Williams v. Zuckert (371 U.S. 531)/Dissent Douglas

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

After 16 years of faithful government service, petitioner has been branded with a stigma and discharged on the strength of three affidavits. Though he asked that these affiants be produced at his hearing, none was called to confront him. The Court says that petitioner's request came too late to conform with the applicable Regulation. Due process dictates a different result. We have heretofore analogized these administrative proceedings that cast the citizen into the outer darkness to proceedings that 'involve the imposition of criminal sanctions'; and we have looked to 'deeply rooted' principles of criminal law for guidance in construing regulations of this character. Peters v. Hobby, 349 U.S. 331, 344-345, 75 S.Ct. 790, 796, 99 L.Ed. 1129; Greene v. McElroy, 360 U.S. 474, 496, 79 S.Ct. 1400, 1413, 3 L.Ed.2d 1377. By that analogy we should construe the present Regulation as being protective of the right of confrontation, not as providing a technical way in which the right is either saved or lost.

Confrontation and cross-examination are, as I understand the law, vital when one's employment rights are involved. See Greene v. McElroy, supra, 496, 79 S.Ct. 1413; Beard v. Stahr, 370 U.S. 41, 43, 82 S.Ct. 1105, 1106, 8 L.Ed.2d 321 (dissenting opinion). Petitioner is not merely being 'denied * *  * the opportunity to work at one isolated and specific military installation.' Cafeteria & Restaurant Workers, etc. v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 896, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 1749, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230. The stigma now attached to him will follow him, whatever employment he seeks. The requirements of due process provided by the Fifth Amendment should protect him against this harsh result by giving him the same right to confront his accusers as he would have in a criminal trial. See Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 15 S.Ct. 337, 39 L.Ed. 409; Kirby v. United States, 174 U.S. 47, 55, 19 S.Ct. 574, 577, 43 L.Ed. 890; Curtis v. Rives, 75 U.S.App.D.C. 66, 123 F.2d 936, 938. For this discharge will certainly haunt his later life as much as would a conviction for willful evasion of taxes.

A trial for misconduct involving charges of immorality, like one for disloyalty, is likely to be 'the most crucial event in the life of a public servant. If condemned, he is branded for life as a person unworthy of trust or confidence. To make that condemnation without meticulous regard for the decencies of a fair trial is abhorrent to fundamental justice.' Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 180, 71 S.Ct. 624, 653, 95 L.Ed. 817 (concurring opinion).

Petitioner has been deprived of his job and permanently stigmatized without being confronted by his accusers, even though he requested that they be called and even though they could easily have been produced. Petitioner does more than rely on the Regulation. He relies on the Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment. To be sure, his request at the hearing was not phrased in constitutional terms. But administrative procedures are not games in which rights are won or lost on the turn of a phrase. In the District Court he claimed that this procedure 'was arbitrary and capricious and violative of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution.' That adequately raised the issue. See Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 6, 69 S.Ct. 894, 896, 93 L.Ed. 1131; cf. Williams v. Georgia, 349 U.S. 375, 75 S.Ct. 814, 99 L.Ed. 1161. It should be remembered that while a veteran's proceeding before the Civil Service Commission is called an 'appeal,' it is usually the first opportunity the employee has for a 'hearing' on the charges against him. In Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U.S. 535, 544-545, 79 S.Ct. 968, 975, 3 L.Ed.2d 1012, we construed a Regulation substantially similar to the present one as requiring the Interior Department to call as witnesses all 'non-confidential' informants. The Government advances no persuasive reason why that case does not control this one. At the hearing, when petitioner requested that the witnesses be called, his request was rejected because 'the Air Force Academy saw no need for their attendance.' But one who desires confrontation with the accuser has such a conflict of interest with his adversary that he, rather than his opponent, can better determine what would or might be useful to his defense. I would not say that this important constitutional right was lost on the technicality the Court now embraces.

We should not saddle these administrative proceedings with strict formalities concerning the manner in which exceptions or objections are made. They have no place in criminal proceedings, as Rule 51 of the Federal Rules, 18 U.S.C.A. makes clear; and it is unhealthy to let them take root in administrative hearings where human rights are involved that are as precious to 'liberty,' within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment, as a person's right not to be fined or imprisoned unless prescribed procedures are followed.

The judgment below should be reversed and the case remanded for a full hearing.