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Amdt5.3.1.2 General Protections Against Self-Incrimination: Doctrine and Practice

Fifth Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The Court has settled upon the principle that the clause serves two interrelated interests: the preservation of an accusatorial system of criminal justice, which goes to the integrity of the judicial system, and the preservation of personal privacy from unwarranted governmental intrusion.1 To protect these interests and to preserve these values, the privilege is not to be interpreted literally. Rather, the sole concern [of the privilege] is, as its name indicates, with the danger to a witness forced to give testimony leading to the infliction of penalties affixed to the criminal acts.2 Furthermore, [t]he privilege afforded not only extends to answers that would in themselves support a conviction . . . but likewise embraces those which would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute . . .3

The privilege against self-incrimination parries the general obligation to provide testimony under oath when called upon, but it also applies in police interrogations. In all cases, the privilege must be supported by a reasonable fear that a response will be incriminatory. The issue is a matter of law for a court to determine,4 and therefore, with limited exceptions, one must claim the privilege to benefit from it.5 Otherwise, silence in the face of questioning may be insufficient to invoke the privilege because it may not afford an adequate opportunity either to test whether information withheld falls within the privilege or to cure a violation through a grant of immunity.6 A witness who fails to claim the privilege explicitly when an affirmative claim is required is deemed to have waived it, and waiver may be found where the witness has answered some preliminary questions but desires to stop at a certain point.7 However, an assertion of innocence in conjunction with a claim of the privilege does not obviate the right of witnesses to invoke it, as their responses still may provide the government with evidence it may later seek to use against them.8

Although individuals must have reasonable cause to apprehend danger and cannot be the judge of the validity of their claims, a court that would deny a claim of the privilege must be perfectly clear, from a careful consideration of all the circumstances in the case, that the individual is mistaken, and that the answer[s] cannot possibly have such tendency to incriminate.9 To reach a determination, furthermore, a trial judge may not require a witness to disclose so much of the danger as to render the privilege nugatory. As the Court observed:

[I]f the witness, upon interposing his claim, were required to prove the hazard . . . he would be compelled to surrender the very protection which the privilege is designed to guarantee. To sustain the privilege, it need only be evident from the implications of the question, in the setting in which it is asked, that a responsive answer to the question or an explanation of why it cannot be answered might be dangerous because injurious disclosure could result.10

The privilege against self-incrimination is a personal one and cannot be used by or on behalf of any organization, such as a corporation. Thus, a corporation cannot object on self-incrimination grounds to a subpoena of its records and books or to the compelled testimony of those corporate agents who have been given personal immunity from criminal prosecution.11 Nor may a corporate official with custody of corporate documents that incriminate him personally resist their compelled production on the assertion of his personal privilege.12

A witness has traditionally been able to claim the privilege in any proceeding whatsoever in which testimony is legally required when his answer might be used against him in that proceeding or in a future criminal proceeding or when it might be exploited to uncover other evidence against him.13 Incrimination is not complete once guilt has been adjudicated, and hence the privilege may be asserted during the sentencing phase of trial.14 Conversely, there is no valid claim on the ground that the information sought can be used in proceedings which are not criminal in nature,15 and there can be no valid claim if there is no criminal prosecution16 The Court in recent years has also applied the privilege to situations, such as police interrogation of suspects, in which there is no legal compulsion to speak.17

What the privilege protects against is compulsion of testimonial disclosures. Thus, the clause is not offended by such non-testimonial compulsions as requiring a person in custody to stand or walk in a police lineup, to speak prescribed words, to model particular clothing, or to give samples of handwriting, fingerprints, or blood.18 A person may be compelled to produce specific documents even though they contain incriminating information.19 If, however, the existence of specific documents is not known to the government, and the act of production informs the government about the existence, custody, or authenticity of the documents, then the privilege is implicated.20 Application of these principles resulted in a holding that the Independent Counsel could not base a prosecution on incriminating evidence identified and produced as the result of compliance with a broad subpoena for all information relating to the individual’s income, employment, and professional relationships.21

The protection is against compulsory incrimination, and traditionally the Court has treated within the clause only those compulsions which arise from legally enforceable obligations, culminating in imprisonment for refusal to testify or to produce documents.22 The compulsion need not be imprisonment, but can also be termination of public employment23 or disbarment of a lawyer24 as a legal consequence of a refusal to make incriminating admissions. The degree of coercion may also prove decisive, the Court having ruled that moving a prisoner from a medium security unit to a maximum security unit was insufficient to compel him to incriminate himself in spite of the attendant loss of privileges and the harsher living conditions.25 However, although it appears that prisoners26 and probationers27 have less protection than others do, the Court has not developed a clear doctrinal explanation to identify the differences between permissible and impermissible coercion.28

