In Re Oliver

333 U.S. 257, 68 S. Ct. 499, 92 L. Ed. 2d 682, 92 L. Ed. 682, 1948 U.S. LEXIS 2452

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: March 8, 1948
• Docket: 215
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Black

delivered the opinion of the Court.

A Michigan circuit judge summarily sent the petitioner to jail for contempt of court. We must determine whether he was denied the procedural due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

In obedience to a subpoena the petitioner appeared as a witness before a Michigan circuit judge who was then conducting, in accordance with Michigan law, a “one-man grand jury” investigation into alleged gambling and official corruption. The investigation presumably took place in the judge’s chambers, though that is not certain. Two other circuit judges were present in an advisory-capacity.¹ A prosecutor may have been present. A stenographer was most likely there. The record does not show what other members, if any, of the judge’s investiga-torial staff participated in the proceedings. It is certain, however, that the public was excluded — the questioning was secret in accordance with the traditional grand jury method.

After petitioner had given certain testimony, the judge-grand jury, still in secret session, told petitioner that neither he nor his advisors believed petitioner’s story— that it did not “jell.” This belief of the judge-grand jury was not based entirely on what the petitioner had testified. As will later be seen, it rested in part on beliefs or suspicions of the judge-jury derived from the testimony of at least one other witness who had previously given evidence in secret. Petitioner had not been present when that witness testified and so far as appears was not even aware that he had testified. Based on its beliefs thus formed — that petitioner’s story did not “jell” — the judge-grand jury immediately charged him with contempt, immediately convicted him, and immediately sentenced him to sixty days in jail. Under these circumstances of haste and secrecy, petitioner, of course, had no chance to enjoy the benefits of counsel, no chance to prepare his defense, and no opportunity either to cross-examine the other grand jury witness or to summon witnesses to refute the charge against him.

Three days later a lawyer filed on petitioner’s behalf in the Michigan Supreme Court the petition for habeas corpus now under consideration. It alleged among other things that the petitioner's attorney had not been allowed to confer with him and that, to the best of the attorney's knowledge, the petitioner was not held in jail under any judgment, decree or execution, and was “not confined by virtue of any legal commitment directed to the sheriff as required by law.” An order was then entered signed by the circuit judge that he had while “sitting as a One-Man Grand Jury” convicted the petitioner of contempt of court because petitioner had testified “evasively” and had given “contradictory answers” to questions. The order directed that petitioner “be confined in the County Jail ... for a period of sixty (60) days or until such time as he . . . shall appear and answer the questions heretofore propounded to him by this Court . . . .”

The. Supreme Court of Michigan, on grounds detailed in the companion case of In re Hartley, 317 Mich. 441, 27 N. W. 2d 48,² rejected petitioner's contention that the summary manner in which he had been sentenced to jail in the secrecy of the grand jury chamber had deprived him of his liberty without affording him the kind of notice, opportunity to defend himself, and trial which the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires.³ In re Oliver, 318 Mich. 7, 27 N. W. 2d 323. We granted certiorari to consider these procedural due process questions.

The case requires a brief explanation of Michigan’s unique one-man grand jury system.⁴ That state’s first constitution (1835), like the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, required that most criminal prosecutions be begun by presentment or indictment of a grand jury. Art. I, § 11. This compulsory provision was left out of the 1850 constitution and from the present constitution (1908). However, Michigan judges may still in their discretion summon grand juries, but we are told by the attorney general that this discretion is rarely exercised and that the “One-Man Grand Jury” has taken the place of the old Michigan 16 to 23-member grand jury, particularly in probes of alleged misconduct of public officials.

The one-man grand jury law was passed in 1917 following a recommendation of the State Bar Association that, in the interest of more rigorous law enforcement, greater emphasis should be put upon the “investigative procedure” for “probing” and for “detecting” crime.⁵ With this need uppermost in its thinking the Bar Association recommended a bill which provided that justices of the peace be vested with the inquisitorial powers traditionally conferred only on coroners and grand juries. The bill as passed imposed the recommended investigatory powers not only on justices of the peace, but on police judges and judges of courts of record as well. Mich. Laws 1917, Act 196.

