Self-Incrimination—Forced Confessions

In 1908, in Twining v. New Jersey,[876] the Court ruled that neither the historical meaning nor the current definition of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment included protection against self-incrimination, which was viewed as unworthy of being rated "an immutable principle of justice" or as a "fundamental right." The Fifth Amendment embodying this privilege was held to operate to restrain only the Federal Government; whereas the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was deemed to permit a State even to go so far as to substitute the criminal procedure of the Civil Law, in which the privilege against self-incrimination is unknown, for that of the Common Law. Accordingly, New Jersey was within her rights in permitting a trial judge, in a criminal proceeding, to instruct a jury that they might draw an unfavorable inference from the failure of a defendant to comment on the prosecutor's evidence.

Apart from a recent ineffectual effort of a minority of the Justices to challenge the interpretation thus placed upon the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court has yet to register any departure from its ruling in Twining v. New Jersey.[877] In two subsequent opinions the Court reasserted obiter that "the privilege against self-incrimination may be withdrawn and the accused put upon the stand as a witness for the State." No "principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental"[878] is violated by abolition of such privilege; nor is its complete destruction likely to outrage students of our penal system, many of whom "look upon * * * [this] immunity as a mischief rather than a benefit, * * *"[879]

In subsequently disposing of similarly challenged State criminal proceedings, the Court has applied almost exclusively the Fair Trial doctrine. With only casual consideration of the intention of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, or of the rejected proposition that the due process clause thereof had imposed upon the States all the restraints which the Bill of Rights had imposed upon the Federal Government, the Court has simply endeavored to ascertain whether the accused enjoyed all the privileges essential to a fair trial. Thus, without even admitting that the privilege against self-incrimination was involved, all the Justices agreed, in Brown v. Mississippi,[880] that the use of a confession extorted by brutality and violence (undenied strangulation and whipping by the sheriff aided by a mob) was a denial of due process, even though coercion was not established until after the confession had been admitted in evidence and defense counsel did not thereafter move for its exclusion. Although compulsory processes of justice may be used to call the accused as a witness and to require him to testify, "compulsion by torture to extort a confession is a different matter. * * * The rack and torture chamber may not be substituted for the witness stand."[881] Again, in Chambers v. Florida[882] the Court, with no mention of the privilege against self-incrimination, proclaimed that due process is denied when convictions of murder are obtained in State courts by the use of confessions extorted under the following conditions: dragnet methods of arrest on suspicion without warrant and protracted questioning (on the last day, from noon until sunset) in a fourth floor jail where the prisoners were without friends or counselors, and under circumstances calculated to break the strongest nerves and stoutest resistance. Affirming that the Supreme Court is not concluded by the finding of a jury in a State court that a confession in a murder trial was voluntary, but determines that question for itself from the evidence, the Justices unanimously declared that the Constitution proscribes lawless means irrespective of the end, and rejected the argument that the thumbscrew, the wheel, solitary confinement, protracted questioning, and other ingenious means of entrapment are necessary to uphold our laws.[883] Procuring a conviction for a capital crime by use of a confession extracted by protracted interrogation conducted in a similar manner was, on the authority of Chambers v. Florida, condemned in White v. Texas;[884] and in Lisenba v. California,[885] a case rendered inconclusive by conflicting testimony, the Court remarked, by way of dictum, that "the concept of due process would void a trial in which, by threats or promises in the presence of court and jury, a defendant was induced to testify against himself," or in which a confession is used which is "procured * * * by fraud, collusion, trickery and subornation or perjury."

In conformity with these rulings, the Court, in Ward v. Texas,[886] set aside a conviction based upon a confession obtained, by methods of coercion and duress, from a defendant who had been arrested illegally, without warrant, by the sheriff of another county, and removed to a county more than a hundred miles away, and who for three days, while being driven from county to county, was questioned continuously by various officers and falsely informed by them of threats of mob violence. Similarly, in Ashcraft v. Tennessee,[887] the use in a State court of a confession obtained near the end of a 36-hour period of practically continuous questioning, under powerful electric lights, by relays of officers, experienced investigators, and highly trained lawyers was held to be violative of constitutional right by reason of the inherently coercive character of such interrogation. Justice Jackson, joined by Justices Frankfurter and Roberts, dissented on the ground that the accused not only denied that the protracted questioning "had the effect of forcing an involuntary confession from him" but that he had ever confessed at all, a contention which reputable witnesses contradicted. Referring to Justice Holmes's warning against "the ever increasing scope given to the Fourteenth Amendment in cutting down * * * the constitutional rights of the States."[888] Justice Jackson protested that "interrogation per se is not, * * *, an outlaw"; and that inasmuch as all questioning is "'inherently coercive' * * *, the ultimate question * * * [must be] whether the confessor was in possession of his own will and self-control at the time of [his] confession."[889]

This dissent was not without effect. In June 1944, in Lyons v. Oklahoma,[890] the Court finally handed down a ruling calculated definitely to arrest the suspicion that had been developing that the use of any confession made after arrest would render a trial constitutionally defective. Here, six Justices refused to overturn a holding of the Oklahoma Criminal Court of Appeals which labelled as voluntary and usable a second confession obtained by other than coercive means within twelve hours after the defendant had made a confession admittedly under duress. The vice of coerced confessions, these Justices asserted, was that they offended "basic standards of justice, not because the victim had a legal grievance against the police, but because declarations procured by torture are not premises from which a civilized forum will infer guilt."[891] In Malinski v. New York,[892] however, although in the opinion of four Justices there was conflicting evidence as to the involuntary character of the confessions used, the Court nevertheless overturned a conviction sustained by New York tribunals.[893] Without finding it necessary to determine whether succeeding oral and written confessions were the product of the coercion "admittedly" applied in extracting an initial oral confession,[894] the Court held that, even though other evidence might have sufficed to convict the accused and notwithstanding the fact that the initial oral confession was never put in evidence, the repeated indirect reference to its content at the trial plus the failure to warn the jury not to consider it as evidence[895] invalidated the proceeding giving rise to the verdict.[896]

Of the remaining cases involving the issue of self-incrimination, Adamson v. California[897] is especially significant because it represents the high water mark of dissent in support of the contention that the Bill of Rights, originally operative only against the Federal Government, became limitations on State action by virtue of their inclusion within the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Here, the Court, speaking through Justice Reed, declared that the California law which provides that if an accused elects to take the witness stand and testify, he must then be prepared to undergo impeachment of his testimony, through disclosure of his previous convictions, and which also permits him to avoid such disclosure by remaining silent, subject to comment on his failure to testify by the Court and prosecuting counsel, does not involve such a denial of due process as to invalidate a conviction in a State court. Inasmuch as California law "does not involve any presumption, rebuttable or irrebuttable, either of guilt or of the truth of any fact," and does not alter the burden of proof, which rests upon the State, nor the presumption of innocence in favor of the accused, it does not prevent the accused from enjoying a fair trial, which is all that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees. Relying upon Twining v. New Jersey[898] and Palko v. Connecticut,[899] the Court reiterated that the "due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, does not draw all the rights of the federal Bill of Rights under its protection."[900]

In a concurring opinion concerning the scope of the protection afforded by this clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Justice Frankfurter contended that further argument thereon is foreclosed by Twining v. New Jersey, a precedent, on which he commented as follows: "Decisions of this Court do not have equal intrinsic authority. The Twining Case shows the judicial process at its best—comprehensive briefs and powerful arguments on both sides, followed by long deliberation, resulting in an opinion by Mr. Justice Moody which at once gained and has ever since retained recognition as one of the outstanding opinions in the history of the Court. After enjoying unquestioned prestige for forty years, the Twining Case should not now be diluted, even unwittingly, either in its judicial philosophy or in its particulars. As the surest way of keeping the Twining Case intact, I would affirm this case on its authority."

