After the Swerve
The U.S. Supreme Court's swerve into a new, liberal direction in dealing with cases bearing on the rights of individuals v. government (TIME, July I) last week brought swift executive, legislative and judicial reaction. Items: P: Heavily underscoring President Eisenhower's approval, U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell hurried before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, urged legislation to prevent a "serious miscarriage of justice" arising from the Supreme Court's Jencks decision, which required pertinent FBI files to be turned over directly to defendants in criminal cases. One Rhode Island court, said Brownell, might well free four convicted kidnapers if the Government refused to turn over all FBI reports bearing on the case; one Georgia court had already dismissed an income-tax case because the Justice Department declined "to produce unauthenticated summaries of interviews with witnesses." Under the Administration bill, trial judges would first screen the files for their relevancy before making them available to the defense. The Senate subcommittee, making clear that its haste stemmed from a "grave emergency in law enforcement," approved the bill--in a closed-door session of precisely three minutes. P: In a 5-to-3 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the right of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to deny passports to Artist Rockwell Kent and Los Angeles Psychiatrist Walter Briehl for refusing to sign non-Communist affidavits. Then four of the judges, putting chips on their shoulders for the Supreme Court to knock off with a Jencks-type ruling, went on to say that confidential Government information can remain confidential in matters of national security and foreign affairs, e.g., in passport cases.