Whenever this judge-grand jury may summon a witness to appear, it is his duty to go and to answer all material questions that do not incriminate him. Should he fail to appear, fail to answer material questions, or should the judge-grand jury believe his evidence false and evasive, or deliberately contradictory, he may be found guilty of contempt. This offense may be punishable by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars, or imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding sixty days, or both, at the discretion of the judge-grand jury. If after having been so sentenced he appears and satisfactorily answers the questions propounded by the judge-jury, his sentence may, within the judge-jury’s discretion, be commuted or suspended. At the end of his first sentence he can be resummoned and subjected to the same inquiries. Should the judge-jury again believe his answers false and evasive, or contradictory, he can be sentenced to serve sixty days more unless he reappears before the judge-jury during the second 60-day period and satisfactorily answers the questions, and the judge-jury within its discretion then decides to commute or suspend his sentence.⁶

In carrying out this authority a judge-grand jury is authorized to appoint its own prosecutors, detectives and aides at public expense,⁷ all or any of whom may, at the discretion of the justice of the peace or judge, be admitted to the inquiry. Mich. Stat. Ann. § 28.944 (Henderson 1938). A witness may be asked questions on all subjects and need not be advised of his privilege against self-incrimination, even though the questioning is in secret.⁸ And these secret interrogations can be carried on day or night, in a public place or a “hideout,” a courthouse, an office building, a hotel room, a home, or a place of business; so well is this ambulatory power understood in Michigan that the one-man grand jury is also popularly referred to as the “portable grand jury.” ⁹

It was a circuit court judge-grand jury before which petitioner testified. That judge-jury filed in the State Supreme Court an answer to this petition for habeas corpus. The answer contained fragments of what was apparently a stenographic transcript of petitioner’s testimony given before the grand jury. It was these fragments of testimony, so the answer stated, that the “Grand Jury” had concluded to be “false and evasive.” The petitioner then filed a verified motion with the State Supreme Court seeking to have the complete transcript of his testimony before the judge-jury produced for the habeas corpus hearing. He alleged that a full report of his testimony would disclose that he had freely, promptly, and to the best of his ability, answered all questions asked, and that the full transcript would refute the charge that he had testified evasively or falsely. In his answer to the motion the circuit judge did not deny these allegations. However, he asserted that the fragments contained in the original answer showed “all of the Grand Jury testimony necessary to the present proceeding” and that “the full disclosure of Petitioner’s testimony would seriously retard Grand Jury activities.” The State Supreme Court then denied the petitioner’s motion. Thus, when that Court later dismissed the petition for habeas corpus it had seen only a copy of a portion of the record of the testimony given by the petitioner.

The petitioner does not here challenge the constitutional power of Michigan to grant traditional inquisitorial grand jury power to a single judge, and therefore we do not concern ourselves with that question. It has long been recognized in this country however that the traditional 12 to 23-member grand juries may examine witnesses in secret sessions. Oaths of secrecy are ordinarily taken both by the members of such grand juries and by witnesses before them. Many reasons have been advanced to support grand jury secrecy. See, e. g., Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, 58-66; State v. Branch, 68 N. C. 186. But those reasons have never been thought to justify secrecy in the trial of an accused charged with violation of law for which he may be fined or sent to jail. Grand juries investigate, and the usual end of their investigation is either a report, a “no-bill” or an indictment. They do not try and they do not convict. They render no judgment. When their work is finished by the return of an indictment, it cannot be used as evidence against the person indicted. Nor may he be fined or sentenced to jail until he has been tried and convicted after having been afforded the procedural safeguards required by due process of law. Even when witnesses before grand juries refuse to answer proper questions, the grand juries do not adjudge the witnesses guilty of contempt of court in secret or in public or at all.¹⁰ Witnesses who refuse to testify before grand juries are tried on contempt charges before judges sitting in open court. And though the powers of a judge even when acting as a one-man grand jury may be, as Michigan holds, judicial in their nature,¹¹ the due process clause may apply with one effect on the judge’s grand jury investigation, but with quite a different effect when the judge-grand jury suddenly makes a witness before it a defendant in a contempt case.

Here we are concerned, not with petitioner’s rights as a witness in a secret grand jury session, but with his rights as a defendant in a contempt proceeding. The powers of the judge-grand jury who tried and convicted him in secret and sentenced him to jail on a charge of false and evasive swearing must likewise be measured, not by the limitations applicable to grand jury proceedings, but by the constitutional standards applicable to court proceedings in which an accused may be sentenced to fine or imprisonment or both. Thus our first question is this: Can an accused be tried and convicted for contempt of court in grand jury secrecy?

First. Counsel have not cited and we have been unable to find a single instance of a criminal trial conducted in camera in any federal,¹² state, or municipal court during the history of this country. Nor have we found any record of even one such secret criminal trial in England since abolition of the Court of Star Chamber in 1641, and whether that court ever convicted people secretly is in dispute. Summary trials for alleged misconduct called contempt of court¹³ have not been regarded as an exception to this universal rule against secret trials, unless some other Michigan one-man grand jury case may represent such an exception.

This nation’s accepted practice of guaranteeing a public trial to an accused has its roots in our English common law heritage. The exact date of its origin is obscure, but it likely evolved long before the settlement of our land as an accompaniment of the ancient institution of jury trial.¹⁴ In this country the guarantee to an accused of the right to a public trial first appeared in a state constitution in 1776.¹⁵ Following the ratification in 1791 of the Federal Constitution’s Sixth Amendment, which commands that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial . . .” most of the original states and those subsequently admitted to the Union adopted similar constitutional provisions.¹⁶ Today almost without exception¹⁷ every state by constitution,¹⁸ statute,¹⁹ or judicial decision,²⁰ requires that all criminal trials be open to the public.

The traditional Anglo-American distrust for secret trials has been variously ascribed to the notorious use of this practice by the Spanish Inquisition,²¹ to the excesses of the English Court of Star Chamber,²² and to the French monarchy’s abuse of the lettre de cachet.²³ All of these institutions obviously symbolized a menace to liberty. In the hands of despotic groups each of them had become an instrument for the suppression of political and religious heresies in ruthless disregard of the right of an accused to a fair trial. Whatever other benefits the guarantee to an accused that his trial be conducted in public may confer upon our society,²⁴ the guarantee has always been recognized as a safeguard against any attempt to employ our courts as instruments of persecution. The knowledge that every criminal trial is subject to contemporaneous review in the forum of public opinion is an effective restraint on possible abuse of judicial power.²⁵ One need not wholly agree with a statement made on the subject by Jeremy Bentham over 120 years ago to appreciate the fear of secret trials felt by him, his predecessors and contemporaries. Bentham said: . . suppose the proceedings to be completely secret, and the court, on the occasion, to consist of no more than a single judge,- — -that judge will be at once indolent and arbitrary: how corrupt soever his inclination may be, it will find no check, at any rate no tolerably efficient check, to oppose it. Without publicity, all other checks are insufficient: in comparison of publicity, all other checks are of small account. Recordation, appeal, whatever other institutions might present themselves in the character of checks, would be found to operate rather as cloaks than checks; as cloaks in reality, as checks only in appearance.” ²⁶

In giving content to the constitutional and statutory commands that an accused be given a public trial, the state and federal courts have differed over what groups of spectators, if any, could properly be excluded from a criminal trial.²⁷ But, unless in Michigan and in one-man grand jury contempt cases, no court in this country has ever before held, so far as we can find, that an accused can be tried, convicted, and sent to jail, when everybody else is denied entrance to the court, except the judge and his attaches.²⁸ And without exception all courts have held that an accused is at the very least entitled to have his friends, relatives and counsel present, no matter with what offense he may be charged.²⁹ In Gaines v. Washington, 277 U. S. 81, 85-86, this Court assumed that a criminal trial conducted in secret would violate the procedural requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause, although its actual holding there was that no violation had in fact occurred, since the trial court’s order barring the general public had not been enforced. Certain proceedings in a judge’s chambers, including convictions for contempt of court, have occasionally been countenanced by state courts,³⁰ but there has never been any intimation that all of the public, including the accused’s relatives, friends, and counsel, were barred from the trial chamber.

In the case before us, the petitioner was called as a witness to testify in secret before a one-man grand jury conducting a grand jury investigation. In the midst of petitioner’s testimony the proceedings abruptly changed. The investigation became a “trial,” the grand jury became a judge, and the witness became an accused charged with contempt of court — all in secret. Following a charge, conviction and sentence, the petitioner was led away to prison — still without any break in the secrecy. Even in jail, according to undenied allegations, his lawyer was denied an opportunity to see and confer with him. And that was not the end of secrecy. His lawyer filed in the State Supreme Court this habeas corpus proceeding. Even there, the mantle of secrecy enveloped the transaction and the State Supreme Court ordered him sent back to jail without ever having seen a record of his testimony, and without knowing all that took place in the secrecy of the judge’s chambers. In view of this nation’s historic distrust of secret proceedings, their inherent dangers to freedom, and the universal requirement of our federal and state governments that criminal trials be public, the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee that no one shall be deprived of his liberty without due process of law means at least that an accused cannot be thus sentenced to prison.

