Per Curiam.
The petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is granted. Charged in a three-count indictment for violation of R. S. § 102, as amended, 2 U. S. C. § 192, for failure to answer three questions put to him by a subcommittee of the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the petitioner, having waived trial by jury, was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and to pay a fine of $1,000. After the sentence was sustained by the Court of Appeals, 99 U. S. App. D. C. 360, 240 F. 2d 46, this Court, having granted a petition for certiorari, remanded the case, 354 U. S. 930, to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration in light of Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S. 178. On reargument before the Court of Appeals sitting en banc, a divided court again affirmed the conviction. 102 U. S. App. D. C. 264, 252 F. 2d 828.
The broad scope of authority vested in Congress to conduct investigations as an incident to the “legislative Powers” granted by the Constitution is not questioned. See Watkins v. United States, supra, at 215. But when Congress seeks to enforce its investigating authority through the criminal process administered by the federal judiciary, the safeguards of criminal justice become operative. The subject matter of inquiry before the subcommittee at which petitioner appeared as a witness concerned the recantation of prior testimony by a witness named Matusow. In the course of the hearing, the questioning of petitioner entered upon a “brief excursion,” 99 U. S. App. D. C. 360, 367, 240 F. 2d 46, 53, into proposed legislation barring Communists from practice at the federal bar, a subject not within the subcommittee’s scope of inquiry as authorized by its parent committee. Inasmuch as petitioner’s refusal to answer related to questions not clearly pertinent to the subject on which the two-member subcommittee conducting the hearing had been authorized to take testimony, the conditions necessary to sustain a conviction for deliberately refusing to answer questions pertinent to the authorized subject matter of a congressional hearing are wanting. Watkins v. United States, supra. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed and the cause remanded to the District Court with directions to dismiss the indictment.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Burton took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations