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Constitutional Law in 1920–1921. II: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1920
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Extract
The “self-incrimination” clause of the Fifth Amendment was brought forward in five cases, in three of which it was attended by the “search and seizure” provisions of the Fourth Amendment. The most important of these cases was Gouled v. the United States, in which the court was asked to pass upon the admissibility in evidence, first, of a paper obtained surreptitiously by officers of the government from the office of the accused; and secondly, of papers, described to be of “evidential value only,” which were taken from the office of accused under a search warrant. The court, declaring that the constitutional provisions involved must receive “a liberal construction, so as to prevent stealthy encroachment upon ‥‥ the rights secured by them,” held that the government had no right to the possession of any of these papers nor to the use of them as evidence. At the same time, it was held that if the government had had the right to seize the papers in question, for instance, as so much contraband property, and had done so under a warrant sufficient in form, “then it would have been competent to use them to prove any crime against accused as to which they constituted relevant evidence.”
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References
45 255 U. S. 298. For a review of some recent cases in the lower Federal Courts throwing light on this subject, see note in the March issue of the Yale Law Journal at page 518.
46 For the line of reasoning by which it was established that these two constitutional provisions should be read as complementary, see Boyd v. United States, U. S. 616.
47 255 U.S., 313.
48 256 U.S.—.
49 254 U. S. 71, and ibid., 379.
50 142 U. S. 547.
51 254 U. S. 505.
52 Citing the Palmyra, 12 Wheat. 1; Distillery v. United States, 96 U. S. 395; United States v. Stowell, 133 U. S. 1; and other cases.
53 255 U. S. 452.
54 District of Columbia v. Andrews Paper Co., and accompanying cases, 256 U. S.
55 Alaska Fish Co. v. Smith, 255 U. S. 44.
56 ibid., 163. The decision in a series of cases headed by Winton v. Amos, reiterates familiar doctrine regarding the plenary authority of Congress “over the Indians and all their tribal relations” and its “full power to legislate concerning their tribal property,” 255 U. S. 373. Similarly, Chase v. United States, 256 U. S. 1, sustained the right of Congress to change the mode of disposition of certain unallotted lands in the Omaha Indian Reservation.
57 255 U. S. 81. Of the accompanying cases the most important is Weeds, Inc. et al. v. United States, ibid., 109.
58 The relevant provisions of the section read thus: “That it is hereby made unlawful for any person wilfully‥‥to make any unjust or unreasonable rate or charge in handling or dealing in or with any necessaries; to conspire, combine, agree, or arrange with any other person (e) to exact excessive prices for any necessaries‥…Any person violating any of the provisions of this section upon conviction thereof shall be fined not exceeding $5,000 or be imprisoned for not more than two years, or both.” 41 Stat. at L. 297. The government admitted that “a statute creating an offense must use language which will convey to the average mind information as to the act or fact which it is intended to make criminal.” United States v. Brewer, 139 U. S. 278, 288. In support of its further contention that the above quoted provisions fulfilled this requirement, the government cited Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U. S. 86; Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373; and Miller v. Strahl, 239 U. S. 426, 434. Former Justice Hughes was on the brief for those assailing the act in several of these cases. It is, therefore, interesting to compare his opinion for the court, disposing of a similar objection to the Federal Hours of Service Act of 1907 (34 Stat. at L. 1415), in Baltimore and Ohio Ry. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 221 U. S. 612. See also 161 U. S. 29, and 227 U. S. 427.
59 254 U. S. 135.
60 The right to a jury in “suits at common law,” secured by the Seventh Amendment was indirectly involved in Sampliner v. Motion Picture Patents Co., 254, U. S. 233.
61 Kahn v. Anderson, 255 U. S. 1. Givens v. Zerbst, ibid., 11, also deals with certain aspects of the general subject. Courts-martial, it is pointed out, being “tribunals of special and limited jurisdiction,” their judgments, “so far as questions relating to their jurisdiction are concerned, are always open to collateral attack.” It was held, however, that in case of such attack, the reviewing tribunal may admit evidence supplementing the court-martial record, to show the military status of an accused.
62 20 How. 65.
63 254 U. S. 443.
64 Section 6 of the act was also involved indirectly in the case. The two sections read as follows:
“Sec. 6. That the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce. Nothing contained in the Anti-trust Laws shall be construed to forbid the existence and operation of labor, agricultural, or horticultural organizations, instituted for the purposes of mutual help, and not having capital stock or conducted for profit, or to forbid or restrain individual members of such organizations from lawfully carrying out the legitimate objects thereof; nor shall such organizations, or the members thereof, be held or construed to be illegal combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade, under the Anti-trust Laws.”