In dismissing as historically untenable the position adopted by Justice Black, Justice Frankfurter further declared that: "The notion that the Fourteenth Amendment was a covert way of imposing upon the States all the rules which it seemed important to Eighteenth Century statesmen to write into the Federal Amendments, was rejected by judges who were themselves witnesses of the process by which the Fourteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution. Arguments that may now be adduced to prove that the first eight Amendments were concealed within the historic phrasing of the Fourteenth Amendment were not unknown at the time of its adoption. A surer estimate of their bearing was possible for judges at the time than distorting distance is likely to vouchsafe. Any evidence of design or purpose not contemporaneously known could hardly have influenced those who ratified the Amendment. Remarks of a particular proponent of the Amendment, no matter how influential, are not to be deemed part of the Amendment. What was submitted for ratification was his proposal, not his speech. * * * The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has an independent potency, precisely as does the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment in relation to the Federal Government. It ought not to require argument to reject the notion that due process of law meant one thing in the Fifth Amendment and another in the Fourteenth. The Fifth Amendment specifically prohibits prosecution of an 'infamous crime' except upon indictment; it forbids double jeopardy; it bars compelling a person to be a witness against himself in any criminal case; it precludes deprivation of 'life, liberty, or property, without due process of law * * *' Are Madison and his contemporaries in the framing of the Bill of Rights to be charged with writing into it a meaningless clause? To consider 'due process of law' as merely a shorthand statement of other specific clauses in the same amendment is to attribute to the authors and proponents of this Amendment ignorance of, or indifference to, a historic conception which was one of the great instruments in the arsenal of constitutional freedom which the Bill of Rights was to protect and strengthen." Warning that "a construction which * * * makes of" the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment "a summary of specific provisions of the Bill of Rights would, * * *, tear up by the roots much of the fabric of the law in the several States," Justice Frankfurter, in conclusion, offers his own appraisal of this clause. To him, the due process clause "expresses a demand for civilized standards of law, [and] it is thus not a stagnant formulation of what has been achieved in the past but a standard for judgment in the progressive evolution of the institutions of a free society." Accordingly "judicial judgment in applying the Due Process Clause must move within the limits of accepted notions of justice and * * * [should] not be based upon the idiosyncrasies of a merely personal judgment. * * * An important safeguard against such merely individual judgment is an alert deference to the judgment of the State court under review."[901]

In dissenting Justice Black, who was supported by Justice Douglas, attached to his opinion "an appendix which contains * * * [his] resume, * * *, of the Amendment's history." It is his judgment "that history conclusively demonstrates that the language of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, taken as a whole, was thought by those responsible for its submission to the people, and by those who opposed its submission, sufficiently explicit to guarantee that thereafter no State could deprive its citizens of the privileges and protections of the Bill of Rights." A majority of the Court, he acknowledges resignedly, has declined, however, "to appraise the relevant historical evidence of the intended scope of the first section of the Amendment." In the instant case, the majority opinion, according to Justice Black, "reasserts a constitutional theory spelled out in Twining v. New Jersey, * * * that this Court is endowed by the Constitution with boundless power under 'natural law' periodically to expand and contract constitutional standards to conform to the Court's conception of what at a particular time constitutes 'civilized decency' and 'fundamental liberty and justice.' * * * [This] 'natural law' formula, [he further contends] * * * should be abandoned as an incongruous excrescence on our Constitution. * * * [The] formula [is] itself a violation of our Constitution, in that it subtly conveys to courts, at the expense of legislatures, ultimate power over public policies in fields where no specific provision of the Constitution limits legislative power." In conclusion, Justice Black expresses his fears as to "the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights * * *"[902]

In all but one of the remaining cases, the Court sided with the accused and supported his contention that the confession on which his conviction was based had been procured by methods contrary to the requirements of due process. The conviction of murder of a Negro boy of fifteen was reversed by five Justices in Haley v. Ohio[903] on the ground that his confession, which contributed to the verdict, was involuntary, having been obtained by the police after several hours of questioning immediately after the boy was arrested, during which interval the youth was without friends or legal counsel. After having had his confession reduced to writing, the boy continued to be held incommunicado for three days before being arraigned. "The age of petitioner, the [midnight] hours when he was grilled, the duration of his quizzing, the fact that he had no friend or counsel to advise him, the callous attitude of the police towards his rights combine to convince us," the Court declared, "that this was a confession wrung from a child by means which the law should not sanction."[904] The application of duress being indisputed, a unanimous Court, in Lee v. Mississippi,[905] citing as authority all the preceding cases beginning with Brown v. Mississippi, held that "a conviction resulting from such use of a coerced confession, however, is no less void because the accused testified at some point in the proceeding that he had never in fact confessed, voluntarily or involuntarily. * * *, inconsistent testimony as to the confession * * * cannot preclude the accused from raising * * * the issue * * * [that] the Fourteenth Amendment * * * [voids a] conviction grounded * * * upon a confession which is the product of other than reasoned and voluntary choice." In Taylor v. Alabama,[906] however, a majority of the Justices sustained the denial by a State appellate court, in which a conviction had been affirmed, of leave to file in a trial court a petition for a writ of error coram nobis grounded upon the contention that confessions and admissions introduced into evidence at the trial had been obtained by coercion.[907] Five Justices declared that such denial was not such arbitrary action as in itself to amount to a deprivation of due process of law where the circumstances tended to show that the petitioner's allegations of mistreatment, none of which were submitted during the trial or the appeal,[908] were highly improbable.[909]

Finally, in three decisions rendered on June 27, 1949, the Court reversed three convictions of murder on the ground that they had been founded entirely upon coerced confessions. The defendant in the first case, Watts v. Indiana,[910] was held without arraignment, without the aid of counsel or friends, and without advice as to his constitutional rights from Wednesday until the following Friday, when he confessed. During this interval, he was held much of the time in solitary confinement in a cell with no place to sit or sleep except the floor, and was subjected to interrogation daily, Sunday excepted, by relays of police officers for periods ranging in duration from three to nine and one-half hours. His incarceration without a prompt preliminary hearing also was a violation of Indiana law. Similarly in conflict with State law was the arrest without warrant and detention without arraignment for five days of the accused in Turner v. Pennsylvania,[911] the second case. During this period, Turner was not permitted to see friends, relatives, or counsel, was never informed of his right to remain silent, and was interrogated daily, though for briefer intervals than in the preceding case. At his trial, the prosecuting attorney "admitted that a hearing was withheld until interrogation had produced a confession." In the third and last case of this group, Harris v. South Carolina,[912] the defendant, an illiterate Negro, was apprehended in Tennessee on a Friday on a warrant alleging no more than a theft of a pistol, and taken to South Carolina on a Sunday. Without being informed of the contents of the warrant or of the charge of murder on which he was being held, without arraignment or advice as to his rights and without access to family or counsel, the defendant was questioned daily by officers for periods as long as 12 hours. In addition, he was warned that his mother also might be arrested for handling stolen property.

In each of these cases there was dissent, and in none was the majority able to record its views in a single opinion. Justice Murphy and Justice Rutledge joined Justice Frankfurter, who filed a separate opinion in all three cases, in declaring that "a confession by which life becomes forfeit must be the expression of free choice. * * * When a suspect speaks because he is overborne, it is immaterial whether he has been subjected to a physical or a mental ordeal. * * * if * * * [his confession] is the product of sustained pressure by the police it does not issue from a free choice."[913] On the authority of Chambers v. Florida[914] and Ashcraft v. Tennessee,[915] Justice Black supported the judgments reached in all three cases; but Justice Douglas, in concurring, advocated the disposition of these cases in conformity with a broader rule; namely that, "any confession obtained during * * * [a] period of * * * unlawful detention"; that is during a period of custody between arrest and arraignment, should be outlawed.[916] Justice Jackson, who wrote an opinion applicable to all three cases, concurred in the result in Watts v. Indiana, presumably on the basis of that part of Justice Frankfurter's opinion therein which was founded "on the State's admissions as to the treatment of Watts."[917] Emphasizing the merit of deferring to the findings of trial court and jury on the issue of the "voluntariness" of confessions on the ground that they have "the great advantage of hearing and seeing the confessor and also the officers whose conduct and bearing toward him is in question," Justice Jackson dissented in Turner v. Pennsylvania[918] and Harris v. South Carolina.[919] "If the right of interrogation be admitted," he declared, "then * * * we must leave it to trial judges and juries and State appellate courts to decide individual cases, unless they show some want of proper standards of decision."[920] Without explanatory opinion, Chief Justice Vinson and Justices Burton and Reed dissented in all three cases.