It has long been the rule that a defendant who takes the stand on his own behalf does so voluntarily, and cannot then claim the privilege to defeat cross-examination on matters reasonably related to the subject matter of his direct examination,29 and that such a defendant may be impeached by proof of prior convictions.30 But, in Griffin v. California,31 the Court refused to permit prosecutorial or judicial comment to the jury upon a defendant’s refusal to take the stand on his own behalf, because such comment was a penalty imposed by courts for exercising a constitutional privilege and [i]t cuts down on the privilege by making its assertion costly.32 Prosecutors’ comments violating the Griffin rule can nonetheless constitute harmless error.33 Nor may a prosecutor impeach a defendant’s trial testimony through use of the fact that upon his arrest and receipt of a Miranda warning he remained silent and did not give the police the exculpatory story he told at trial.34 But where the defendant took the stand and testified, the Court permitted the impeachment use of his pre-arrest silence when that silence had in no way been officially encouraged, through a Miranda warning or otherwise.35

Further, the Court held inadmissible at the subsequent trial a defendant’s testimony at a hearing to suppress evidence wrongfully seized, because use of the testimony would put the defendant to an impermissible choice between asserting his right to remain silent and invoking his right to be free of illegal searches and seizures.36 The Court also proscribed the introduction at a second trial of the defendant’s testimony at his first trial, given to rebut a confession which was subsequently held inadmissible, since the testimony was in effect fruit of the poisonous tree, and had been coerced from the defendant through use of the confession.37 Potentially most far-reaching was a holding that invalidated the penalty structure of a statute under which defendants could escape a possible death sentence by entering a guilty plea; the statute needlessly encourage[d] waivers of defendant’s Fifth Amendment right to plead not guilty and his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.38

Although this needless encouragement test assessed the nature of the choice required to be made by defendants against the strength of the governmental interest in the system requiring the choice, the Court soon developed another test stressing the voluntariness of the choice. A guilty plea entered by a defendant who correctly understands the consequences of the plea is voluntary unless coerced or obtained under false pretenses; moreover, there is no impermissible coercion where the defendant has the effective assistance of counsel.39 The Court in an opinion by Justice Harlan then formulated still another test in holding that a defendant in a capital case in which the jury in one process decides both guilt and sentence could be put to a choice between remaining silent on guilt or admitting guilt and being able to put on evidence designed to mitigate the possible sentence. The pressure to take the stand in response to the sentencing issue, said the Court, was not so great as to impair the policies underlying the Self-Incrimination Clause, policies described in this instance as proscription of coercion and of cruelty in putting the defendant to an undeniably hard choice.40 Similarly, the Court held that requiring a defendant to give notice to the prosecution before trial of his intention to rely on an alibi defense and to give the names and addresses of witnesses who will support it does not violate the clause.41 Nor does it violate a defendant’s self-incrimination privilege to create a presumption upon the establishment of certain basic facts from which the jury may infer the defendant’s guilt unless he rebuts the presumption.42

The obligation to testify is not relieved by this clause, if, regardless of whether incriminating answers are given, a prosecution is precluded,43 or if the result of the answers is not incrimination, but rather harm to reputation or exposure to infamy or disgrace.44 The clause does not prevent a public employer from discharging an employee who, in an investigation specifically and narrowly directed at the performance of the employee’s official duties, refuses to cooperate and to provide the employer with the desired information on grounds of self-incrimination.45 But it is unclear under what other circumstances a public employer may discharge an employee who has claimed his privilege before another investigating agency.46

Finally, the rules established by the clause and the judicial interpretations apply against the states to the same degree that they apply against the Federal Government,47 and neither sovereign can compel discriminatory admissions that would incriminate the person in the other jurisdiction.48 There is no cooperative internationalism that parallels the cooperative federalism and cooperative prosecution on which application against states is premised, and consequently concern with foreign prosecution is beyond the scope of the Self-Incrimination Clause.49

Required Records Doctrine

Although the privilege is applicable to an individual’s papers and effects,50 it does not extend to corporate persons; hence corporate records, as has been noted, are subject to compelled production.51 In fact, however, the Court has greatly narrowed the protection afforded in this area to natural persons by developing the required records doctrine. That is, it has held that the privilege which exists as to private papers cannot be maintained in relation to ‘records required by law to be kept in order that there may be suitable information of transactions which are the appropriate subjects of governmental regulation and the enforcement of restrictions validly established.’52 This exception developed out of, as Justice Frankfurter showed in dissent, the rule that documents which are part of the official records of government are wholly outside the scope of the privilege; public records are the property of government and are always accessible to inspection. Because government requires certain records to be kept to facilitate the regulation of the business being conducted, so the reasoning goes, the records become public at least to the degree that government could always scrutinize them without hindrance from the record-keeper. If records merely because required to be kept by law ipso facto become public records, we are indeed living in glass houses. Virtually every major public law enactment—to say nothing of State and local legislation —has record-keeping provisions. In addition to record-keeping requirements, is the network of provisions for filing reports. Exhaustive efforts would be needed to track down all the statutory authority, let alone the administrative regulations, for record-keeping and reporting requirements. Unquestionably they are enormous in volume.53

It may be assumed at the outset that there are limits which the government cannot constitutionally exceed in requiring the keeping of records which may be inspected by an administrative agency and may be used in prosecuting statutory violations committed by the record-keeper himself.54 But the only limit that the Court suggested in Shapiro was that there must be a sufficient relation between the activity sought to be regulated and the public concern so that the Government can constitutionally regulate or forbid the basic activity concerned, and can constitutionally require the keeping of particular records, subject to inspection by the Administrator.55 That there are limits established by the Self-Incrimination Clause itself rather than by a subject matter jurisdiction test is evident in the Court’s consideration of reporting and disclosure requirements implicating but not directly involving the required-records doctrine.

