Today in Supreme Court History: July 24

United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (decided July 24, 1974): Court denies President Nixon’s motion to quash the Special Prosecutor’s subpoena; rules that he has to hand over “the tapes” which included the June 23, 1972 “smoking gun” tape which depicted what everyone in those days (including Nixon, a well-read lawyer) understood to be obstruction of justice: he had agreed with his Chief of Staff Haldeman’s suggestion that the CIA be told to lean on the FBI to stop the Watergate investigation. (As opposed to, say, taking the initiative in actually sacking the FBI director to stop an investigation and bragging about it to Lester Holt on national TV.) Nixon resigned two weeks later. The subpoena was issued in a criminal case against former Attorney General John Mitchell, Haldeman and five others, for conspiracy to obstruct justice, with Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. Unanimous opinion signed by Burger (though it was a collective effort), with Rehnquist, a former Mitchell aide, recusing himself. The Court noted that “the President’s need for complete candor and objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the courts” but rejected Nixon’s claim of absolute, unspecified executive privilege. The opinion reads now like a time capsule of a judicial, political and Constitutional world which functioned because both parties were committed to it, as was the President, who decided to obey the Court’s order and hand over the tape which he knew would destroy him.