Second. We further hold that failure to afford the petitioner a reasonable opportunity to defend himself against the charge of false and evasive swearing was a denial of due process of law. A person’s right to reasonable notice of a charge against him, and an opportunity to be heard in his defense — a right to his day in court — are basic in our system of jurisprudence; and these rights include, as a minimum, a right to examine the witnesses against him, to offer testimony, and to be represented by counsel.³¹ Michigan, not denying the existence of these rights in criminal cases generally, apparently concedes that the summary conviction here would have been a denial of procedural due process but for the nature of the charge, namely, a contempt of court, committed, the State urges, in the court’s actual presence.

It is true that courts have long exercised a power summarily to punish certain conduct committed in open court without notice, testimony or hearing. Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, was such a case. There Terry committed assault on the marshal who was at the moment removing a heckler from the courtroom. The “violence and misconduct” of both the heckler and the marshal’s assailant occurred within the “personal view” of the judge, “under his own eye,” and actually interrupted the trial of a cause then under way. This Court held that under such circumstances a judge has power to punish an offender at once, without notice and without hearing, although his conduct may also be punishable as a criminal offense. This Court reached its conclusion because it believed that a court’s business could not be conducted unless it could suppress disturbances within the courtroom by immediate punishment. However, this Court recognized that such departure from the accepted standards of due process wTas capable of grave abuses, and for that reason gave no encouragement to its expansion beyond the suppression and punishment of the court-disrupting misconduct which alone justified its exercise. Indeed in the Terry case the Court cited with approval its decision in Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, which had marked the limits of contempt authority in general as being “the least possible power adequate to the end proposed.” Id. at 231. And see In re Michael, 326 U. S. 224, 227.

That the holding in the Terry case is not to be considered as an unlimited abandonment of the basic due process procedural safeguards, even in contempt cases, was spelled out with emphatic language in Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 617, a contempt case arising in a federal district court. There it was pointed out that for a court- to exercise the extraordinary but narrowly limited power to punish for contempt without adequate notice and opportunity to be heard, the court-disturbing misconduct must not only occur in the court’s immediate presence, but that the judge must have personal knowledge of it acquired by his own observation of the contemptuous conduct. This Court said that knowledge acquired from the testimony of others, or even from the confession of the accused, would not justify conviction without a trial in which there was an opportunity for defense. Furthermore, the Court explained the Terry rule as reaching only such conduct as created "an open threat to the orderly procedure of the court and such a flagrant defiance of the person and presence of the judge before the public” that, if “not instantly suppressed and punished, demoralization of the court’s authority will follow.” Id. at 536.

Except for a narrowly limited category of contempts, due process of law as explained in the Cooke case requires that one charged with contempt of court be advised of the charges against him, have a reasonable opportunity to meet them by way of defense or explanation, have the right to be represented by counsel, and have a chance to testify and call other witnesses in his behalf, either by way of defense or explanation. The narrow exception to these due process requirements includes only charges of misconduct, in open court, in the presence of the judge, which disturbs the court’s business, where all of the essential elements of the misconduct are under the eye of the court, are actually observed by the court, and where immediate punishment is essential to prevent “demoralization of the court’s authority” before the public. If some essential elements of the offense are not personally observed by the judge, so that he must depend upon statements made by others for his knowledge about these essential elements, due process requires, according to the Cooke case, that the accused be accorded notice and a fair hearing as above set out.

The facts shown by this record put this case outside the narrow category of cases that can be punished as contempt without notice, hearing and counsel. Since the petitioner’s alleged misconduct all occurred in secret, there could be no possibility of a demoralization of the court’s authority before the public. Furthermore, the answer of the judge-grand jury to the petition for habeas corpus showed that his conclusion that the petitioner had testified falsely was based, at least in part, upon the testimony given before him by one or more witnesses other than petitioner. Petitioner and one Hartley both testified the same day; both were pin-ball machine operators; both had bought or had in their possession certain so-called bonds purchased from one Mitchell; both were sent to jail for contempt the same day. In re Hartley, 317 Mich. 441, 27 N. W. 2d 48. The judge-grand jury pressed both petitioner and Hartley to state why they bought bonds which were patently worthless. The petitioner was also repeatedly asked what he had done with the worthless bonds. He answered every question asked him, according to the fragmentary portions of his testimony reported to the Michigan Supreme Court, most of which is included in that court’s opinion. He steadfastly denied that he knew precisely what he had done with the worthless bonds, but made several different statements as to how he might have disposed of them, such as that he might have thrown them into the wastebasket, or trash can, or might have burned them.