Unreasonable Searches and Seizures

In National Safe Deposit Co. v. Stead,[921] decided in 1914, the Court unequivocally declared that an unreasonable search and seizure committed by State and local officers presented no federal question, inasmuch as the Fourth Amendment does not apply to the States. Prior to that date, the Court has passed upon this question obliquely in only a few decisions,[922] in one of which it conceded for the sake of argument, but without so deciding, that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment embraces in its generic terms a prohibition against unreasonable searches. In two of these earlier cases the Court sustained as consistent with due process the power of a State, in investigating the conduct of corporations doing business within its limits, to demand the production of corporate books and papers. The call for such papers was deemed not to have been rendered unreasonable because, at the time of the demand therefor, the corporation affected either temporarily or permanently kept such documents in another jurisdiction. Nor was the validity of the order to produce such materials viewed as having been impaired by the fact that it sought to elicit proof not only as to the liability of the corporation but also, evidence in its possession relevant to its defense.

In its most recent opportunity to review the question whether the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment precludes admission in a State court of relevant evidence obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure,[923] the Court apparently ruled in the negative; but Justice Frankfurter, speaking for the majority, did not limit himself to a repetition of the conclusions stated by him in Adamson v. California;[924] namely, that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not incorporate the first eight Amendments of the Constitution, and, conformably to Palko v. Connecticut,[925] exacts no more from a State than is "implicit in 'the concept of ordered liberty.'" He also proclaimed that: "The security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police—which is at the core of the Fourth Amendment—is basic to a free society. It is therefore implicit in 'the concept of ordered liberty' and as such enforceable against the States through the due process clause."[926] Such language appears to effect the very absorption into the Fourteenth Amendment which Justice Frankfurter rejects in the Adamson case; but he concluded by adding that as long as "a State [does not] affirmatively * * * sanction * * * [arbitrary] police incursion into privacy"; that is, as long as its police are deterred from making searches without authority of law by virtue of such internal discipline as an alert public opinion may induce and by reason of the statutory or common law remedies which the victims of such illegal searches may invoke, a State, without running counter to the due process clause, may employ at a trial incriminating evidence obtained by unlawful search and seizure. The fact that most of the English-speaking world, including 30 States and the British Commonwealth of Nations, does not regard the exclusion of evidence thus obtained, as vital to the protection of the right of privacy is interpreted by the Justice as lending abundant support to the merit of his position.[927]

Without departing from his previously adopted position which he restated in his dissenting opinion in Adamson v. California;[928] namely, that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment embraces the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, Justice Black concurred in the result on the ground that the exclusionary rule, whereby evidence procured in an illegal search and seizure is not admissible in a federal court, is "not a command of the Fourth Amendment but is a judicially created rule of evidence which Congress might negate."[929] Justices Douglas, Murphy, and Rutledge, in separate dissenting opinions, all declared that the Fourth Amendment was applicable to the States and that "evidence obtained in violation of it must be excluded in State prosecutions as well as in federal prosecutions, * * *."[930] Attacking Justice Frankfurter's method of approach, Justice Murphy declared that the Court should not "decide due process questions by simply taking a poll of the rules in various jurisdictions, * * *" and agreed with Justice Rutledge that unless illegally obtained evidence is excluded, no effective sanction "exists to deter violations of the search and seizure clause."

In two recent cases, both argued the same day, a nearly unanimous Court reached opposite results.[931] In the first the outcome of the Wolf case was repeated. The Court, speaking by Justice Frankfurter, refused to enjoin the use, in State criminal proceedings against them in New Jersey of evidences claimed to have been obtained by unlawful search by State police. Said Justice Frankfurter, "If we were to sanction this intervention, we would expose every State criminal prosecution to insupportable disruption. Every question of procedural due process of law—with its far flung and undefined range—would invite a flanking movement against the system of State courts by resort to the federal forum * * *"[932] The facts in the second case were as follows: state officers, on the basis of "some information" that petitioner was selling narcotics, entered his home and forced their way into his wife's bedroom. When asked about two capsules lying on a bedroom table, petitioner put them into his mouth and swallowed them. He was then taken to a hospital, where an emetic was forced into his stomach with the result that he vomited them up. Later they were offered in evidence against him. Again Justice Frankfurter spoke for the Court, while reiterating his preachments regarding the tolerance claimable by the States under the Fourteenth Amendment[933] he held that methods offensive to human dignity were ruled out by the due process clause.[934] Justices Black and Douglas concurred in opinions in which they seized the opportunity to reiterate once more their position in Adamson v. California.[935]

Conviction Based on Perjured Testimony

When a conviction is obtained by the presentation of testimony known to the prosecuting authorities to have been perjured, the constitutional requirement of due process is not satisfied. That requirement "cannot be deemed to be satisfied by mere notice and hearing if a State has contrived a conviction through the pretense of a trial which in truth is but used as a means of depriving a defendant of liberty through a deliberate deception of court and jury by the presentation of testimony known to be perjured. Such a contrivance * * * is as inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of justice as is the obtaining of a like result by intimidation."[936] This principle, as originally announced, was no more than a dictum uttered by the Court in disposing of Tom Mooney's application for a writ of habeas corpus, filed almost eighteen years after his conviction, and founded upon the contention that the verdict of his guilt was made possible solely by perjured testimony knowingly employed by the prosecutor who "deliberately suppressed evidence which would have impeached and refuted the testimony thus given against him."[937]

On the authority of the preceding case, and without qualification, the Court subsequently applied this principle in Hysler v. Florida,[938] Pyle v. Kansas[939] and White v. Ragen.[940] In the first case, the Supreme Court concurred in the judgment of the Florida appellate court denying a petition for leave to apply to a trial court for a writ of coram nobis. Supporting the petition filed by Hysler, the accused, were affidavits signed by one of two codefendants on the eve of his execution for participation in the same crime and stating that the two codefendants had testified falsely against Hysler because they had been "'coerced, intimidated, beaten, threatened with violence and otherwise abused and mistreated' by the police and were 'promised immunity from the electric chair' by the district attorney." Having made "an independent examination of the affidavits upon which * * * [Hysler's] claim was based," a majority of the Justices concluded that the Florida appellate court's finding that Hysler's proof was insubstantial and did not make out a prima facie case was justified. "That in the course of * * * years witnesses die or disappear, that memories fade, that a sense of responsibility may become attenuated, that [recantation] * * * on the eve of execution * * * [is] not unfamiliar as a means of relieving others or as an irrational hope for self * * * are relevant" to the determination by the Florida court that "such a belated disclosure" did not spring "from the impulse for truth-telling" and was "the product of self-delusion * * * [and] artifice prompted by the instinct of self-preservation."[941]

Relying largely on the failure of the State to answer allegations in a prisoner's application for a write of habeas corpus, which application recited that persons named in supporting affidavits and documents were coerced to testify falsely, and that testimony of certain other persons material to the prisoner's defense was suppressed under threat and coercion by the State, the Court, in Pyle v. Kansas[942] reversed the Kansas court's refusal to issue the writ. Inasmuch as the record of the prisoner's conviction did "not controvert the charges that perjured evidence was used, and that favorable evidence was suppressed with the knowledge" of the authorities, the case was remanded in order that the prisoner might enjoy that to which he was entitled; namely, a determination of the verity of his allegations. Similarly, in White v. Ragen,[943] the Court declared that since a prisoner's petition to a State court for release on habeas corpus had been dismissed without requiring the State to answer allegations supporting the petition; namely, that the conviction was obtained by the use of false testimony procured by bribery of two witnesses by the prosecutor, must be assumed to be true. Accordingly, the petitioner's contentions were deemed sufficient to make out a prima facie case of violation of constitutional rights and adequate to entitle him to invoke corrective process in a State court.

Confrontation; Presence of the Accused; Public Trial

On the issue whether the privileges of presence, confrontation and cross-examination face to face, assured to a defendant in a federal trial by the Sixth Amendment, are also guaranteed in State criminal proceedings, the Court thus far has been unable to formulate an enduring and unequivocal answer. At times it has intimated, as in the following utterance, that the enjoyment of all these privileges is essential to due process. "The personal presence of the accused, from the beginning to the end of a trial for felony, involving life or liberty, as well as at the time final judgment is rendered against him, may be, and must be assumed to be, vital to the proper conduct of his defence, and cannot be dispensed with."[944] Notwithstanding this early assumption, the Supreme Court, fourteen years later, sustained a Kentucky court which approved the questioning, in the absence of the accused and his counsel, of a juror whose discharge before he was sworn had been demanded.[945] Inasmuch as no injury to substantial rights of the defendant was deemed to have been inflicted by his occasional absence during a trial, no denial of due process was declared to have resulted from the acceptance by the State court of the defendant's waiver of his right to be present. In harmony with the latter case is Felts v. Murphy,[946] which contains additional evidence of an increasing inclination on the part of the Court to treat as not fundamental the rights of presence, confrontation, and cross-examination face to face. The defendant in Felts v. Murphy proved to be so deaf that he was unable to hear any of the testimony of witnesses, and had never had the evidence repeated to him. While regretting that the trial court has not had the testimony read or repeated to the accused, the Supreme Court held that a deaf person is not deprived of due process of law because he had not heard a word of the evidence. It also did not overlook the fact the defendant "made no objection, asked for nothing, and permitted his counsel to take his own course."

That the presence of the accused may be dispensed with at various stages of criminal proceedings was further conceded by the Court in Frank v. Mangum,[947] wherein it held that the presence of the defendant when the verdict is rendered is not essential, and, accordingly, that a rule of practice allowing the accused to waive it and which bound him by that waiver did not effect any unconstitutional deprivation. Enumerating many departures from common law procedure respecting jury trials, including provisions waiving the presence of an accused during portions of a trial, the Court emphasized that none of these changes had been construed as conflicting with the Fourteenth Amendment. More recently, the Court, sustained, by only a five-to-four vote, however, a conviction for murder where the trial court rejected the defendant's request that he be present at a view of the scene of the murder to which the jury had been taken.[948] Acknowledging that it had never squarely held, though it now assumed, that "the privilege to confront one's accusers and cross-examine them face to face" in State court prosecutions "is reinforced by the Fourteenth Amendment," the majority devised the following standard for disposing of similar cases in the future. "In a prosecution for a felony," five Justices declared, "the defendant has the privilege under the Fourteenth Amendment to be present in his own person whenever his presence has a relation, reasonably substantial, to the fulness of his opportunity to defend against the charge. * * * The Fourteenth Amendment does not assume to a defendant the privilege to be present [when] * * * presence would be useless, or the benefit but a shadow. * * * The presence of a defendant is a condition of due process to the extent that a fair and just hearing would be thwarted by his absence, and to that extent only." Employing this standard of appraisal, the majority therefore concluded that no harm or damage had been done to the accused by reason of his failure to be present when the jury viewed the site of the murder.[949]

To what extent, consistently with due process, States may authorize the conduct, after conviction and sentence, of nonadversary proceedings from which the accused has been excluded and denied the privilege of confrontation and cross-examination, has been examined by the Court in two recent cases. In Williams v. New York,[950] the Supreme Court rejected the contention that the due process clause requires that a person convicted of murder be permitted to cross-examine probation officers as to his prior criminal record when the trial judge, in the exercise of discretion vested in him by law, considers such information, obtained outside the courtroom, in determining whether to abide by a jury's recommendation of life imprisonment or to impose a death sentence. Emphasizing the distinction between evidentiary rules applicable to the conduct of criminal trials, which are confined to the narrow issue of guilt, and sentencing procedures which pertain to the determination of the type and extent of punishment after the issue of guilt has been decided, the Court disposed of the petitioner's appeal by declaring that, "modern concepts individualizing punishment have made it all the more necessary that a sentencing judge not be denied an opportunity to obtain pertinent information by a requirement of rigid adherence to restrictive rules of evidence properly applicable to the trial."[951] By a similar process of reasoning, in Solesbee v. Balkcom,[952] the Court sustained a Georgia statutory procedure granting the governor discretionary authority, with the aid of physicians appointed by himself, to determine, without opportunity for an adversary hearing or for judicial review, whether a condemned convict has become insane and, if so, whether he should be committed to an insane asylum. Likening the function thus vested in the governor to the power of executive clemency, the Supreme Court reiterated that "trial procedure safeguards are not applicable to the process of sentencing," and concluded with the observation that the Georgia procedure is amply supported by "the universal common-law principle that upon a suggestion of insanity after sentence, the tribunal charged with responsibility must be vested with broad discretion in deciding whether evidence shall be heard. * * * The heart of the common-law doctrine has been that a suggestion of insanity after sentence is an appeal to the conscience and sound wisdom of the particular tribunal which is asked to postpone sentence."[953]

When employed in the conduct of the trial, however, summary procedures such as those examined in the preceding two decisions invariably elicit judicial condemnation. Thus, when a Michigan judge proceeding as a one-man grand jury concluded that a witness had given false and evasive testimony, not on the basis of anything inherent in the testimony itself, but at least in part upon its inconsistency with other testimony given by a preceding witness, and immediately thereupon suspended his investigation, and committed the witness to jail for contempt, such summary commitment, in the absence of a showing that it was necessary to prevent demoralization of the judge's authority, was held to constitute a denial of due process. The guaranty of that clause forbids the sentencing of an accused person to prison without a public trial; that is, without a day in court, reasonable notice of the charges, and an opportunity to be heard in one's defense by cross-examining other witnesses, or by summoning witnesses to refute the charges against him.[954]

On the other hand, when the alleged contempt is committed, not within the confines of a secret grand jury proceeding, but in open court, is readily observable by the presiding judge, and constitutes an open and immediate threat to orderly judicial procedure and to the court's authority, the offended tribunal is constitutionally empowered summarily to punish without notice, testimony, or hearing. Thus in Fisher v. Pace,[955] albeit with the concurrence of only five Justices, the Court sustained a Texas court's conviction for contempt, with progressive increase of penalty from a $25 to $50 to $100 fine plus three days in jail, of a trial attorney who, despite judicial admonition, persisted in conveying to the jury, in a workmen's compensation case, information not for their consideration. Conceding that "there must be adequate facts to support an order for contempt," the majority declared that the Texas appellate court's finding in the affirmative, after evaluation of the facts, should not be overturned inasmuch as the Supreme Court, in examining the transcript of the record, could not derive therefrom an adequate picture of the courtroom scene nor discern therein "such elements of misbehavior as expression, manner of speaking, bearing, and attitude of * * * [the attorney]." The fact that the bench was guilty of "mildly provocative language" was deemed insufficient to excuse the conduct of the attorney.[956]

Trial by Impartial Tribunal

Inasmuch as due process implies a tribunal both impartial and mentally competent to afford a hearing, it follows that the subjection of a defendant's liberty or property to the decision of a court, the judge of which has a direct, personal, substantial pecuniary interest in rendering a verdict against him, is violative of the Fourteenth Amendment.[957] Compensating an inferior judge for his services only when he convicts a defendant may have been a practice of long-standing, but such a system of remuneration, the Court declared, never became "so embedded by custom in the general practice either at common law or in this country that it can be regarded as due process of law. * * *"[958] However, a conviction before a mayor's court does not become constitutionally defective by reason of the fact that the fixed salary of the mayor is paid out of the fund to which the fines imposed by him contribute.[959]

