Prior history
On September 11, 1946 William Oliver was summoned by subpoena to a grand jury in Oakland County, Michigan. Circuit Court Judge George B. Hartrick had been appointed as a one-man secret grand jury to investigate organized crime participation in local gambling and public corruption. A local pinball operator, Oliver was examined under oath as a witness and was not accused of any crime or represented by an attorney. At the conclusion of his testimony, Hartrick and two other circuit judges (who were not members of the grand jury but present as advisors) agreed that Oliver had given "false and evasive answers" to Hartrick's questions. Without pausing the proceeding or permitting Oliver counsel, Hartrick convicted Oliver of contempt of court and sentenced him to 60 days in the county jail.
The United States is one of only two common law jurisdictions in the world, along with Liberia, that continues to use the grand jury to screen criminal indictments. Generally speaking, a grand jury may issue an indictment for a crime, also known as a "true bill," only if it finds, based upon the evidence that has been presented to it, that there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed by a criminal suspect. Unlike a petit jury, which resolves a particular civil or criminal case, a grand jury serves as a group for a sustained period of time in all or many of the cases that come up in the jurisdiction, generally under the supervision of a federal U.S. attorney, a county district attorney, or a state attorney-general and hears evidence ex parte.
Oakland County is a county in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is northwest of Detroit and part of metropolitan Detroit. As of the 2010 census, its population was 1,202,362, making it the second-most populous county in Michigan, behind neighboring Wayne County. The county seat is Pontiac. The county was founded in 1819 and organized in 1820.
Michigan is a state in the Great Lakes and Midwestern regions of the United States. The state's name, Michigan, originates from the Ojibwe word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake". With a population of about 10 million, Michigan is the tenth most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area, and is the largest state by total area east of the Mississippi River. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit. Metro Detroit is among the nation's most populous and largest metropolitan economies.
After three days, Oliver was able to secure an attorney who filed for writs of Habeas corpus and certiorari to the Michigan Supreme Court challenging the conviction. Because Michigan state law authorizing the one-man grand jury proceedings allowed judge/grand jury to punish contempt at their sole discretion, The Michigan Supreme Court dismissed Oliver's due process claims as being "without merit" and upheld the conviction and sentence.
Habeas corpus is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful.
Certiorari, often abbreviated cert. in the United States, is a process for seeking judicial review and a writ issued by a court that agrees to review. A certiorari is issued by a superior court, directing an inferior court, tribunal, or other public authority to send the record of a proceeding for review.
The Michigan Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is Michigan's court of last resort and consists of seven justices. The Court is located in the Michigan Hall of Justice at 925 Ottawa Street in Lansing, the state capital.
Decision
The United States Supreme Court took the case in part to decide if, contrary to the lower Court's opinion, the Sixth Amendment protections applied to state court hearings. The Court's majority opinion began by evaluating the Michigan one-man grand jury process, calling it "unique" and "peculiar." The Court had long accepted that grand juries, operating as investigative tools, needed and were allowed to operate in secrecy. The Michigan grand jury law, however, impermissibly mixed this traditional investigative function with circuit court conviction and punishment. It held that:
- The secrecy of the (irregular and abbreviated) trial for criminal contempt violated the due process clause
- The need for secrecy of grand jury investigative proceedings did not justify secrecy in accusing Oliver of an offense for which he faced jail time
- An accused is entitled to a public trial no matter the offense charged
- The failure to afford Oliver a reasonable opportunity to defend himself against the contempt charge was a denial of due process of law
- At a minimum due process required reasonable notice, the right to examine the witnesses, the right to testify, and the right to counsel
- The judgment of Hartrick that Oliver committed contempt of court in the court's actual presence was insufficient justification to deny Oliver these rights
The Michigan Supreme Court and Oakland County Circuit Court rulings were overturned. Justice Black likened the Michigan grand jury's discretionary contempt convictions to English Star Chamber secret convictions and French pre-Revolutionary lettres de cachet allowing imprisonment without the opportunity for defense.
The Star Chamber was an English court which sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late 15th century to the mid-17th century, and was composed of Privy Councillors and common-law judges, to supplement the judicial activities of the common-law and equity courts in civil and criminal matters. The Star Chamber was originally established to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against socially and politically prominent people so powerful that ordinary courts would probably hesitate to convict them of their crimes. However, it became synonymous with social and political oppression through the arbitrary use and abuse of the power it wielded.
Lettres de cachet were letters signed by the king of France, countersigned by one of his ministers, and closed with the royal seal, or cachet. They contained orders directly from the king, often to enforce arbitrary actions and judgments that could not be appealed.
Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the offense of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice and dignity of the court. A very similar attitude towards a legislative body is termed contempt of Parliament or contempt of Congress.
A summary offence is a crime in some common law jurisdictions that can be proceeded against summarily, without the right to a jury trial and/or indictment.
The LaRouche criminal trials in the mid-1980s stemmed from federal and state investigations into the activities of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche and members of his movement. They were charged with conspiring to commit fraud and soliciting loans they had no intention of repaying. LaRouche and his supporters disputed the charges, claiming the trials were politically motivated.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.
In Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932), the United States Supreme Court reversed the convictions of nine young black men for allegedly raping two white women on a freight train near Scottsboro, Alabama. The majority of the Court reasoned that the right to retain and be represented by a lawyer was fundamental to a fair trial and that at least in some circumstances, the trial judge must inform a defendant of this right. In addition, if the defendant cannot afford a lawyer, the court must appoint one sufficiently far in advance of trial to permit the lawyer to prepare adequately for the trial.
James P. Fleissner (Jim) is an American attorney and a Professor of Law at Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia. While at Mercer, Fleissner has remained Special Assistant United States Attorney and Deputy Special Counsel. As Deputy Special Counsel, Fleissner was lead counsel in litigation regarding motions filed by journalists to quash subpoenas and contempt proceedings in the CIA leak grand jury investigation.
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