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MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN
delivered the opinion of the Court. MR. JUSTICE CLARK,
dissenting.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, concurring.
I deem it important to state what I understand
to be the Court's holding. Agreeing with its holding, I join its
opinion.
The power of the Congress to punish for
contempt of its authority is, as the Court points out, rooted
in history. It has been acknowledged by this Court since 1821.
Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204. Until 1857, Congress was content
to punish for contempt through its own process. By the Act of
January 24, 1857, 11 Stat. 155, as amended by the Act of January
24, 1862, 12 Stat. 333, Congress provided that, "in addition
to the pains and penalties now existing" (referring of course
to the power of Congress itself to punish for contempt), "contumacy
in a witness called to testify in a matter properly under consideration
by either House, and deliberately refusing to answer questions
pertinent thereto, shall be a misdemeanor against the United States."
In re Chapman, 166 U.S. 661, 672. This legislation is now 2 U.S.C.
§ 192. By thus making the federal judiciary the affirmative
agency for enforcing the authority that underlies the congressional
power to punish for contempt, Congress necessarily brings into
play the specific provisions of the Constitution relating to the
prosecution of offenses and those implied restrictions under which
courts function.
To turn to the immediate problem before
us, the scope of inquiry that a committee is authorized to pursue
must be defined with sufficiently unambiguous clarity to safeguard
a witness from the hazards of vagueness in the enforcement of
the criminal process against which the Due Process Clause protects.
The questions must be put with relevance and definiteness sufficient
to enable the witness to know whether his refusal to answer
may lead to conviction for criminal contempt and to enable both
the trial and the appellate courts readily to determine whether
the particular circumstances justify a finding of guilt.
While implied authority for the questioning
by the Committee, sweeping as was its inquiry, may be squeezed
out of the repeated acquiescence by Congress in the Committee's
inquiries, the basis for determining petitioner's guilt is not
thereby laid. Prosecution for contempt of Congress presupposes
an adequate opportunity for the defendant to have awareness of
the pertinency of the information that he has denied to Congress.
And the basis of such awareness must be contemporaneous with
the witness' refusal to answer and not at the trial for it. Accordingly,
the actual scope of the inquiry that the Committee was authorized
to conduct and the relevance of the questions to that inquiry
must be shown to have been luminous at the time when asked and
not left, at best, in cloudiness. The circumstances of this case
were wanting in these essentials.
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