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UA * ee Lf Court against Marshall - The Jencks Case John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States during 37 formative years, the founder of the original Supreme Court tradition, is the victim in this case. Jencks v US 353 US 657. The Court quoted Marshall in support of the ruling to aid Jencks. It pulled a few sentences out of context and to rule contrary to the Marshall ruling,as fully explained later in this story. Jencks was president of one of the Mine, Mill and Smel- - ters unions. To have important statutory privileges for the union, Jencks made an affidavit that “he was not on April 2, 1950, a member of the Communist Party or affiliated with such Party." (p. 659). He was convicted for false swearing inmaking such affidavit. The conviction was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeal. Then the Supreme Court came to his relief. Two of the witnesses for the prosectuion were FBI men operating within the Communist Party. They had been making regular reports to the FBI. This information went into the confidential files of the Justice Department. During the trial the witnesses did not use the files but the lawyers for Jencks demanded their production. The trial judge refused to compel the FBI to produce them. Obviously the files would include much material having no bearing on the Jencks case and which might by disclosure injure many innocent people as well as hamper future surveillance. The opinion stated that the Supreme Court had previously ruled that it was up to the trial judge to decide upon production of such files. (p.668). "This Court held in Goldman v United States, 316 US 129, 132, that the trial judge had discretion to deny inspection---". With no hesitation, it calmly declared the opposite: "We now hold that the petitioner was entitled to an order directing the Government to produce for inspection all reports of ---." The Court made no pretense that any law so required. Instead it just cited "our standards". No-one knows what such "standards" are. The Constitution does not mention.the 265.