Traduccion

United States v. Nixon (1974)

Historical Background
The early 1970s was a time of growing distrust in the National Government. The Pentagon Papers exposed the intentional deception of the American people about Vietnam. Americans were shocked when the National Guard opened fire at a Kent State University protest following President Nixon's authorization for the United States to attackCambodia. Four students were killed. Nixon would soon add more fuel to the fire, attempting to cover up illegal actions by himself and his administration.
Circumstances of the Case

In June 1972, five men armed with cameras and bugging equipment were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee's offices in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Police soon discovered that the burglars worked,directly or indirectly, for the Committee to Re-Elect the President. President Nixon and leaders of his campaign denied any connection with the incident.
The five men were convicted of burglary, along with E. Howard Hunt, Jr., a former Nixon aide, and G. Gordon Liddy, a lawyer for the Committee to Re-elect the President. Shortly afterward, the presiding judge received a letter from one of theconvicted men. It spoke of payoffs to the burglars in return for their silence—the men had perjured themselves to protect others involved in the break-in.

In 1973, a Senate select committee began an investigation, and it became clear that top members of the Nixon administration were involved in a cover-up of the break-in and several other illegal actions. It was also discovered that Nixon hadinstalled a taping system that automatically recorded all of his conversations with his advisors. A special prosecutor appointed to probe the Watergate scandal subpoenaed the tapes. Nixon refused to release them, claiming they were protected under executive privilege. Nixon eventually released some of the tapes, but portions of them had been erased. Finally, another special prosecutor asked the UnitedStates Supreme Court to compel Nixon to release all of the tapes in their entirety.

Constitutional Issues
Does the separation of powers created by the Constitution provide the President with an absolute power to withhold information from other branches of government? If the power is not absolute, should President Nixon be able to claim executive privilege under the aforementionedcircumstances? Does the separation of powers allow for the settlement of this dispute to reside in the executive branch or should it be settled by the judicial branch? Does the claim of executive privilege damage the precedent set by the 5th Amendment, which ensures due process?

Arguments
For the United States: The President's power to claim executive privilege is not an absolute one. Executive privilegemay not be invoked to deny the courts access to evidence needed in a criminal proceeding. This is a dispute that can properly be heard in the federal courts.
For President Nixon: The constitutional scheme of separation of powers grants to the President the privilege of withholding information from the other branches of government. Furthermore, this power is absolute, and it is vital wherehigh-level communications are involved. In addition, this dispute should be resolved within the executive branch, not by the courts.
Decision and Rationale

The Court ruled unanimously that President Richard Nixon had to surrender the tapes. Chief Justice Warren Burger delivered the opinion of the Court. Burger wrote, “The impediment that an absolute, unqualified [executive] privilege would place inthe way of the primary constitutional duty of the Judicial Branch to do justice in criminal prosecutions would plainly conflict with the function of the courts under Art[icle] III.”

Burger then turned his attention to the damage that a privilege of confidentiality would cause to citizens' constitutional rights: “The right to the production of all evidence at a criminal trial similarly has...