In upholding the judge-grand jury’s conclusion that petitioner had testified falsely and evasively, the majority of the Michigan Supreme Court gave as one reason a statement in the judge-grand jury’s answer “That the Grand Jury, after investigation, is satisfied that the bonds sold by the said Carman A. Mitchell to the said William D. Oliver are the same as those sold by the said Carman A. Mitchell to Leo Thomas Hartley.” Nothing in the petitioner’s testimony as reported could have remotely justified the judge-jury in drawing such a conclusion. The judge-jury was obviously appraising the truth of Oliver’s testimony in light of testimony given the same day in petitioner’s absence by Hartley and possibly by other witnesses. The Terry case and others like it provide no support for sustaining petitioner’s conviction of contempt of court upon testimony given in petitioner’s absence. This case would be like the Terry case only if the judge there had not personally witnessed Terry’s assault upon the marshal but had nevertheless sent him to jail for contempt of court after hearing the testimony of witnesses against Terry in Terry’s absence. It may be conceivable, as is here urged, that a judge can under some circumstances correctly detect falsity and evasiveness from simply listening to a witness testify. But this is plainly not a case in which the finding of falsity rested on an exercise of this alleged power. For this reason we need not pass on the question argued in the briefs whether a judge can, consistently with procedural due process, convict a witness of testifying falsely and evasively solely on the judge’s ability to detect it from merely observing a witness and hearing him testify.

Nor is there any reason suggested why “demoralization of the court’s authority” would have resulted from giving the petitioner a reasonable opportunity to appear and offer a defense in open court to a charge of perjury or to the charge of contempt. The traditional grand juries have never punished contempts.³² The practice that has always been followed with recalcitrant grand jury witnesses is to take them into open court, and that practice, consistent with due process, has not demoralized the authority of courts. Reported cases reveal no instances in which witnesses believed by grand juries on the basis of other testimony to be perjurers have been convicted for contempt, or for perjury, without notice of the specific charges against them, and opportunity to prepare a defense, to obtain counsel, to cross-examine the witnesses against them and to offer evidence in their own defense. The right to be heard in open court before one is condemned is too valuable to be whittled away under the guise of “demoralization of the court's authority."

It is “the law of the land” that no man’s life, liberty or property be forfeited as a punishment until there has been a charge fairly made and fairly tried in a public tribunal. See Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227, 236-237. The petitioner was convicted without that kind of trial.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Michigan is reversed and the cause is remanded to it for disposition not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

1 Under certain circumstances Michigan law permits circuit judges to sit with other circuit judges in an advisory capacity. Mich. Stat. Ann. § 27.188 (Henderson 1938); Mich. Comp. Laws 1929 § 13666.

2 In giving reasons in its Hartley opinion for rejecting this petitioner’s constitutional contentions, the State Supreme Court said it would have been an “idle gesture to require such adjournment of the grand jury and its reconvening as a circuit court. The circuit judge, while acting as a one-man grand jury may, in appropriate cases, summarily adjudge a witness testifying before him guilty of contempt and impose sentence forthwith.

“Plaintiff’s contempt, if any, was committed in the face of the court and required no extraneous proofs as to its occurrence. It was direct and there was, therefore, no necessity for filing of charges, notice to accused and hearing as provided in 3 Comp. Laws of 1929, § 13912 (Stat. Ann. § 27.513). It was properly dealt with summarily. 3 Comp. Laws 1929, §§ 13910, 13911 (Stat. Ann. §§ 27.511, 27.512).” 317 Mich, at 44-445, 27 N. W. 2d at 50.

3 By a four to four vote the court also held that there was “evidence to support the finding” of the judge-grand jury that petitioner had testified falsely. Petitioner has argued here that there was not a shred of evidence which under any circumstances could have conceivably supported this finding and thus that he was deprived of his liberty without due process of law. In the view that we take of this case we find it unnecessary to consider this constitutional contention.

4 The laws authorizing the system are found in Michigan Comp. Laws 1929,-§ 17217, et seq.; Mich. Stat. Ann. § 28.943, et seq. (Henderson 1938). A summary of the ten states’ statutes which have some similarities to Michigan’s appears in Winters, The Michigan One-Man Grand Jury, 28 J. Am. Jud. Soc. 137. See, e. g., Conn. Gen. Stat. § 889f (Supp. 1941); McCarthy v. Clancy, 110 Conn. 482, 148 A. 551; Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 37, §83; tit. 21 §951 (1937); Ex parte Ballew, 20 Okla. Cr. 105, 201 P. 525.

