Jurney V. MacCracken
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''Jurney v. MacCracken'', 294 U.S. 125 (1935), was a case in which the
Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
held that Congress has an implicit power to find one in contempt of Congress.. During a Senate investigation of airlines and of the U.S. Postmaster General, the attorney William P. MacCracken, Jr. allowed his clients to destroy
subpoena A subpoena (; also subpœna, supenna or subpena) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of ...
ed documents. After a one-week trial on the Senate floor (presided over by the Vice-President of the United States, acting as Senate President), MacCracken, a lawyer and former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, was found guilty and sentenced to 10 days imprisonment. MacCracken filed a petition of
habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a legal procedure invoking the jurisdiction of a court to review the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and request the individual's custodian (usually a prison official) to ...
with the federal courts to overturn his arrest, but, after litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress had acted constitutionally, and denied the petition. The respondent, Chesley W. Jurney, was the
Sergeant at Arms of the Senate The sergeant at arms and doorkeeper of the United States Senate (originally known as the doorkeeper of the Senate from April 7, 1789 – 1798) is the protocol officer, executive officer, and highest-ranking federal law enforcement officer of th ...
, and hence the person with custody of MacCracken.


See also

* Contempt of Congress *
Air Mail scandal The Air Mail scandal, also known as the Air Mail fiasco, was a political controversy that erupted in 1934 following a United States Congress, congressional investigation into the awarding of airmail contracts to select airlines. The scandal inte ...


References


External links

* 1935 in United States case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Hughes Court {{SCOTUS-Hughes-stub