| Jurney v. MacCracken | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Full case name | Jurney v. MacCracken | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| That Congress has an implicit power to find one in contempt of Congress | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
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Jurney v. MacCracken, 294 U.S. 125 (1935), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States 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 allowed his clients to destroy subpoenaed 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.[1] MacCracken filed a petition of Habeas Corpus 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.[2][3]