5 Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Annual Meeting of the Michigan State Bar Association 101-105 (1916).

6 In re Ward, 295 Mich. 742, 747, 295 N. W. 483, 485. (First 60-day conviction May 31, 1940, followed by second 60-day conviction July 29, 1940. A $100 fine was also imposed in each instance.)

7 In re Investigation of Recount, 270 Mich. 328, 331, 258 N. W. 776, 777; In re Slattery, 310 Mich. 458, 479, 17 N. W. 2d 251, 259.

8 People v. Wolfson, 264 Mich. 409, 413, 250 N. W. 260, 262; In re Watson, 293 Mich. 263, 269, 291 N. W. 652, 655; People v. Butler, 221 Mich. 626, 631-632, 192 N. W. 685, 687.

9 Winters, The Michigan One-Man Grand Jury, 28 J. Am. Jud. Soc. 137, 143; Unprecedented Success in Criminal Courts, 26 J. Am. Jud. Soc. 42-43.

10 See cases collected in 8 A. L. R. 1579-1580; Orfield, Criminal Procedure from Arrest to Appeal 161 (1947).

11 In re Slattery, 310 Mich. 458, 466-468,17 N. W. 2d 251, 254-255; Kloka v. State Treasurer, 318 Mich. 87, 90, 27 N. W. 2d 507, 508; cf. Todd v. United States, 158 U. S. 278, 284; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U. S. 447, 481, 489; United States v. Ferreira, 13 How. 40, 44-48.

12 Cases within the jurisdiction of courts martial may be regarded as an exception. Ex parte Quirin, 317 U. S. 1, 43; King v. Governor of Lewes Prison, 61 Sol. J. 294, 30 Harv. L. Rev. 771. Whatever may be the classification of juvenile court proceedings, they are often conducted without admitting all the public. But it has never been the practice wholly to exclude parents, relatives, and friends, or to refuse juveniles the benefit of counsel.

13 Under Michigan law contempt proceedings against a witness before a one-man grand jury are criminal in nature. In re Wilkowski, 270 Mich. 687, 259 N. W. 658. But this characterization is not material in resolving this due process question. Cf. Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604, 610-611.

14 Radin, The Right to a Public Trial, 6 Temp. L. Q. 381-384. Early commentators mention that public trials were commonly held without attempting to trace their origin. Sir Thomas Smith in 1565 in his De República Anglorum bk. 2, pp. 79, 101 (Alston ed. 1906); Sir Matthew Hale about 1670 in his History of The Common Law of England 343-345 (Runnington ed. 1820). In 1649, a few years after the Long Parliament abolished the Court of Star Chamber, an accused charged with high treason before a Special Commission of Oyer and Terminer claimed the right to public trial and apparently was given such a trial. Trial of John Lilburne, 4 How. St. Tr. 1270, 1274. “By immemorial usage, wherever the common law prevails, all trials are in open court, to which spectators are admitted.” 2 Bishop, New Criminal Procedure § 957 (2d ed. 1913).

15 Penn. Const., Declaration of Rights IX (1776); N. C. Const., Declaration of Rights IX (1776) (criminal convictions only by jury verdict in “open court”).

16 See, e. g., Vt. Const., ch. I, Declaration of Rights, XI (1787); Del. Const., Art. I, § 7 (1792); Ky. Const., Art. XII, el. 10 (1792); Tenn. Const., Art. XI, § 9 (1796); Miss. Const., Art. I, § 10 (1817); Mich. Const., Art. I, § 10 (1835); Tex. Const., Art. I, § 8 (1845).

17 Four states, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia and Wyoming, appear to have neither statutory nor constitutional provisions specifically requiring that criminal trials be held in public, although all have constitutions guaranteeing an accused the right to a jury trial. Mass. Const., Pt. I, Art. XII; N. H. Const., Pt. First, Arts. 15th, 16th; Va. Const., Art. I, §8; Wyo. Const., Art. 1, § 10. Massachusetts by implication has recognized that an accused has a right to a public trial as well. A statute of that state permits the exclusion of spectators in only a limited category of cases. Mass. Gen. Laws c. 278, § 16A (1932). In New Hampshire and Wyoming no statute or decision has been found in which the right of an accused to a public trial is mentioned. In Virginia, although no decision has been discovered, a statute provides: “In the trial of all criminal cases, whether the same be felony or misdemeanor cases, the court may, in its discretion, exclude from the trial any or all persons whose presence is not deemed necessary.” Va. Code Ann. § 4906 (1942).

