McGrain v. Daugherty

Appellant
John J. McGrain
Appellee
Mally S. Daugherty
Appellant's Claim
That the U.S. Senate had not exceeded its authority in compelling a witness to testify before a committee investigating the Teapot Dome scandal.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
George W. Wickersham
Chief Lawyers for Appellee
Arthur I. Vorys, John P. Phillips
Justices for the Court
Louis D. Brandeis, Pierce Butler, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Clark McReynolds, Edward Terry Sanford, George Sutherland, William Howard Taft, Willis VanDevanter (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
None (Harlan Fiske Stone did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
17 January 1927
Decision
The Senate had not exceeded its authority because congressional investigations are presumed to serve some legislative purpose.
Significance
The Supreme Court's decision in McGrain v. Daugherty dramatically expanded Congress's ability to investigate the lives and activities of citizens.
Teapot Dome
The case of McGrain v. Daugherty dealt with Congress's power to investigate. In this instance, the legislative body was investigating into a far-reaching scandal that came to be known as Teapot Dome. Since 1909, the U.S. government had set aside three tracts of oil-bearing land--Elk Hills and Buena Vista in California and Teapot Dome in Wyoming--for use by the U.S. Navy in case of an emergency oil shortage. When President Warren G. Harding took officein 1920, he transferred the reserves from the custody of the U.S. Navy to his close friend and newly appointed Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall.Within two years, and without congressional approval, Fall leased the TeapotDome Reserve to a private oil company without competitive bidding. These activities were later brought to light by the press.
In October of 1923, an investigation revealed that Fall had received cash andcattle in exchange for the lease on Teapot Dome and other oil reserves. Fallwas tried and initially acquitted for conspiracy to defraud the government.In 1929, he was convicted of bribery, fined $100,000, and sentenced to a yearin jail. For a time, Fall had enjoyed the protection of powerful friends inthe government, including Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty. However, widespread distrust of the Department of Justice and of Daugherty (who resigned in1924), as well as the pressures brought to bear by extensive press coverageof the scandal, caused Congress to initiate an investigation of Daugherty's failure to prosecute the malefactors in the scandal.
Daugherty's Brother Is Called to Testify
Called before the Senate's investigating committee was Mally S. Daugherty, brother of the former attorney general. Daugherty refused to appear and was promptly placed under arrest by John J. McGrain, the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate. Daugherty successfully gained his release by demanding a writ of habeas corpus. In his petition, he argued that the Senate had exceeded its powers under the Constitution by compelling him to testify on a non-legislativematter. A lower court agreed, saying: "What the Senate is engaged in doing is not investigating the Attorney General's office; it is investigating the former Attorney General. What it has done is to put him on trial before it. Inso doing it is exercising the judicial function. This it has no power to do."McGrain then appealed this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court hadto address the question of whether, since there is no express provision in the Constitution for congressional investigations, this power is implied as part of its legislative function.
McGrain Prevails in High Court
On 17 January 1927, the Supreme Court issued its decision. In an 8-0 ruling,the Court upheld Congress' contempt conviction against Daugherty. In doing so, it embraced a broad interpretation of Congress' power to investigate the lives and activities of private citizens. Calling the power to compel testimonyan "attribute of the power to legislate," the justices found the first function indispensable to the second.
In rendering its decision, the unanimous majority addressed two principal questions. The first was whether a congressional committee can compel a privateindividual to appear before it to give testimony, despite the fact that, in the Court's determination, there is no provision for this power in the Constitution. Citing examples from both British parliamentary history and the annalsof the U.S. Congress, Justice Van Devanter concluded that "the power of inquiry--with process to enforce it--is an essential and appropriate auxiliary tothe legislative function." "A legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the conditions which the legislation is intended to affect or change." Van Devanter added, "and where the legislative body does not itself possess the requisite information--whichnot infrequently is true--recourse must be had to others who do possess it."
The second question the Court had to address was whether Daugherty's testimony was requested in order to obtain information in aid of the legislative function. In rejecting the lower court's determination that the Senate had attempted to perform a judicial function, the Court concluded that the informationobtained from Daugherty's testimony could be used as an aid in drafting future laws. As Van Devanter opined: "The only legitimate object the Senate couldhave in ordering the investigation was to aid it in legislating, and we thinkthe subject matter was such that the presumption should be indulged that this was the real object. An express avowal of the object would have been better; but in view of the particular subject matter was not indispensable."
Impact
The impact of the Supreme Court's decision in McGrain v. Daugherty wasfelt most acutely by the subjects of congressional investigations in the 1950s, when suspected Communists were compelled to testify before House and Senate committees. The Supreme Court often relied upon the presumption of legislative purpose outlined in this case to justify those investigations.
Related Cases

• Reed v. County Commissioners of Delaware County, 277 U.S. 376 (1928).
  
• Leonard v. Earle, 279 U.S. 392 (1929).
  
• Adams v. Maryland, 347 U.S. 179 (1954).
  
• Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359 (1956).

Teapot Dome Scandal
The Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s became a permanent symbol of corruptionin the U.S. government. It marked the first time in U.S. history that an officer in a president's cabinet was convicted of a felony and served a prison sentence.
The scandal involved an area in Wyoming, called Teapot Dome, that had been set aside in 1909 by President William Howard Taft for naval petroleum reservesin the event of war. In 1920, Congress gave the secretary of the Navy broadpowers to lease naval reserves, sell oil, or exchange it for naval supplies or construction. When Albert Bacon Fall became secretary of the interior underPresident Warren G. Harding, he revised an executive order giving the Navy control over the reserves so that leasing would not require the approval of the secretary of the Navy. Fall recommended the Navy take royalties on oil soldfrom leased reserves not in cash, but in oil certificates that would pay fornaval construction.
The illegal moneys Fall received from leasing to oil barons allowed him to pay eight years worth of back taxes on his ranch, buy a racehorse and cattle, purchase a neighboring ranch, and build a hydroelectric plant.
The Teapot Dome scandal led to nine separate trials. Each individual involvedwas investigated for charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, contempt of the U.S. Senate, contempt of court for jury shadowing, perjury, accepting a bribe, and giving a bribe.
Sources
Knappman, Edward W., ed. Great American Trials. Detroit, MI: Visible Ink Press, 1994.