United States Touhy v. Ragen/Concurrence Frankfurter

by Felix Frankfurter

United States Supreme Court

340 U.S. 462

United States Touhy  v.  Ragen

 Argued: Nov. 27-28, 1950. --- Decided: Feb 26, 1951

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, concurring.

Issues of far-reaching importance that the Government deemed to be involved in this case are now expressly left undecided. But they are questions that lie near the judicial horizon. To avoid future misunderstanding, I deem it important to state my understanding of the opinion of the Court-what it decides and what it leaves wholly open-on the basis of which I concur in it.

'This case,' the Court holds, 'is ruled' by Boske v. Comingore, 177 U.S. 459, 20 S.Ct. 701, 44 L.Ed. 846. I agree. Boske v. Comingore decided that the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized, as a matter of internal administration in his Department, to require that his subordinates decline to produce Treasury records in their possession. In the case before us production of documents belonging to the Department of Justice was declined by virtue of an order of the Attorney General instructing his subordinates not to produce certain documents. The authority of the Attorney General to make such a regulation for the internal conduct of the Department of Justice is not less than the power of the Secretary of the Treasury to promulgate the order upheld in Boske v. Comingore, supra.

But in holding that that decision rules this, the context of the earlier decision and the qualifications which that context implies become important. The regulation in Boske v. Comingore provided: (1) that collectors should under no circumstances disclose tax reports or produce them in court, and (2) that reports could be obtained only 'on a rule of the court upon the Secretary of the Treasury'. 177 U.S. at pages 460-461, 20 S.Ct. 702, 44 L.Ed. 846. The regulation also stated that the reports would be disclosed by the Secretary of the Treasury 'unless it should be found that circumstances or conditions exist which makes it necessary to decline, in the interest of the public service, to furnish such a copy.' Ibid. This portion of the regulation was not in issue, however, for the Court was considering the failure of the collector to produce, not the failure of the Secretary of the Treasury. This is emphasized by the Government's suggestion that: '(I)f the reports themselves were to be used this could be secured by a subpoena duces tecum to the head of the Treasury Department, or someone under his direction, who would produce the original papers themselves in court for introduction as evidence in the trial of the cause.' Brief for Appellee, p. 49, Boske v. Comingore, supra.

And the decision was strictly confined to the narrow issue before the Court. It is epitomized in the concluding paragraph of the Boske opinion: 'In our opinion the Secretary, under the regulations as to the custody, use and preservation of the records, papers and property appertaining to the business of his Department, may take from a subordinate, such as a collector, all discretion as to permitting the records in his custody to be used for any other purpose than the collection of the revenue, and reserve for his own determination all matters of that character.' 177 U.S. at page 470, 20 S.Ct. 706.

There is not a hint in the Boske opinion that the Government can shut off an appropriate judicial demand for such papers.

I wholly agree with what is now decided insofar as it finds that whether, when and how the Attorney General himself can be granted an immunity from the duty to disclose information contained in documents within his possession that are relevant to a judicial proceeding are matters not here for adjudication. Therefore, not one of these questions is impliedly affected by the very narrow ruling on which the present decision rests. Specifically, the decision and opinion in this case cannot afford a basis for a future suggestion that the Attorney General can forbid every subordinate who is capable of being served by process from producing relevant documents and later contest a requirement upon him to produce on the ground that procedurally he cannot be reached. In joining the Court's opinion I assume the contrary-that the Attorney General can be reached by legal process.

Though he may be so reached, what disclosures he may be compelled to make is another matter. It will of course be open to him to raise those issues of privilege from testimonial compulsion which the Court rightly holds are not before us now. But unless the Attorney General's amenability to process is impliedly recognized we should candidly face the issue of the immunity pertaining to the information which is here sought. To hold now that the Attorney General is empowered to forbid his subordinates, though within a court's jurisdiction, to produce documents and to hold later that the Attorney General himself cannot in any event be procedurally reached would be to apply a fox-hunting theory of justice that ought to make Bentham's skeleton rattle.

Notes