18 Forty-one states: Ala. Const., Art. I, §6; Ariz. Const., Art. II, § 24; Ark. Const., Art. II, § 10; Cal. Const., Art. I, § 13; Colo. Const., Art. II, § 16; Conn. Const., Art. I, § 9; Del. Const., Art. I, § 7; Fla. Const., Declaration of Rights, § 11; Ga. Const., Art. I, § I, par. V; Idaho Const., Art. I, § 13; Ill. Const., Art. II, § 9; Ind. Const., Art. 1, §13; Iowa Const., Art. I, §10; Kan. Const., Bill of Rights, §10; Ky. Const., §11; La. Const., Art. I, §9; Me. Const., Art. I, §6; Mich. Const., Art. II, § 19; Minn. Const., Art. 1, § 6; Miss. Const., Art. 3, § 26; Mo. Const., Art. I, § 18; Mont. Const., Art. Ill, § 16; Neb. Const., Art. I, § 11; N. J. Const., Art. I, § 8; N. M. Const., Art. II, § 14; N. C. Const., Art. I, § 13 (no convictions for crime except by jury verdict in “open court”); N. D. Const., Art. I, § 13; Ohio Const., Art. I, § 10; Okla. Const., Art. II, §20; Ore. Const., Art. I, § 11; Pa. Const., Art. I, § 9; R. I. Const., Art. I, § 10; S. C. Const., Art. I, § 18; S. D. Const., Art. 6, § 7; Tenn. Const., Art. I, § 9; Tex. Const., Art. I, § 10; Utah Const., Art. I, § 12; Vt. Const., ch. I, Art. 10th; Wash. Const., Art. I, § 22; W. Va. Const., Art. Ill, § 14; Wis. Const., Art. I, §7.

19 Two states: Nev. Comp. Laws Ann. § 10654 (1929); N. Y. Civil Rights Law § 12.

20 The Maryland Court of Appeals has apparently interpreted the state constitution as prohibiting secret trials. Dutton v. State, 123 Md. 373, 386-388, 91 A. 417, 422-423.

21 Radin, The Bight to a Public Trial, 6 Temp. L. Q. 381, 389. The criminal procedure of the civil law countries long resembled that of the Inquisition in that the preliminary examination of the accused, the questioning of witnesses, and the trial of the accused were conducted in secret. Esmein, A History of Continental Criminal Procedure 183-382 (1913); Ploscowe, Development of Inquisitorial and Accusatorial Elements in French Procedure, 23 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 372-386. The ecclesiastical courts of Great Britain, which intermittently exercised a limited civil and criminal jurisdiction, adopted a procedure described as “in name as well as in fact an Inquisition, differing from tfie Spanish Inquisition in the circumstances that it did not at any time as far as we are aware employ torture, and that the bulk of the business of the courts was of a comparatively unimportant kind . . . .” 2 Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, 402 (1883). The secrecy of the ecclesiastical courts and the civil law courts was often pointed out by commentators who praised the publicity of the common law courts. See e. g., 3 Blackstone, Commentaries *373; 1 Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, 594-595, 603 (1827). The English common law courts which succeeded to the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts have renounced all claim to hold secret sessions in cases formerly within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, even in civil suits. See, e. g., Scott v. Scott, [1913] A. C. 417.

22 Davis v. United States, 247 F. 394, 395; Keddington v. State, 19 Ariz. 457, 459, 172 P. 273; Williamson v. Lacy, 86 Me. 80, 82-83, 29 A. 943, 944; Dutton v. State, 123 Md. 373, 387, 91 A. 417, 422; Jenks, The Book of English Law 91 (3d ed. 1932). Some authorities have said that trials in the Star Chamber were public, but that witnesses against the accused were examined privately with no opportunity for him to discredit them. Apparently all authorities agree that the accused himself was grilled in secret, often tortured, in an effort to obtain a confession and that the most objectionable of the Star Chamber’s practices was its asserted prerogative to disregard the common law rules of criminal procedure when the occasion demanded. 5 Holdsworth, A History of English Law, 163, 165, 180-197 (2d ed. 1937); Radin, The Right to a Public Trial, 6 Temp. L. Q. 381, 386-388; Washburn, The Court of Star Chamber, 12 Am. L. Rev. 21, 25-31.

