Harold Hitz Burton

“ I can conceive of nothing more disruptive of congenial labor relations than arming employee, union and management with the potential for 'smarting' one another with exemplary damages. Even without the punitive element, a damage action has an unfavorable effect on the climate of labor relations. ”

“ I assume that this Court would not preclude an examination of grand-jury action to ascertain the existence of bias or prejudice in an indictment. Likewise, it seems to me that if it is shown that the grand jury had before it no substantial or rationally persuasive evidence upon which to base its indictment, that indictment should be quashed. To hold a person to answer to such an empty indictment for a capital or otherwise infamous federal crime robs the Fifth Amendment of much of its protective value to the private citizen. ”

“ If the construction of the oath is the one I prefer, then the Supreme Court of California has obliterated the line between advocacy of abstract doctrine and advocacy of action. If the California oath has been limited by judicial construction to the type of advocacy condemned in Dennis, it still should fall. My disagreement with that decision has not abated. No conspiracy to overthrow the Government was involved. Speech and speech alone was the offense. I repeat that thought and speech go hand in hand. There is no real freedom of thought if ideas must be suppressed. ”

“ Viewing the dismissal of petitioner's appeal in the light of its reasonableness in sustaining the effectiveness of a state's judicial process, as against the rights of a judgment debtor, without filing a supersedeas bond, to refuse to comply with orders safeguarding the value of that judgment, we find nothing that violates due process of law. ”

“ That power explicitly conferred and absolutely essential to the safety of the Nation is not destroyed or impaired by any later provision of the constitution or by any one of the amendments. These may all be construed so as to avoid making the constitution self-destructive, so as to preserve the rights of the citizen from unwarrantable attack, while assuring beyond all hazard the common defence and the perpetuity of our liberties. ”

“ Refinements of title are without controlling force when a statute, unmistakable in meaning, is assailed by a taxpayer as overpassing the bounds of reason, an exercise by the lawmakers of arbitrary power. In such circumstances the question is no longer whether the concept of ownership reflected in the statute is to be squared with the concept embodied, more or less vaguely, in common-law traditions. The question is whether it is one that an enlightened legislator might act upon without affront to justice. ”

“ The right to bargain becomes illusory if one is not free to press a proposal in good faith to the point of insistence. Surely adoption of so inherently vague and fluid a standard is apt to inhibit the entire bargaining process because of a party's fear that strenuous argument might shade into forbidden insistence and thereby produce a charge of an unfair labor practice. This watered-down notion of 'bargaining' which the Court imports into the Act with reference to matters not within the scope of § 8 (d) appears as foreign to the labor field as it would be to the commercial world. ”

“ We find no implication that a self-serving error in the understatement of its tax on its tax return entitles the taxpayer to a greater ultimate tax advantage than does a self-serving error of the same size in the underpayment of the same tax. A fortiori we find nothing to justify a greater tax advantage to any taxpayer that underpays its correct tax, over one that pays such tax in full when due. ”

“ No formal agreement is necessary to constitute an unlawful conspiracy. Often crimes are a matter of inference deduced from the acts of the person accused and done in pursuance of a criminal purpose. Where the conspiracy is proved, as here, from the evidence of the action taken in concert by the parties to it, it is all the more convincing proof of an intent to exercise the power of exclusion acquired through that conspiracy. ”

“ The actual presence of battle in a community creates a substantially different condition from that which exists in other parts of a nation at war. That conditions of war and the means of meeting its emergencies were within the contemplation of the Constitution of the United States is shown by the broad authority vested in the President of the United States as Chief Executive and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy and in the war powers of the Congress and the Chief Executive to preserve the safety of the nation in time of war. ”

“ To suggest that all actions which in the absence of a labor controversy might be 'cause'-or, to use the words commonly found in labor agreements, 'just cause'-for discharge should be unprotected, even when such actions were undertaken as 'concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining', is to misconstrue legislation designed to put labor on a fair footing with management. ”

“ It seems apparent from these authorities that Ohio's interest in uniform administration of a corporation's contract obligations for the funds of a company created under its laws is not entitled to full faith and credit merely because of the communal interest of policyholder-members in that fund. And the fact, so heavily stressed by the Court, that the corporation was incorporated under the laws of Ohio so that its continued existence depends upon that law is plainly insufficient basis for a contention that, therefore, Ohio's interest demands full faith and credit for this contract provision. ”

“ The less the conflict, the less obvious is the basis for the objection of Congress to sharing its jurisdiction with the state. However, even a complete absence of conflict, resulting in a mere duplication of offenses, would not remove all basis for objection and would not necessarily establish the required congressional consent. For example, the inherent objectionability of the double punishment of an offender for a single act always argues against its implied authorization. ”

