In Re Oliver (333 U.S. 257)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 8, 1948 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 333 U.S. 257 · 68 S. Ct. 499
- Docket
- No. 215
- Argued
- December 16, 1947
- Decided
- March 8, 1948
- Term
- October Term 1947
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Black
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Burton, Justice Douglas, Justice Reed, Justice Black (wrote), Justice Rutledge (wrote a concurrence), Justice Murphy
- Dissenting
- Justice R. H. Jackson (wrote), Justice Frankfurter (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court. A Michigan circuit judge summarily sent the petitioner to jail for contempt of court. We must determine whether he was denied the procedural due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. In obedience to a subpoena the petitioner appeared as a witness before a Michigan circuit judge who was then conducting, in accordance with Michigan law, a “one-man grand jury” investigation into alleged gambling and official corruption. The investigation presumably took place in the judge’s chambers, though that is not certain. Two other circuit judges were present in an advisory-capacity. A prosecutor may have been present. A stenographer was most likely there. The record does not show what other members, if any, of the judge’s investiga-torial staff participated in the proceedings. It is certain, however, that the public was excluded — the questioning was secret in accordance with the traditional grand jury method. After petitioner had given certain testimony, the judge-grand jury, still in secret session, told petitioner that neither he nor his advisors believed petitioner’s story— that it did not “jell.” This belief of the judge-grand jury was not based entirely on what the petitioner had testified. As will later be seen, it rested in part on beliefs or suspicions of the judge-jury derived from the testimony of at least one…
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