23 Radin, The Right to a Public Trial, 6 Temp. L. Q. 381, 388. The lettre de cachet was an order of the king that one of his subjects be forthwith imprisoned or exiled without a trial or an opportunity to defend himself. In the eighteenth century they were often issued in blank to local police. Louis XV is supposed to have issued more than 150,000 lettres de cachet during his reign. This device was the principal means employed to prosecute crimes of opinion, although it was also used by the royalty as a convenient method of preventing the public airing of intra-family scandals. Voltaire, Mirabeau and Montesquieu, among others, denounced the use of the lettre de cachet, and it was abolished after the French Revolution, though later temporarily revived by Napoleon. 13 Encyc. Brit. 971; 3 Encyc. Soc. Sci. 137.

24 Other benefits attributed to publicity have been: (1) Public trials come to the attention of key witnesses unknown to the parties. These witnesses may then voluntarily come forward and give important testimony. 6 Wigmore, Evidence § 1834 (3d ed. 1940); Tanksley v. United States, 145 F. 2d 58, 59.

(2) The spectators learn about their government and acquire confidence in their judicial remedies. 6 Wigmore, Evidence § 1834 (3d ed. 1940); 1 Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence 525 (1827); State v. Keeler, 52 Mont. 205, 156 P. 1080; 20 Harv. L. Rev. 489.

25 Jenks, The Book of English Law 91 (1932); Auld, Comparative Jurisprudence of Criminal Process, 1 U. of Toronto L. J. 82, 99; Radin, The Bight to a Public Trial, 6 Temp. L. Q. 381; Criminal Procedure in Scotland and England, 108 Edinburgh Rev. 174, 181— 182; Holmes, J. in Cowley v. Pulsifer, 137 Mass. 392, 394; State v. Osborne, 54 Ore. 289, 295-297, 103 P. 62, 64-66. People v. Murray, 89 Mich. 276, 286, 50 N. W. 995, 998: “It is for the protection of all persons accused of crime — the innocently accused, that they may not become the victim of an unjust prosecution, as well as the guilty, that they may be awarded a fair trial — that one rule [as to public trials] must be observed and applied to all.” Frequently quoted is the statement in 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed. 1927) at 647: “The requirement of a public trial is for the benefit of the accused; that the public may see he is fairly dealt with and not unjustly condemned, and that the presence of interested spectators may keep his triers keenly alive to a sense of their responsibility and to the importance of their functions . . . .”

26 1 Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence 524 (1827).

27 Compare People v. Murray, 89 Mich. 276, 50 N. W. 995; and People v. Yeager, 113 Mich. 228, 71 N. W. 491, with Reagan v. United States, 202 F. 488. For collection and analysis of the cases, see 6 Wigmore, Evidence § 1834 (3d ed. 1940); Orfield, Criminal Procedure from Arrest to Appeal 385-387 (1947); Radin, The Right to a Public Trial, 6 Temp. L. Q. 381, 389-391; Note, 35 Mich. L. Rev. 474 ; 8 U. of Det. L. J. 129; 156 A. L. R. 265.

28 “For the purposes contemplated by the provision of the constitution, the presence of the officers of the court, men whom [sic], it is safe to say, were under the influence of the court, made the trial no more public than if they too had been excluded.” People v. Hartman, 103 Cal. 242, 244, 37 P. 153, 154.

29 See, e. g., State v. Beckstead, 96 Utah 528, 88 P. 2d 461 (error to exclude friends and relatives of accused); Benedict v. People, 23 Colo. 126, 46 P. 637 (exclusion of all except witnesses, members of bar and law students upheld); People v. Hall, 51 App. Div. 57, 64 N. Y. S. 433 (exclusion of general public upheld where accused permitted to designate friends who remained). “No court has gone so far as affirmatively to exclude the press.” Note, 35 Mich. L. Rev. 474, 476. Even those who deplore the sensationalism of criminal trials and advocate the exclusion of the general public from the courtroom would preserve the rights of the accused by requiring the admission of the press, friends of the accused, and selected members of the community. Radin, The Right to a Public Trial, 6 Temp. L. Q. 381, 394-395; 20 J. Am. Jud. Soc. 83.

30 Cases are collected in 27 Ann. Cas. 35.

31 The following decisions of this Court involving various kinds of proceedings are among the multitude that support the above statement: Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97,116; Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 68-70; Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U. S. 409, 418; Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 390-391; Morgan v. United States, 304 U. S. 1, 14-15, and cases there cited.

32 See note 10 supra.