McGrain v. Daugherty (1927)

In McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U.S. 135 (1927), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right of Congress to arrest an individual for contempt for refusing to testify before a Senate Committee.

Justice Willis Van Devanter wrote the Court's unanimous decision (Justice Harlan Fiske Stone did not participate), which overturned a U.S. district court decision that had released Mally S. Daugherty, a banker and brother of a former attorney general Harry M. Daugherty. John J. McGrain, deputy sergeant at arms of the Senate, had arrested him in Cincinnati, Ohio, for failing to appear before a Senate committee after being subpoenaed to do so. The decision is best known for its ruling that Congress has broad investigatory powers under the necessary and proper clause to obtain information needed to adopt legislation.

However, the Court also addressed a Fourth Amendment issue related to whether the unsworn warrant under which McGrain had arrested Daugherty was valid. Van Devanter observed that the Fourth Amendment “was not intended to establish a new principle but to affirm and preserve a cherished rule of the common law designed to prevent the issue of groundless warrants.” He further opined that committee reports are issued under the sanction of the oath of office of its members; and where the matters reported are within the committee's knowledge and constitute probable cause for an attachment such reports are acted on and given effect without requiring that they be supported by further oath or affirmation.

Van Devanter likened the circumstances in this case to those of a court that found an individual in contempt for behavior it had directly observed and on the right of grand jurors to issue on indictments based on their own personal knowledge. Van Devanter directed most of the rest of his opinion to establishing the right of legislative investigations. He did qualify the decision by observing that the Court was not deciding whether an original subpoena, which had required Daugherty to bring certain documents, was valid, and that the Court was not deciding on the propriety of any specific questions that Congress intended to ask the witness.