Gravel v. United States

Petitioner
Frank Gravel, U.S. Senator
Respondent
United States
Petitioner's Claim
That a senator's aide shares the protections guaranteeing the senator freedomof speech and debate.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner
Robert J. Reinstein and Charles L. Fishman
Chief Lawyer for the Respondent
Erwin N. Griswold, U.S. Solicitor General
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun (announced the opinion), Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell,Jr., William H. Rehnquist, Byron R. White (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Potter Stewart
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
29 June 1972
Decision
That the privileges of the Speech or Debate Clause do extend to congressionalaides, but not to activity outside the legislative process.
Significance
The Supreme Court ruled that congressional aides are in fact "alter egos" ofthe legislators for whom they work. As such, their speech receives special protection under the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause.
The Pentagon Papers is the popular name given to a secret study done from 1967 to 1969 by a team of analysts for the U.S. Department of Defense. The 47-volume study (officially called "History of the U.S. Decision-Making Process on Vietnam Policy") sharply criticized the U.S. policies in Southeast Asia that led to the Vietnam War and stated that the government had misrepresented its role there to the American people. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, who hadaccess to the study, released it to the New York Times, which began publishing excerpts in a series of articles.
On 29 June 1971, Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska called a meeting of the SenateSubcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds. He began to read aloud from the Pentagon Papers and place their full text into the subcommittee's official record. Later, Gravel provided a copy of the documents to Beacon Press, a Boston publishing house, which did in fact publish them. A federal grandjury investigated to determine whether Gravel had broken the law in releasingthe sensitive documents to the public. One of his aides, Leonard Rodberg, was called to testify before this grand jury. Gravel and Rodberg moved to blockthis action, on the grounds that Article I, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution, known as the Speech or Debate Clause, extends immunity to the actions ofcongressional staff workers when they act on behalf of members of Congress.
The case came before the U.S. Court of Appeals, which issued a mixed decision. It held that the commercial publication of the Papers was not protected under the Speech or Debate Clause because it was not a legislative act. However, neither Gravel nor Rodberg could be questioned by a grand jury. The case was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear it andissued its ruling on 29 June 1972.
Private Publication Not Protected
The Supreme Court held against Senator Gravel on a 5-4 vote. The decision, written by Justice Blackmun, did support him on two counts, however. It upheldGravel's contention that reading the Papers aloud in the subcommitteewas protected by the Speech or Debate Clause:

The Speech or DebateClause was designed to assure a coequal branch of the government wide freedom of speech, debate, and deliberation without intimidation or threats from the Executive Branch. It thus protects Members against prosecutions that directly impinge upon or threaten the legislative process. We have no doubt that Senator Gravel may not be made to answer . . . for the events that occurred atthe subcommittee meeting.

The Court also agreed with Gravel that the Speech or Debate Clause extended to his aide, Rodberg:

We agree with the Court of Appeals that for the purpose of construing the privilege a Member and his aide are to be "treated as one" . . . [I]t is literally impossible, in view of the complexities ofthe modern legislative process, with Congress almost constantly in session and matters of legislative concern constantly proliferating, for Members of Congress to perform their legislative tasks without the help of aides and assistants; that the day-to-day work of such aides is so critical to the Members'performance that they must be treated as the latters' alter ego.

However, the Court held that Gravel's presentation of the Papers to aprivate publisher was not a legislative act, and thus was not protected by the Speech or Debate Clause:

[P]rivate publication by Senator Gravel. . . was in no way essential to the deliberations of the House; nor does questioning as to private publication threaten the integrity or independence ofthe House by impermissibly exposing its deliberations to executive influence. . . We cannot but conclude that the Senator's arrangements with Beacon Press were not part and parcel of the legislative process.

In short, the Court concluded that Rodberg could be questioned, but only under certain conditions:

The Speech or Debate Clause does not in ourview extend immunity to Rodberg, as a Senator's aide, from testifying beforethe grand jury about the arrangement between Senator Gravel and Beacon Pressor about his own participation, if any, in the alleged transaction, so long as legislative acts of the Senator are not impugned.

Gravel v.United States provided important clarification on the breadth of the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution.
Impact
The Gravel decision has been used to determine the scope of executiveand judicial immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause. The important findings in Gravel were that a congressional aid enjoys the same immunity asa Member of Congress and that the immunity under the Speech or Debate Clauseis limited to legislative activity. In Stump v. Sparkman (1978) the Court held that judges are also absolutely immune from liability for damages when performing judicial functions. However, consistent with Gravel, the Court found in Dennis v. Sparks (1980) that federal judges do not have immunity apart from performing their judicial function; in this case the Court found that federal judges are not immune from conspiracy charges and that co-conspirators cannot be considered "official aides" of a judge. Similarly, in Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982) the Court defined the range of presidential immunity. Among their findings in this case, the Court determined thatpresidential aides are entitled to the same absolute immunity granted to congressional aides in Gravel
In many instances Gravel has been invoked to emphasize the limits of immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause. In United States v. Gillok(1980), for instance, the Court ruled that a state senator is not immune fromprosecution in a federal court on the basis of the Speech or Debate Clause.Presidents Nixon and Clinton tested the boundaries of presidential immunity only to find that the same limitations found in Gravel applied to the executive branch as well.
Related Cases

• United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974).
  
• Eastland v. United States Servicemen's Fund, 421 U.S. 491 (1975).
  
• Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731 (1982).
  
• Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997).