Obviously, the attribute of impartiality is lacking whenever the judge and jury are dominated by a mob. "If the jury is intimidated and the trial judge yields, and so that there is an actual interference with the course of justice, there is, in that court, a departure from due process of law. * * *"[960] But "if * * * the whole proceeding is a mask—* * * [if the] counsel, jury and judge * * * [are] swept to the fatal end by an irresistible wave of public passion, and * * * [if] the State Courts failed to correct the wrong, neither perfection in the machinery for correction nor the possibility that the trial court and counsel saw no other way of avoiding an immediate outbreak of the mob can prevent" intervention by the Supreme Court to secure the constitutional rights of the defendant.[961]

Insofar as a criminal trial proceeds with a jury, it is part of the American tradition to contemplate not only an impartial jury but one drawn from a cross-section of the community. This has been construed as requiring that prospective jurors be selected by court officials without systematic and intentional exclusion of any group, even though it is not necessary that every jury contain representatives of all the economic, social, religious, racial, political, and geographical groups of the community.[962]

Other Attributes of a Fair Trial

"Due process of law," the Supreme Court has observed, "requires that the proceedings shall be fair, but fairness is a relative, not an absolute concept. * * * What is fair in one set of circumstances may be an act of tyranny in others."[963] Conversely, "as applied to a criminal trial, denial of due process is the failure to observe that fundamental fairness essential to the very concept of justice. In order to declare a denial of it * * * [the Court] must find that the absence of that fairness fatally infected the trial; the acts complained of must be of such quality as necessarily prevents a fair trial."[964] And on another occasion the Court remarked that "the due process clause," as applied in criminal trials "requires that action by a State through any of its agencies must be consistent with the fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of our civil and political institutions, [and] which not infrequently are designated as 'the law of the land.'"[965]

Basic to the very idea of free government and among the immutable principles of justice which no State of the Union may disregard is the necessity of due "notice of the charge and an adequate opportunity to be heard in defense of it."[966] Consequently, when a State appellate court affirms a conviction on the ground that the information charged, and the evidence showed a violation of Sec. 1 of a penal law of the State, notwithstanding that the language of the information and the construction placed upon it at the trial clearly show that an offense under Sec. 2 of such law was charged, that the trial judge's instructions to the jury were based on Sec. 2, and that on the whole case it was clear that the trial and conviction in the lower court were for the violation of Sec. 2, not Sec. 1, such appellate court in effect is convicting the accused of a charge on which he was never tried, which is as much a violation of due process as a conviction upon a charge that was never made.[967] On the other hand, a prisoner who, after having been indicted on a charge of receiving stolen goods, abides by the prosecutor's suggestion and pleads guilty to the lesser offense of attempted second degree grand larceny, cannot later contend that a judgment of guilty of the latter offense was lacking in due process in that it amounted to a conviction of a crime for which he had never been indicted. In view of the "close kinship between the offense of larceny and that of receiving stolen property * * *, when related to the same stolen goods, the two crimes may fairly be said 'to be connected with the same transaction.'" It would be therefore, the Court concluded, "an exaltation of technical precision to an unwarranted degree to say that the indictment here did not inform the petitioner that he was charged with the substantial elements of the crime of larceny." Under these circumstances he must be deemed to have been given "reasonable notice and information of the specific charge against him and a fair hearing in open court."[968]

Excessive Bail, Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Sentence

The commitment to prison of a person convicted of crime, without giving him an opportunity pending an appeal, to furnish bail, does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[969] Likewise, a State, notwithstanding the limitations of that clause, retains a wide discretion in prescribing penalties for violation of its laws. Accordingly, a sentence of fourteen years' imprisonment for the crime of perjury has not been viewed as excessive nor as effecting any unconstitutional deprivation of the defendant's liberty;[970] nor has the imposition of successively heavier penalties upon "repeaters" been considered as partaking of a "cruel and unusual punishment."[971]

In an older decision, Ex parte Kemmler,[972] rendered in 1890, the Supreme Court rejected the suggestion that the substance of the Eighth Amendment had been incorporated into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but did intimate that the latter clause would invalidate punishments which would involve "torture or a lingering death," such "as burning at the stake, crucifixion, breaking on the wheel, and the like." Holding that the infliction of the death penalty by electrocution was comparable to none of the latter, the Court refused to interfere with the judgment of the State legislature that such a method of executing the judgment of a court was humane. More recently, in Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber,[973] five members of the Court reached a similar conclusion as to the restraining effect of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when, assuming, "but without so deciding" that violations of the Eighth Amendment as to cruel and unusual punishments would also be violative of that clause, they upheld a subsequent proceeding to execute a sentence of death by electrocution after an accidental failure of equipment had rendered an initial attempt unsuccessful.[974]

Double Jeopardy

In none of the pertinent cases considered prior to 1937 was the Supreme Court able to discern the existence of any factual situation amounting to double jeopardy, and accordingly it was never confronted with the necessity of determining whether the guarantee that no person be put twice in jeopardy of life or limb, expressed in the Fifth Amendment as a limitation against the Federal Government, had been absorbed in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, in Dreyer v. Illinois,[975] after declaring that a retrial after discharge of a hung jury did not subject a defendant to double jeopardy, the Court concluded as follows: If "* * * what was said in United States v. Perez [(9 Wheat. 579 (1824)) embracing a similar set of facts], * * * is adverse to the contention of the accused that he was put twice in jeopardy," then "we need not now express an opinion" as to whether the Fourteenth Amendment embraces the guarantee against double jeopardy. Similarly, in Murphy v. Massachusetts[976] and Shoener v. Pennsylvania[977] the Court held that where the original conviction of the prisoner was, on appeal, construed by the State tribunal to be legally defective and therefore a nullity, a subsequent trial, conviction, and sentence of the accused deprived him of no constitutional right, notwithstanding the fact that under the invalidated original conviction, the defendant had spent time in prison. In both instances the Court found it unnecessary to discuss "any question of a federal nature." With like dispatch, "the propriety of inflicting severer punishment upon old offenders" was sustained on the ground that they were not being "punished * * * [a] second time for the earlier offense, but [that] the repetition of criminal conduct aggravates their guilt and justifies heavier penalties when they are again convicted."[978]

In Palko v. Connecticut,[979] however, the Court appeared to have been presented with issues, the disposition of which would preclude further avoidance of a decision as to whether the double jeopardy provision of the Fifth Amendment had become operable as a restraint upon the States by reason of its incorporation into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. By the terms of the Connecticut statute at issue, the State was privileged to appeal any question of law arising out of a criminal prosecution, and did appeal a conviction of second degree murder and sentence to life imprisonment of one Palko, who had been charged with first degree murder. Obtaining a reversal, the State prosecuted Palko a second time and won a conviction of first degree murder and sentence to death. In response to the petitioner's contentions that a retrial under one indictment would subject him to double jeopardy in violation of the Fifth Amendment, if the prosecution were one on behalf of the United States and "that whatever is forbidden by the Fifth Amendment is forbidden by the Fourteenth also,"[980] eight Justices[981] replied that the State statute did not subject him to double jeopardy "so acute and shocking that our polity will not endure it"; nor did "it violate those 'fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political' institutions.'" Consistently with past behavior, the Court thus refused to assert that the defendant had been subjected to treatment of the type prohibited by the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment; nor did it, on the other hand, repudiate the possibility of situations in which the Fourteenth Amendment would prevent the States from inflicting double jeopardy. Whether a State is prohibited by the latter amendment, after a trial free from error, from trying the accused over again or from wearing out the accused "by a multitude of cases with accumulated trials" were questions which the Court reserved for future disposition. Subsequently, in Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber,[982] a majority of the Court assumed, "but without so deciding, that violation of the principles of the Fifth Amendment * * *, as to double jeopardy * * *, would be violative of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," and then concluded that the Palko case was decisive, there being "no difference from a constitutional point of view between a new trial for error of law at the instance of the State that results in a death sentence instead of imprisonment for life and an execution" by electrocution that follows after "an accidental failure in equipment had rendered a previous attempt at execution ineffectual."