“Sec. 20. That no restraining order or injunction shall be granted by any court of the United States, or a judge or the judges thereof, in any case between an employer and employees, or between employers and employees, or between employees, or between persons employed and persons seeking employment, involving, or growing out of, a dispute concerning terms or conditions of employment, unless necessary to prevent irreparable injury to property, or to a property right, of the party making the application, for which injury there is no adequate remedy at law, and such property or property right must be described with particularity in the application, which must be in writing and sworn to by the applicant or by his agent or attorney.
“And no such restraining order or injunction shall prohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, from terminating any relation of employment, or from ceasing to perform any work or labor, or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful means so to do; or from attending at any place where any such person or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or from peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working; or from ceasing to patronize or to employ any party to such dispute, or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful and lawful means so to do; or from paying or giving to, or withholding from, any person engaged in such dispute, any strike benefits or other moneys or things of value; or from peaceably assembling in a lawful manner, and for lawful purposes; or from doing any act or thing which might lawfully be done in the absence of such dispute by any party thereto; nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph be considered or held to be violations of any law of the United States.” 38 Stat. at L. 737.
65 The precise effect of section 20 still remains, however, a matter of doubt, and this doubt is increased rather than diminished by the more recent decision in American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City C.T. Council (decided December 5, 1921). In his opinion in the Duplex case, Justice Pitney declares that section 20 “imposes an exceptional and extraordinary restriction upon the equity powers of the courts of the United States and upon the general operation of the Anti-Trust Laws.” A head note to the American Steel Foundries case, on the other hand, asserts that by section 20 “no new principle was introduced into the equity jurisprudence of the Federal courts,” that section 20 is “merely declaratory of what was the best practice always.” It is possible that a more careful comparison of the two opinions would clear up the seeming discrepancy.
66 254 U. S. 88.
67 United States v. Yuginovich, 256 U. S.
68 Jin Fuey Moy v. United States, 254 U. S. 189.
69 Minnesota v. Martinson, 256 U. S. 41.
70 254 U. S. 255.
71 Frey and Son v. Cudahy Packing Co., 256 U. S. 208, involving an alleged price-fixing agreement. Cf. U. S. v. Shrader's Sons, 252 U. S. 85.
72 Pryor v. Williams, 254 U. S. 43; and Southern Pacific Co. v. Berkshire, ibid., 415. A third case (Phila. & Reading Ry. Co. v. Donato, 256 U. S. 327) ruled that a flagman whose business it was to signal both interstate and intra-state trains, was engaged in interstate commerce, without regard to the character of the train he was flagging when killed; and a fourth case under the same act (Phila. & Reading Ry. Co. v. Polk, ibid., 332) laid down like doctrine with respect to an employee caught between two cars of a train which was made up of both interstate and intra-state cars.
73 Lang v. N. Y. Cent. R. R. Co., 256 U. S.—. In United States v. No. Pacif. Ry. Co., arising under the same act, it was held that transfer trains on a terminal track of an interstate carrier are subject to the act, 254 U. S. 251.
74 255 U. S. 22.
75 Krichman v. United States, 256 U. S. 363.
76 United States v. Strang et al, 254 U. S. 491.
77 Baender v. Barnett, 255 U. S. 224. Justice Van Devanter, speaking for the court, quotes the following passage from an earlier decision:
“All laws should receive a sensible construction. General terms should be so limited in their application as not to lead to injustice, oppression, or an absurd consequence. It will always, therefore, be presumed that the legislature intended exceptions to its language, which would avoid results of this character. The reason of the law in such cases should prevail over its letter. The common sense of man approves the judgment mentioned by Puffendorf, that the Bolognian law which enacted ‘that whoever drew blood in the streets should be punished with the utmost severity’ did not extend to the surgeon who opened the vein of a person that fell down in the street in a fit. The same common sense accepts the ruling, cited by Plowden, that the Statute of 1st Edward II., which enacts that a prisoner who breaks prison shall be guilty of felony, does not extend to a prisoner who breaks out when the prison is on fire,—‘for he is not to be hanged because he would not stay to be burnt.’” United States v. Kirby, 7 Wall. 482.
78 255 U. S. 52. Section 5278 of course supplements Article iv, section 2, paragraph 2, of the Constitution.
