to the contention of the petitioner would not only disregard the uniform course of decision by this Court for over a hundred years in recognizing the legal autonomy of state and federal governments. In these days of the extensive sweep of such federal statutes as the income tax law and the criminal sanctions for their evasions, investigation under state law to discover corruption and misconduct, generally, in violation of state law could easily be thwarted if a State were deprived of its power to expose such wrongdoing with a view to remedial legislation or prosecution. While corruption and generally low standards in local government may not today be as endemic as Lord Bryce reported them to be in The American Commonwealth (1888), not even the most cheerful view of the improvements that have since taken place can afford justification for blunting the power of States to ferret out, and thereby guard against, such corruption by restrictions that would reverse our whole constitutional history. To achieve these essential ends of state government the States may find it necessary, as did New York, to require full disclosure in exchange for immunity from prosecution. This cannot be denied on the claim that such state law of immunity may expose the potential witness to prosecution under federal law. See Jack v. State of Kansas, 199 U.S. 372, 26 S.Ct. 73, 50 L.Ed. 234. Every witness before a state grand jury investigation would feel free to block those vitally important proceedings.

In construing the Fifth Amendment and its privilege against self-incrimination, one must keep in mind its essential quality as a restraint upon compulsion of testimony by the newly organized Federal Government at which the Bill of Rights was directed, and not as a general declaration of policy against compelling testimony. It is plain that the amendment can no more be thought of as restricting action by the States than as restricting the conduct of private citizens. The sole-although deeply valuable-purpose of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination is the security of the individual against the exertion of the power of the Federal Government to compel incriminating testimony with a view to enabling that same Government to convict a man out of his own mouth.

Of course the Federal Government may not take advantage of this recognition of the States' autonomy in order to evade the Bill of Rights. If a federal officer should be a party to the compulsion of testimony by state agencies, the protection of the Fifth Amendment would come into play. Such testimony is barred in a federal prosecution, see Byars v. United States, 273 U.S. 28, 47 S.Ct. 248, 71 L.Ed. 520. Whether, in a case of such collaboration between state and federal officers, the defendant could successfully assert his privilege in the state proceeding, we need not now decide, for the record before us is barren of evidence that the State was used as an instrument of federal prosecution or investigation. Petitioner's assertion that a federal prosecuting attorney announced his intention of cooperating with state officials in the prosecution of cases in a general field of criminal law presents a situation devoid of legal significance as a joint state and federal endeavor.

This Court with all its shifting membership has repeatedly found occasion to say that whatever inconveniences and embarrassments may be involved, they are the price we pay for our federalism, for having our people amenable to-as well as served and protected by-two governments. If a person may, through immunized selfdisclosure before a law-enforcing agency of the State, facilitate to some extent his amenability of federal process, or vice versa, this too is a price to be paid for our federalism. Against it must be put what would be a greater price, that of sterilizing the power of both governments by not recognizing the autonomy of each within its proper sphere.

Judgment affirmed.