Rights of Prisoners

Access to the Courts.—A State prison regulation requiring that all legal papers sought to be filed in court by inmates must first be submitted to the institution for approval and which was applied so as to obstruct efforts of a prisoner to petition a federal court for a writ of habeas corpus is void. Whether a petition for such writ is properly drawn and what allegations it must contain are questions which a federal court alone determines.[983] Equally subject to condemnation is the practice of the warden of a State penitentiary who denied prisoners access to the courts unless they procured counsel to represent them.[984]

Appeals; Corrective Process.—Rehearing, new trials, and appeals are not considered to be essential to due process; and a State is forbidden by no provision of the Constitution from vesting in one tribunal the final determination of legal questions. Consequently, a review by an appellate court of a final judgment in a criminal case, irrespective of the gravity of the offense, is wholly within the discretion of the State to allow or not to allow;[985] and, if granted, may be accorded by the State upon such terms as in its wisdom may be deemed proper.[986] "Wide discretion must be left to the States for the manner of adjudicating a claim that a conviction is unconstitutional; * * * and so long as the rights under the * * * Constitution may be pursued, it is for a State and not for * * * [the Supreme] Court [of the United States] to define the mode by which they may be vindicated. * * * A State may decide whether to have direct appeals * * *, and if so under what circumstances * * * may provide that the protection of [constitutional] rights * * * be sought through the writ of habeas corpus or coram nobis, [or] * * * may afford remedy by a simple motion brought either in the Court of original conviction or at the place of detention."[987]

However, if the tribunal of first instance fails to accord due process such as occurs when the Court in which a conviction is obtained is dominated by a mob, the State must supply corrective process. Moreover, when such process is made available, the corrective proceedings in the reviewing or appellate tribunal being no less a part of the process of law under which a defendant is held in custody, become subject to scrutiny on the occasion of any determination of an alleged unconstitutional deprivation of life or liberty.[988] Such examination may lead unavoidably to substantial federal intervention in State judicial proceedings, and sensitive, no doubt, to the propriety thereof,[989] the Supreme Court, almost until Brown v. Mississippi,[990] decided in 1936, manifested an unusual reluctance to indulge in an adverse appraisal of the adequacy of a State's corrective process.

Prior to the latter date, the Court was content to assume as it did in Frank v. Mangum,[991] decided in 1915, that inasmuch as the proceedings in the State appellate court formally appeared to be sufficient to correct errors committed by a trial court alleged to have been intimidated by a mob, the conclusion by that appellate court that the trial court's sentence of execution should be affirmed was ample assurance that life would not be forfeited without due process of law. Apparently in observance of a principle of comity, whereunder a State appellate court's holding, though acknowledged as not binding, was deemed entitled to utmost respect, the Court persisted in its refusal to make an independent examination of allegations of a denial of due process. Eight years later, in Moore v. Dempsey,[992] a case involving similar allegations of mob domination, the Court, on this occasion speaking through Justice Holmes who had dissented in the preceding decision, ordered the federal district court, in which the defendants had petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus and which had sustained the State of Arkansas's demurrer thereto, to make an independent investigation of the facts, notwithstanding that the Arkansas appellate court had ruled that, in view of the legally sufficient evidence on which the verdict was based and the competent counsel defending the accused, the allegations of mob domination did not suffice to void the trial.

Indubitably, Moore v. Dempsey marked the abandonment of the Supreme Court's deference, founded upon considerations of comity, to decisions of State appellate tribunals on issues of constitutionality and the proclamation of its intention no longer to treat as virtually conclusive pronouncements by the latter that proceedings in a trial court were fair. However, the enduring character of this precedent was depreciated by the Court's insistence that Moore v. Dempsey was decided consistently[993] with Frank v. Mangum; and it was not until the later holding in Brown v. Mississippi in 1936 and the numerous decisions rendered conformably thereto in the decade following that all uncertainty was dispelled as to the Supreme Court's willingness to engage in its own independent examination of the constitutional adequacy of trial court proceedings.

DUE PROCESS: MISCELLANEOUS

Appeals

In every case a point is reached where litigation must cease; and what that point is can best be determined by the State legislature. The power to render a final judgment must be lodged somewhere; and there is no provision in the Federal Constitution which forbids a State from granting to a tribunal, whether called a court or an administrative board, the final determination of a legal question. Neither in administrative nor judicial proceedings does the due process clause require that the participants be entitled as of right to rehearings, new trials, or appeals.[994]

Federal Review of State Procedure

The Fourteenth Amendment does not impair the authority of the States to determine finally, according to their settled usages and established modes of procedure, issues which do not involve any right secured by the Constitution, an act of Congress, or a treaty. As long as a local tribunal acts in consonance with the Constitution, laws and procedure of its own State and as long as said Constitution and laws are so interpreted as not to violate due process, it is only in exceptional circumstances that the Supreme Court would feel justified in intervening. Neither by intention nor by result has the Fourteenth Amendment transformed the Supreme Court into a court of general review to which questions of general justice or equitable consideration arising out of the taking of property may be brought for final determination.[995]

Insofar as mere irregularities or errors in matters of practice under State procedure do not affect constitutional right,[996] they are matters solely for consideration by the appropriate State tribunal.[997] The Constitution does not guarantee that the decisions of State courts shall be free from error;[998] nor does the due process clause give the Supreme Court jurisdiction to review mere mistakes of law concerning nonfederal matters alleged to have been committed by a State court.[999] Accordingly, when statutes authorizing the form of the indictment used are not obviously violative of fundamental constitutional principles, any question as to the sufficiency of the indictment employed is for a State court to determine.[1000] Likewise, the failure of a State to establish a county appellate court as required by the State constitution cannot support any appeal founded upon a denial of due process.[1001] Moreover, if a State court errs in deciding what the common law is, without, however, denying any constitutional right, the litigant adversely affected is not deprived of any liberty or property without due process of law.[1002] Also, whenever a wrong judgment is rendered, property is taken when it should not have been; yet whatever the ground may be, if the mistake is not so gross as to be impossible in a rational administration of justice, it is no more than the imperfection of man, not a denial of constitutional rights.[1003] In conclusion, the decision of a State court upon a question of local law, however wrong, is not an infraction of the Fourteenth Amendment merely because it is wrong. It is not for the Supreme Court to determine whether there has been an erroneous construction of a State statute or the common law; nor does the Constitution impose any impediment to the correction or modification by a State court of erroneous or older constructions of local law embraced in previous decisions.[1004]

