United States v. Nixon - 418 U.S. 683, 94 S. Ct.
3090 (1974)
RULE:
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution provides that no man shall be compelled in any criminal case
to be a witness against himself. And, generally, an attorney or a priest may not be required to disclose
what has been revealed in professional confidence. These and other interests are recognized in law by
privileges against forced disclosure, established in the Constitution, by statute, or at common law.
Whatever their origins, these exceptions to the demand for every man's evidence are not lightly created
nor expansively construed, for they are in derogation of the search for truth.
FACTS:
The President of the United States invoked executive privilege to avoid compliance with a third-party
subpoena duces tecum that required the production of tape recordings and documents. A special
prosecutor sought to obtain information concerning meetings between the President and certain
individuals charged with obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and other offenses. The President's motion to
quash the subpoena was denied, and cross-petitions for immediate review were granted.
Primary Holding
The President cannot shield himself from producing evidence in a criminal prosecution based on the
doctrine of executive privilege, although it is valid in other situations.
Facts
This case arose from the Watergate scandal, following a burglary at the Democrat Party headquarters in
the Watergate building complex in Washington, D.C. President Richard Nixon, who was contesting the
1972 presidential election against Democrat candidate George McGovern, sought to quash a subpoena
obtained by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski, who had been appointed to investigate the burglary.
(Nixon had fired the initial special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, as well as Attorney General Elliot
Richardson during the infamous Saturday Night Massacre.)
The subpoena was designed to give Jaworski access to tapes and papers that concerned meetings
between Nixon and people who had been indicted in connection with the burglary. There were
reasonable grounds to believe that this evidence contained statements that would be damaging to
Nixon as well as the indicted people. Nixon complied in part with the subpoena, releasing edited
versions of dozens of conversations and parts of 20 conversations that the subpoena had named.
However, he asked the federal court to quash the subpoena based on lack of necessity and the
President's executive privilege. Nixon's attorney also attempted to argue that courts were not qualified
to hear disputes regarding these communications within the executive branch. The federal district court
denied the request to quash, while Jaworski sought complete compliance with the subpoena. Both
parties appealed, and the Supreme Court expedited its review to hear arguments within a month.
Recognizing the importance of unanimity, all of the Justices contributed to the opinion, which held that
the judiciary branch was capable of resolving this type of dispute. They dismissed the notion that
insufficient necessity had been shown for the subpoena, and the opinion focused on the President's
executive privilege. Nixon and his attorney had cast this privilege extremely broadly, and the Court was
unwilling to accept such an absolute bar to liability. They did find that a qualified privilege existed while
the President is in office, but it could not extend to all circumstances and especially not to those in
which serious wrongdoing was convincingly alleged.
Case Commentary
This decision balanced the privilege of confidentiality in presidential communications against the
importance of providing clarity and fairness in criminal justice. Since the circumstances were somewhat
unique, the case may have limited value as a precedent, but it does illustrate an instance in which the
Court chose to check executive authority.
Nixon resigned from office about two weeks later. He was pardoned by the following president, Gerald
Ford, for any criminal involvement in the events of the Watergate scandal
ISSUE:
Does the President of the United States have an absolute, unqualified privilege of immunity from judicial
process under all circumstances?
ANSWER:
No.
CONCLUSION:
Holding that the President's general privilege of confidentiality did not extend to an absolute privilege of
immunity from all judicial process, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the denial of the motion to quash.
Issues relating to the production of documents in a pending criminal case were justiciable and were
properly heard on interlocutory appeal in a case involving the President. Because the special prosecutor
had demonstrated a specific need for the evidence sought by way of subpoena and had complied with
the requirements of Fed. R. Crim. P. 17(c), it was proper to compel production and to examine the
material in camera. The legitimate needs of the judicial process outweighed executive privilege.