79 Central Union Trust Co. v. Tarvan, 254 U. S. 554; Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U. S. 239.
80 Missouri Pac. R. R. Co. v. H. A. F. Ault, 256 U. S.—.
81 Western Un. Tel. Co., v. Poston, 256 U. S.—.
82 Sullivan v. Kidd, 254 U. S. 433.
83 Givens v. Zerbst, 255 U. S. 11.
84 Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. United States, 254 U. S. 57.
85 256 U. S.—.
86 254 U. S. 325.
87 Western Un. Tel. Co. v. Speight, ibid., 17.
88 Galveston, H. & S. A. R. Co. v. Woodbury, ibid., 357.
89 Economy Light & Power Co. v. United States, 256 U. S. 113.
90 St. Louis & E. St. L. Electric R. Co. v. Missouri, ibid., 314; St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Middlekamp, ibid., 226.
91 Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Tremont, 255 U. S. 124.
92 Underwood Typewriter Co. v. Chamberlain, 254 U. S. 113.
93 Bethlehem Motors Corporation v. Flynt, 256 U. S. 421.
94 Bowman v. Continental Oil Co., ibid.,—.
95 See Askren v. Continental Oil Co., 252 U. S. 444. The previously dominant rule was that laid down in Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622.
96 See Austin v. Tennessee, 179 U. S. 343.
97 International Bridge Co. v. N. Y., 254 U. S. 126.
98 Seattle v. Oregon & Washington R. Co., 255 U. S. 56.
99 St. Louis and San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Public Service Comm., 254 U. S. 535.
100 256 U. S. 170.
101 Ibid., 135; see note 24 supra.
102 Walls v. Midland Carbon Co., 254 U. S. 300.
103 Thornton v. Duffy, 254 U. S. 361.
104 Lower Vein Coal Co. v. Industrial B'd, 255 U. S. 144.
105 Erie R. R. Co. v. B'd. of Public Utility Com'rs, and several other cases, 254 U. S. 394.
106 Maguire v. Reardon, 255 U. S. 271.
107 Vandalia R. R. v. Schnull, 255 U. S. 113.
108 So. Iowa Electric Co. v. Chariton, 256 U. S.—; San Antonio v. San Antonio Public Service Comm., ibid.—.
109 Underwood Typewriter Co. v. Chamberlain, 254 U. S. 113.
110 Watson v. State Comptroller, ibid., 122.
111 Dane v. Jackson, 256 U. S.—.
112 Nicchia v. New York, 254 U. S. 228.
113 Miller & Lux v. Sacramento & San Joaquin Drainage Dist., 256 U. S. 129.
114 Kansas City So. Ry. Co. v. Road Improvement Dist., ibid.,—.
115 Turner v. Wade, 254 U. S. 64. Payment, under a state law, of damages and attorney's fees, as for a vexatious delay, was allowed, in peculiar circumstances, in Hartford Life Ins. Co. v. Blincoe, 255 U. S. 129. See also next note. Two other cases in which the “due process of law” clause was invoked were Bullock v. Railroad Comm. of Florida, 254 U. S. 513, and Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U. S. 94. In both, however, the facts were so special as to make the holdings of little interest.
116 255 U. S. 171. The appellant company also invoked unavailingly the “due process of law” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
117 International Bridge Co. v. New York, 254 U. S. 126.
118 New York ex rel Troy Union R. R. Co. v. Mealy, ibid., 47.
119 Bank of Minden v. Clement, 256 U. S., 126 citing Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 197, Planters' Bank v. Sharp, 6 How. 327, and other old cases. On the other hand, see Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, and Manigault v. Springs, 199 U. S. The discrepancy between the two classes of decisions is explained by the fact that, in the latter, to have denied the statutes involved a retroactive operation, would have been to defeat an exigent legislative policy.
120 4 Wheat. 316.
121 254 U. S. 51.
122 9 Wheat. 738.
123 Citing in re Nea le 135 U. S. 1.
124 Merchants' National Bank v. Richmond, 256 U. S.—.
125 Choctaw, O., & G. R. R. Co. v. Mackey, ibid.,—.
126 See Union P. R. Co. v. Peniston, 18 Wall. 5; also, Central P. R. Co. v. California, 162 U. S. 91.
127 245 U. S. 366.
128 Delaware & Hudson Co. iv. U. S., 213 U. S. 366.
129 221 U. S. 1.
130 9 Wheat. 1.
131 Hammer v. Dagenbart, 247 U. S. 251.
132 McCray v. U. S. 195 U. S. 27.
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