Equal Protection of the Laws

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

What Constitutes State Action

The inhibition against denial of equal protection of the laws has exclusive reference to State action. It means that no agency of the State, legislative, executive or judicial,[1005] no instrumentality of the State, and no person, officer or agent exerting the power of the State shall deny equal protection to any person within the jurisdiction of the State. The clause prohibits "discriminating and partial legislation * * * in favor of particular persons as against others in like condition."[1006] But it also has reference to the way the law is administered. "Though the law itself be fair on its face and impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Constitution."[1007] This was said in a case where a Chinese subject had been convicted of operating a laundry in violation of a municipal ordinance which made it unlawful to engage in such business (except in a building constructed of brick or stone) without the consent of the board of supervisors. Permission had been withheld from petitioner and 200 other Chinese subjects but had been granted to 80 others to carry on the same business under similar conditions. This discrimination solely on the basis of nationality was held illegal. For an unlawful administration of a valid statute to constitute a violation of constitutional rights, purposeful discrimination must be shown. An erroneous performance of a statutory duty, although a violation of the statute, is not without more a denial of equal protection of the laws.[1008] This clause is also violated by the withholding of equal access to the courts,[1009] or by inequality of treatment in the courts.[1010] In Shelley v. Kraemer[1011] the use of judicial power to enforce private agreements of a discriminatory character was held unconstitutional. Holding that restrictive covenants prohibiting the sale of homes to Negroes could not be enforced in the courts, Chief Justice Vinson said: "These are not cases, as has been suggested, in which the States have merely abstained from action, leaving private individuals free to impose such discriminations as they see fit. Rather, these are cases in which the States have made available to such individuals the full coercive power of government to deny to petitioners, on the grounds of race or color, the enjoyment of property rights in premises which petitioners are willing and financially able to acquire and which the grantors are willing to sell. The difference between judicial enforcement and nonenforcement of the restrictive covenants is the difference to petitioners between being denied rights of property available to other members of the community and being accorded full enjoyment of those rights on an equal footing."[1012] The action of the curators of a state university in refusing admission to an applicant on account of race is regarded as State action.[1013] A State cannot avoid the impact of the clause by the delegation of responsibility to a private body. After a period of vacillation, the Supreme Court has determined that the action of a political party in excluding Negroes from membership is unlawful when such membership is an essential qualification for voting in a primary conducted pursuant to State law.[1014]

"Persons"

In the case in which it was first called upon to interpret this clause the Court expressed doubt whether "any action of a State not directed by way of discrimination against the Negroes as a class, or on account of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision."[1015] That view was soon abandoned. In 1877 it took jurisdiction of a series of cases, popularly known as the Granger cases, in which railroad corporations sought protection under the due process and equal protection clauses.[1016] Although every case was decided against the corporations on its merits, there was no expression of any doubt that the corporations were entitled to invoke the protection of the amendment. Nine years later the issue was settled definitely by an announcement from the bench by Chief Justice Waite that the Court would not hear argument on the question whether the equal protection clause applies to corporations, adding: "We are all of opinion that it does."[1017] At the same term the Court gave the broadest possible meaning to the word "person"; it held that: "These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; * * *"[1018] The only qualification of the meaning of "person" is that introduced by subsequent decisions holding that a municipal corporation cannot invoke the amendment against its State.[1019]

"Within Its Jurisdiction"

It is persons "within its jurisdiction" that are entitled to equal protection from a State. Largely because article IV, section 2, has from the beginning entitled "Citizens of each State" to the "Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States," the Court has never construed the phrase, "within its jurisdiction," in relation to natural persons.[1020] The cases interpretive of this expression consequently all concern corporations. In 1898, the Court laid down the rule that a foreign corporation not doing business in a State under conditions that subjected it to process issuing from the courts of the State at the instance of suitors was not "within the jurisdiction," and could not complain of the preference granted resident creditors in the distribution of the assets of an insolvent corporation.[1021] That principle was subsequently qualified, over the dissent of Justices Brandeis and Holmes, by a holding that a foreign corporation which sued in a court of a State in which it was not licensed to do business to recover possession of property wrongfully taken from it in another State was "within the jurisdiction" and could not be subjected to unequal burdens in the maintenance of the suit.[1022] The test of amenability to service of process within the State was ignored in a recent case dealing with discriminatory assessment of property belonging to a nonresident individual. In holding that a federal court had jurisdiction to entertain a suit for a declaratory judgment to invalidate the tax, the Supreme Court specifically mentioned the equal protection clause as the source of the federal right, but took no account of the plaintiff's status as a nonresident, beyond a passing reference to the existence of diversity of citizenship.[1023] When a State has admitted a foreign corporation to do business within its borders, that corporation is entitled to equal protection of the laws, but not necessarily to identical treatment with domestic corporations.[1024] A foreign corporation licensed to do business within a State upon payment of an annual license tax is subject to the power of the State to change at any time the conditions of admission for the future. If it fails to pay an increased license tax as a prerequisite to doing business, it is not "within the jurisdiction" and unequal burdens may be laid upon it as compared with other foreign corporations.[1025]

"Equal Protection of the Laws"

Equal protection of the laws means the protection of equal laws.[1026] It forbids all invidious discrimination but does not require identical treatment for all persons without recognition of differences in relevant circumstances. It requires "that equal protection and security should be given to all under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their personal and civil rights; that all persons should be equally entitled to pursue their happiness and acquire and enjoy property; that they should have like access to the courts of the country for the protection of their persons and property, the prevention and redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of contracts; that no impediment should be interposed to the pursuits of anyone except as applied to the same pursuits by others under like circumstances; that no greater burdens should be laid upon one than are laid upon others in the same calling and condition, and that in the administration of criminal justice no different or higher punishment should be imposed upon one than such as is prescribed to all for like offenses."[1027] The Amendment was not "designed to interfere with the power of the State, sometimes termed its 'police power,' to prescribe regulations to promote the health, peace, morals, education, and good order of the people, and to legislate so as to increase the industries of the State, develop its resources, and add to its wealth and prosperity * * * Regulations for these purposes may press with more or less weight upon one than upon another, but they are designed, not to impose unequal or unnecessary restrictions upon anyone, but to promote, with as little individual inconvenience as possible, the general good. Though, in many respects, necessarily special in their character they do not furnish just ground of complaint if they operate alike upon all persons and property under the same circumstances and conditions."[1028] The due process and equal protection clauses overlap but the spheres of protection they offer are not coterminous. The due process clause "tends to secure equality of law in the sense that it makes a required minimum of protection for everyone's right of life, liberty, and property, which the Congress or the legislature may not withhold. * * * The guaranty [of equal protection] was aimed at undue favor and individual or class privilege, on the other hand, and at hostile discrimination or the oppression of inequality, on the other."[1029]

Legislative Classifications

Although the equal protection clause requires laws of like application to all similarly situated, the legislature is allowed wide discretion in the selection of classes.[1030] Classification will not render a State police statute unconstitutional so long as it has a reasonable basis;[1031] its validity does not depend on scientific or marked differences in things or persons or in their relations. It suffices if it is practical.[1032] While a State legislature may not arbitrarily select certain individuals for the operation of its statutes, a selection is obnoxious to the equal protection clause only if it is clearly and actually arbitrary and not merely possibly so.[1033] A substantial difference, in point of harmful results, between two methods of operation, justifies a classification and the burden is on the attacking party to prove it unreasonable.[1034] There is a strong presumption that discriminations in State legislation are based on adequate grounds.[1035] Every state of facts sufficient to sustain a classification which can reasonably be conceived of as having existed when the law was adopted will be assumed.[1036]

There is no doctrinaire requirement that legislation should be couched in all-embracing terms.[1037] A police statute may be confined to the occasion for its existence.[1038] The equal protection clause does not mean that all occupations that are called by the same name must be treated in the same way.[1039] The legislature is free to recognize degrees of harm; a law which hits the evil where it is most felt will not be overthrown because there are other instances to which it might have been applied.[1040] The State may do what it can to prevent what is deemed an evil and stop short of those cases in which the harm to the few concerned is thought less important than the harm to the public that would ensue if the rules laid down were made mathematically exact.[1041] Exceptions of specified classes will not render the law unconstitutional unless there is no fair reason for the law that would not equally require its extension to the excepted classes.[1042] Incidental individual inequality does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.[1043] One who is not discriminated against cannot attack a statute because it does not go further; and if what it commands of one it commands of all others in the same class, that person cannot complain of matter which the statute does not cover.[1044]

TAXATION

At the outset, the Court did not regard the equal protection clause as having any bearing on taxation.[1045] Before long, however, it took jurisdiction of cases assailing specific tax laws under this provision.[1046] In 1890 it conceded cautiously that "clear and hostile discriminations against particular persons and classes, especially such as are of an unusual character, unknown to the practice of our governments, might be obnoxious to the constitutional prohibition."[1047] In succeeding years the clause has been invoked but sparingly to invalidate State levies. In the field of property taxation, inequality has been condemned only in two classes of cases: (1) intentional discrimination in assessments; and (2) discrimination against foreign corporations. In addition, there are a handful of cases invalidating, because of inequality, State laws imposing income, gross receipts, sales and license taxes.

