Shapiro v. United States (335 U.S. 1)/Dissent Rutledge

Mr. Justice RUTLEDGE, dissenting.

With reservations to be noted, I agree with the views expressed by Mr. Justice JACKSON, and with Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER'S conclusions concerning the effect of the immunity provision, § 202(g) of the Emergency Price Control Act.

With them I cannot accept the Court's construction of that section which reduces the statutory immunity to the scope of that afforded by the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against compulsory self-incrimination. This Court has not previously so decided. Nor, in my judgment, can the present decision be reconciled with the language of the statute or its purpose obvious on its face.

That wording compels testimony and the production of evidence, documentary or otherwise, regardless of any claim of constitutional immunity, whether valid or not. But to avoid the constitutional prohibition and, it would seem clearly, also any delay in securing the information or evidence required, the Act promises immunity 'for or on account of any transaction, matter or thing, concerning which he may testify, or produce evidence * *  * in obedience to' the subpoena.

The statute thus consists of a command and a promise. In explicit terms the promise is made coextensive with the command. It expressly precludes prosecution, forfeiture or penalty 'for or on account of any transaction, matter or thing' concerning which evidence is produced in compliance with the subpoena. Compelling testimony and giving immunity 'for or on account of any transaction, matter or thing, concerning which he may testify' are very different from compelling it and promising that, when given, the person complying 'shall have only the immunity given by the Fifth Amendment and no more.' To constrict the statute's wording so drastically is not simply to interpret, it is to rewrite the congressional language and, in my view, its purpose. If Congress had intended only so narrow a protection, it could easily have said so without adding words to lead witnesses and others to believe more was given.

It may be, however, notwithstanding the breadth of the promissory terms, that the statutory immunity was not intended to be so broad as to cover situations where the claim of constitutional right precluded is only frivolous or insubstantial or not put forward in good faith. And if, for such a reason, the literal breadth of the wording may be somewhat cut down, restricting the statute's immunity by excluding those situations would neither restrict the effect of the statutory words to that of the Amendment itself nor give them the misleading connotation of the Court's cont ruction. Such a construction would not be departing widely from either the statute's terms or their obvious purpose to give immunity broader than the Amendment's, and would be well within the bounds of statutory interpretation. On the other hand, the Court's reduction of the statutory wording to equivalence in effect with the constitutional immunity, nearly if not quite makes that wording redundant or meaningless; in any event, it goes so far in rewriting the statutory language as to amount to invasion of the legislative function.

Whether one or the other of the two broader views of the statute's effect is accepted, therefore, it is neither necessary nor, I think, reasonable or consistent with the statutory wording and object or with this Court's function as strictly a judicial body to go so far in reconstructing what Congress has done, as I think results from reducing the statutory immunity to equivalence with the constitutional one.

Since it is not contended that there was not full compliance with the subpoena in this case, that compliance was excessive in the presently material portions of the evidence or information produced, or that the chaim of constitutional immunity precluded was frivolous, insubstantial or not made in good faith, I think the judgment should be reversed by applying the statutory immunity, whether in one or the other of the two forms which may be applied.

In this view I am relieved of the necessity of reaching the constitutional issue resulting from the Court's construction, and I express no opinion upon it except to say that I have substantial doubt of the validity of the Court's conclusion and indicate some of the reasons for this. I have none that Congress itself may require the keeping and production of specified records, with appropriate limitations, in connection with business matters it is entitled to and does regulate. That is true not only of corporate records, Wilson v. United States, 221 U.S. 361, 31 S.Ct. 538, 55 L.Ed. 771, Ann.Cas.1912D, 558, but also of individual business records under appropriate specification and limitations, as the numerous instances cited in Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER'S opinion illustrate.

But I seriously doubt that, consistently with the Fourth Amendment, as well as the prohibition of the Fifth against compulsory self-incrimination, Congress could enact a general law requiring all persons, individual or corporate, engaged in business subject to congressional regulation to produce, either in evidence or for an administrative agency's or official's examination, any and all records, without other limitation, kept in connection with that business. Such a command would approach too closely in effect the kind of general warrant the Fourth Amendment outlawed. That would be even more obviously true, if there were any difference, in case Congress should delegate to an administrative or executive official the power to impose so broad a prohibition.

The authority here conferred upon the Administrator by the Emergency Price Control Act, in reference to record-keeping and requiring production of records, closely approaches such a command. Congress neither itself specifies the records to be kept and produced upon the Administrator's demand nor limits his power to designate them by any restriction other than that he may require such as 'he deems necessary or proper to assist him,' § 202(a), (b), (c), in carrying out his functions of investigation and prescribing regulations under, as well as of administration and enforcement of, the Act. And as the authority to specify records for keeping and production was carried out by the Administrator, the only limitation imposed was that the records should be such as had been 'customarily kept.' § 14(b), M.P.R. 426, 8 Fed.Reg. 9546, 9549. Such a restriction is little, if any, less broad than the one concerning which I have indicated doubt that o ngress itself could enact consistently with the Fourth Amendment.

The authorization therefore is one which raises serious question whether, by reason of failure to make more definite specification of the records to be kept and produced, the legislation and regulations involved here do not exceed the prohibition of the Fourth Amendment against general warrants and unreasonable searches and seizures. There is a difference, of course, and often a large one, between situations where evidence is searched out and seized without warrant, and others where it is required to be produced under judicial safeguards. But I do not understand that in the latter situation its production can be required under a warrant that amounts to a general one. The Fourth Amendment stands as a barrier to judicial and legislative as well as executive or administrative excesses in this respect.

Although I seriously question whether the sum of the statute, as construed by the Court, the pertinent regulations, and their execution in this case does not go beyond constitutional limitations in the breadth of their inquiry, I express no conclusive opinion concerning this, since for me the statutory immunity applies and is sufficient to require reversal of petitioner's conviction.