“ No one doubts the existence in the State governments of the right of eminent domain,-a right distinct from and paramount to the right of ultimate ownership. It grows out of the necessities of their being, not out of the tenure by which lands are held. It may be exercised, though the lands are not held by grant from the government, either mediately or immediately, and independent of the consideration whether they would escheat to the government in case of a failure of heirs. The right is the offspring of political necessity ”

“ After receiving the verdict, the trial judge, Judge Boyer, was, on June 5, quoted in the local newspaper as having said to that jury:
'I don't see how you could, under the evidence, have reached any other verdict. Your verdict may have a very wholesome effect on other young men in all vicinities who may come to realize the seriousness of the folly in which so many young men indulge in these days. The only hope of stemming the tide of such crime by youth is to enforce the law which you have indicated by your decision. ”

“ It is not the broad constitutional power to regulate commerce, but rather the servitude derived from that power and narrower in scope, that frees the Government from liability in these cases. When the Government exercises this servitude, it is exercising its paramount power in the interest of navigation, rather than taking the private property of anyone. The owner's use of property riparian to a navigable stream long has been limited by the right of the public to use the stream in the interest of navigation. ”

“ It is conceivable, although hardly likely, that a bondholder, in the ordinary course of business and without any express release of his debtor, might have sold part of his claims on the bonds he held at the full face value of those parts and then have made a gift of the rest of his claims on those bonds to the same debtor 'for nothing.' It is that kind of extraordinary transaction that the respondent asks us, as a matter of law, to read into the simple sales which actually took place and from which he derived financial gains. ”

“ It is established that it is permissible and well within 'due process of law' for a person, accused of such crimes, to waive his rights, if any, to the assistance of counsel for his defense, whether or not the accused also shall plead guilty. [22] If such waiver is to be effective, it must be intelligently, competently, understandingly and voluntarily made. In the instant cases, the only evidence before us of any affirmative waiver of a right to the assistance of counsel, if any such right existed, appears in the petitioner's pleas of guilty. ”

“ Unless we proceed on the basis that the jury will follow the court's instructions where those instructions are clear and the circumstances are such that the jury can reasonably be expected to follow them, the jury system makes little sense. Based on faith that the jury will endeavor to follow the court's instructions, our system of jury trial has produced one of the most valuable and practical mechanisms in human experience for dispensing substantial justice. ”

“ Whether the Illinois statute denies equal protection depends upon whether, first, it is an arbitrary and unreasonable distinction for the legislature to make, between those convicted of a capital offense and those convicted of a lesser offense, as to their right to a free transcript. It seems to us the whole practice of criminal law teaches that there are valid distinctions between the ways in which criminal cases may be looked upon the treated without violating the Constitution. Very often we have cases where the convicted seek only to avoid the death penalty. ”

“ The privilege recognizes the obligation of citizens to communicate their knowledge of the commission of crimes to law-enforcement officials and, by preserving their anonymity, encourages them to perform that obligation.
The scope of the privilege is limited by its underlying purpose. Thus, where the disclosure of the contents of a communication will not tend to reveal the identity of an informer, the contents are not privileged. [7] Likewise, once the identity of the informer has been disclosed to those who would have cause to resent the communication, the privilege is no longer applicable. ”

“ They had emerged from a long struggle which had taught them the weakness of a mere confederation, and they had no hope that they could hold what they had won save as they established a Union which could fight with the strength of one people under one government entrusted with the common defence. In equipping the National Government with the needed authority in war, they tolerated no limitations inconsistent with that object, as they realized that the very existence of the Nation might be at stake and that every resource of the people must be at command. ”

“ I cannot agree that royalties should be charged on patents whose misuse has been so flagrant as to persuade us to approve compulsory licensing of all who desire to use the inventions. Nor do I think that the failure to provide for royalty free licensing may be sustained as an exercise of the judicial discretion of the District Court. That would be the case if the District Court had been free to frame its decree unembarrassed by the ruling in Hartford-Empire Co. ”

“ We are therefore confronted with the demonstrable fact that if the provision stripping strikers of their status as employees during the 60-day period is to have any usefulness at all and not be an idle collection of words, the fact that a strike during that period is induced by the employer's unfair labor practice is immaterial. ”

“ We should never forget that the freedoms secured by that Amendment Speech, Press, Religion, Petition and Assembly-are absolutely indispensable for the preservation of a free society in which government is based upon the consent of an informed citizenry and is dedicated to the protection of the rights of all, even the most despised minorities. ”