Classifications for the Purpose of Taxation

The power of the State to classify for purposes of taxation is "of wide range and flexibility."[1048] The Constitution does not prevent it "from adjusting its system of taxation in all proper and reasonable ways. It may, if it chooses, exempt certain classes of property from any taxation at all, such as churches, libraries, and the property of charitable institutions. It may impose different specific taxes upon different trades and professions, and may vary the rates of excise upon various products; it may tax real estate and personal property in a different manner; it may tax visible property only, and not tax securities for payment of money; it may allow deductions for indebtedness, or not allow them. All such regulations, and those of like character, so long as they proceed within reasonable limits and general usage, are within the discretion of the State Legislature, * * *"[1049] A State may adjust its taxing system in such a way as to favor certain industries or forms of industry,[1050] and may tax different types of taxpayers differently, despite the fact that they compete.[1051] It does not follow that because "some degree of inequality from the nature of things must be permitted, gross inequality must also be allowed."[1052] Classification may not be arbitrary; it must be based on a real and substantial difference,[1053] but the difference need not be great or conspicuous;[1054] but there must be no discrimination in favor of one as against another of the same class.[1055] Also, discriminations of an unusual character are scrutinized with especial care.[1056] A gross sales tax graduated at increasing rates with the volume of sales,[1057] a heavier license tax on each unit in a chain of stores where the owner has stores located in more than one county,[1058] and a gross receipts tax levied on corporations operating taxicabs, but not on individuals,[1059] have been held to be repugnant to the equal protection clause. But it is not the function of the Court to consider the propriety or justness of the tax, to seek for the motives and criticize the public policy which prompted the adoption of the statute.[1060] If the evident intent and general operation of the tax legislation is to adjust the burden with a fair and reasonable degree of equality, the constitutional requirement is satisfied.[1061] One not within the class claimed to be discriminated against cannot raise the question of constitutionality of a statute on the ground that it denies equal protection of the law.[1062] If a tax applies to a class which may be separately taxed, those within the class may not complain because the class might have been more aptly defined, nor because others, not of the class, are taxed improperly.[1063]

Foreign Corporations

The equal protection clause does not require identical taxes upon all foreign and domestic corporations in every case.[1064] In 1886, a Pennsylvania corporation previously licensed to do business in New York challenged an increased annual license tax imposed by that State in retaliation for a like tax levied by Pennsylvania against New York corporations. This tax was held valid on the ground that the State, having power to exclude entirely, could change the conditions of admission for the future, and could demand the payment of a new or further tax, as a license fee.[1065] Later cases whittled down this rule considerably. The Court decided that "after its admission, the foreign corporation stands equal and is to be classified with domestic corporations of the same kind,"[1066] and that where it has acquired property of a fixed and permanent nature in a State, it cannot be subjected to a more onerous tax for the privilege of doing business than domestic corporations.[1067] A State statute taxing foreign corporations writing fire, marine, inland navigation and casualty insurance on net receipts, including receipts from casualty business was held invalid under the equal protection clause where foreign companies writing only casualty insurance were not subject to a similar tax.[1068] Recently, the doctrine of Fire Asso. of Philadelphia v. New York was revived to sustain an increased tax on gross premiums which was exacted as an annual license fee from foreign but not from domestic corporations.[1069] Even though the right of a foreign corporation to do business in a State rests on a license, yet the equal protection clause is held to insure it equality of treatment, at least so far as ad valorem taxation is concerned.[1070]

Income Taxes

A State law which taxes the entire income, including that derived without the State, of domestic corporations which do business in the State, while exempting entirely the income received outside the State by domestic corporations which do no local business, is arbitrary and invalid.[1071] In taxing the income of a nonresident, there is no denial of equal protection in limiting the deduction of losses to those sustained within the State, although residents are permitted to deduct all losses, wherever incurred.[1072] A retroactive statute imposing a graduated tax at rates different from those in the general income tax law, on dividends received in a prior year which were deductible from gross income under the law in effect when they were received, is not obnoxious to the equal protection clause.[1073]

Inheritance Taxes

In inheritance taxation, there is no denial of equal protection in prescribing different treatment for lineal relations, collateral kindred and strangers of the blood, or in increasing the proportionate burden of the tax progressively as the amount of the benefit increases.[1074] A tax on life estates where the remainder passes to lineal heirs is valid despite the exemption of life estates where the remainder passes to collateral heirs;[1075] there is no arbitrary classification in taxing the transmission of property to a brother or sister, while exempting that to a son-in-law or a daughter-in-law.[1076] Vested and contingent remainders may be treated differently.[1077] The exemption of property bequeathed to charitable or educational institutions may be limited to those within the State.[1078] In computing the tax collectible from a nonresident decedent's property within the State, a State may apply the pertinent rates to the whole estate wherever located, and take that proportion thereof which the property within the State bears to the total; the fact that a greater tax may result than would be assessed on an equal amount of property if owned by a resident,[1079] does not invalidate the result.

Motor Vehicle Taxes

In demanding compensation for the use of highways, a State may exempt certain types of vehicles, according to the purpose for which they are used, from a mileage tax on carriers.[1080] A State maintenance tax act, which taxes vehicle property carriers for hire at greater rates than similar vehicles carrying property not for hire is reasonable, since the use of roads by one hauling not for hire generally is limited to transportation of his own property as an incident to his occupation and is substantially less than that of one engaged in business as a common carrier.[1081] A property tax on motor vehicles used in operating a stage line that makes constant and unusual use of the highways may be measured by gross receipts and be assessed at a higher rate than taxes on property not so employed.[1082] Common motor carriers of freight operating over regular routes between fixed termini may be taxed at higher rates than other carriers, common and private.[1083] A fee for the privilege of transporting motor vehicles on their own wheels over the highways of the State for purpose of sale, does not violate the equal protection clause as applied to cars moving in caravans.[1084] The exemption from a tax for a permit to bring cars into the State in caravans of cars moved for sale between zones in the State is not an unconstitutional discrimination where it appears that the traffic subject to the tax places a much more serious burden on the highways than that which is exempt.[1085] The exemption of small vehicles from graduated registration fees on carriers for hire,[1086] and of persons whose vehicles haul passengers and farm products between points not having railroad facilities or hauling farm and dairy products for a producer from a vehicle license tax on private motor carriers, has been upheld.[1087]

Poll Taxes

A poll tax statute exempting women, the aged and minors, does not make an arbitrary classification[1088].

Property Taxes

The State's latitude of discretion is notably wide in the classification of property for purposes of taxation and the granting of partial or total exemption on the grounds of policy,[1089] whether the exemption results from the terms of the statute or the conduct of a State official under it.[1090] A provision for the forfeiture of land for nonpayment of taxes is not invalid because the conditions to which it applies exist only in a part of the State.[1091] Intentional and systematic undervaluation by State officials of other taxable property in the same class contravenes the constitutional right of one taxed upon the full value of his property;[1092] but mere errors in judgment resulting in unequal overvaluation or undervaluation, not intentional or systematic, will not support a claim of discrimination.[1093] Differences in the basis of assessment are not invalid where the person or property affected might properly be placed in a separate class for purposes of taxation.[1094] An owner aggrieved by discrimination is entitled to have his assessment reduced to the common level.[1095] Equal protection is denied if a State does not itself remove the discrimination; it cannot impose upon the person against whom the discrimination is directed the burden of seeking an upward revision of the assessment of other members of the class.[1096] A corporation whose valuations were accepted by the assessing commission cannot complain that it was taxed disproportionately, as compared with others, if the commission did not act fraudulently.[1097]