“ It is enough to say that Congress did not seek by the Robinson-Patman Act either to abolish competition or so radically to curtail it that a seller would have no substantial right of self-defense against a price raid by a competitor. For example, if a large customer requests his seller to meet a temptingly lower price offered to him by one of his seller's competitors, the seller may well find it essential, as a matter of business survival, to meet that price rather than to lose the customer. ”

“ For my part, to overturn the judgments below simply involves second-guessing the Missouri Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, on questions of fact on which they brought to bear judgments neither capricious nor unreasonable, and on which they made 'fair assessment of a record.'
I dissent also for another reason. No scientific or precise yardstick can be devised to test the sufficiency of the evidence in a negligence case. The problem has always been one of judgment, to be applied in view of the purposes of the statute. ”

“ Separated as our issue is from that of the future interests of the children, we have before us the elemental question whether a court of a state, where a mother is neither domiciled, resident nor present, may cut off her immediate right to the care, custody, management and companionship of her minor children without having jurisdiction over her in personam. Rights far more precious to appellant than property rights will be cut off if she is to be bound by the Wisconsin award of custody. ”

“ A point has been made of the fact that the Government's tax lien upon property of the embezzler would have priority over the claim of the victim of the embezzlement to recover from such property the losses which the victim suffered by the embezzlement. This priority of the tax lien is hardly an adequate argument to eliminate the tax itself. At most it is an argument for Congress to modify the tax lien in favor of the victim. ”

“ It is by no means unreasonable to assume that Congress, aware of these characteristics of labor relations in the interconnected system which comprises our national railroad industry, intended that collective bargaining, as fostered and protected by the Railway Labor Act, should apply to all railroads. Congress no doubt concluded that a uniform method of dealing with the labor problems of the railroad industry would tend to eliminate inequities, and would promote a desirable mobility within the railroad labor force. ”

“ It is the established policy of both the State and Federal Governments to treat possible conflicts between their powers in such a manner as to produce as little conflict and friction as possible. So here the procedure followed by Illinois should not be held to violate the standard of permissible process of law broadly recognized by the Fourteenth Amendment unless the Illinois procedure violates 'the very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty' and that to continue it would 'violate a 'principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental. ”

“ While the reach of the reserved taxing power of a state is great, the constitutional separation of the federal and state powers makes it essential that no state be permitted to exercise, without authority from Congress, those functions which it has delegated exclusively to Congress. Another example of this basic separation of powers is the inability of the states to tax the agencies through which the United States exercises its sovereign powers. ”

“ If Congress desires to make cheating, in all its myriad varieties, a federal offense when employed to obtain an automobile that is then taken across a state line, it should express itself with less ambiguity than by language that leads three Courts of Appeals to decide that it has not said so and three that it has. ”

“ If it is necessary that the United States government should have an eminent domain still higher than that of the state, in order that it may fully carry out the objects and purposes of the constitution, then it has it. ”

“ Thus, where work is done by an employee, with the employer's consent, a labor organization's demand that the employee be compensated for time spent in doing the disputed work does not become an unfair labor practice. The transaction simply does not fall within the kind of featherbedding defined in the statute. In the absence of proof to the contrary, the employee's compensation reflects his entire relationship with his employer. ”

“ But where the conspirator's statement is so damning to another against whom it is inadmissible, as is true in this case, the difficulty of introducing it against the declarant without inevitable harm to a co-conspirator, the petitioner in this case, is no justification for causing such harm. The Government should not have the windfall of having the jury be influenced by evidence against a defendant which, as a matter of law, they should not consider but which they cannot put out of their minds. ”

“ It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection. ”

“ It is important, however, that in reviewing the constitutionality of the conduct of our agencies of government in time of war, invasion and threatened invasion, we do not now make precedents which in other emergencies may handicap the executive branch of the Government in the performance of duties allotted to it by the Constitution and by the exercise of which it successfully defended the nation against the greatest attack ever made upon it. ”

“ Some can afford better lawyers and better investigations of their cases. Some can afford bail, some cannot. Why fix bail at any reasonable sum if a poor man can't make it?
The Constitution requires the equal protection of the law, but it does not require the States to provide equal financial means for all defendants to avail themselves of such laws. ”

“ Today what one thinks or believes, what one utters and says have the full protection of the First Amendment. It is only his actions that government may examine and penalize. When we allow government to probe his beliefs and withhold from him some of the privileges of citizenship because of what he thinks, we do indeed 'invert the order of things,' to use Hamilton's phrase. All public officials state and federal-must take an oath to support the Constitution by the express command of Article VI of the Constitution. ”