Footnotes

  1.  Jump to essay-1In Tehan v. United States ex rel. Shott, the Court noted:

    [T]he basic purposes that lie behind the privilege against self-incrimination do not relate to protecting the innocent from conviction, but rather to preserving the integrity of a judicial system in which even the guilty are not to be convicted unless the prosecution shoulder[s] the entire load.

    . . .

    The basic purpose of a trial is the determination of truth, and it is self-evident that to deny a lawyer's help through the technical intricacies of a criminal trial or to deny a full opportunity to appeal a conviction because the accused is poor is to impede that purpose and to infect a criminal proceeding with the clear danger of convicting the innocent. . . By contrast, the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination is not an adjunct to the ascertainment of truth. That privilege, like the guarantees of the Fourth Amendment, stands as a protection of quite different constitutional values—values reflecting the concern of our society for the right of each individual to be let alone. Tehan v. United States ex rel. Shott, 382 U.S. 406, 415, 416 (1966); see also California v. Byers, 402 U.S. 424, 448–58 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring); Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 760–65 (1966); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 460 (1966). For a critical view of the privilege, see Henry Friendly, The Fifth Amendment Tomorrow: The Case for Constitutional Change, 37 U. Cin. L. Rev. 671 (1968) .

  2.  Jump to essay-2Ullmann, 350 U.S. at 438–39.
  3.  Jump to essay-3Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486 (1951); see also Emspak v. United States, 349 U.S. 190 (1955); Blau v. United States, 340 U.S. 332 (1951); Blau v. United States, 340 U.S. 159 (1950).
  4.  Jump to essay-4E.g., Mason v. United States, 244 U.S. 362 (1917).
  5.  Jump to essay-5The primary exceptions are for a criminal defendant not taking the stand and a suspect being subject to inherently coercive circumstances (e.g., custodial interrogation). See Salinas v. Texas, 570 U.S. 178, 183–86 (2013) (plurality opinion).
  6.  Jump to essay-6In Salinas v. Texas, 570 U.S. 178 (2013), the defendant—Salinas—answered all questions during noncustodial questioning about a double murder, other than one about whether his shotgun would match shells recovered at the murder scene. He fell silent on this inquiry, but did not assert the privilege against self-incrimination. At closing argument at Salinas's murder trial, the prosecutor argued that this silence indicated guilt, and a majority of the Court found the comments constitutionally permissible. The Court affirmed the Texas Supreme Court's ruling that Salinas had failed to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights because he did not do so explicitly. Although no opinion drew a majority of Justices, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy, Justice Alito observed that a defendant could choose to remain silent for numerous reasons other than avoiding self-incrimination. Id. at 188–89 (plurality opinion).
  7.  Jump to essay-7Rogers v. United States, 340 U.S. 367 (1951); United States v. Monia, 317 U.S. 424 (1943). The waiver concept here has been pronounced analytically [un]sound, with the Court preferring to reserve the term waiver for the process by which one affirmatively renounces the protection of the privilege. Garner v. United States, 424 U.S. 648, 654 n.9 (1976). Thus, the Court has settled upon the concept of compulsion as applied to cases where disclosures are required in the face of claim of privilege. Id. [I]n the ordinary case, if a witness under compulsion to testify makes disclosures instead of claiming the privilege, the government has not 'compelled' him to incriminate himself. Id. at 654. Similarly, the Court has enunciated the concept of voluntariness to be applied in situations where it is claimed that a particular factor denied the individual a free choice to admit, to deny, or to refuse to answer. Id. at 654 n.9, 656-65.
  8.  Jump to essay-8Ohio v. Reiner, 532 U.S. 17 (2001).
  9.  Jump to essay-9Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 488 (1951) (quoting Temple v. Commonwealth, 75 Va. 892, 898 (1881)). For an application of these principles, see Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 11–14 (1964), and id. at 33 (White, Stewart JJ., dissenting). Where the government is seeking to enforce an essentially noncriminal statutory scheme through compulsory disclosure, some Justices would apparently relax the Hoffman principles. Cf. California v. Byers, 402 U.S. 424 (1971) (plurality opinion).
  10.  Jump to essay-10Hoffman, 341 U.S. at 486–87.
  11.  Jump to essay-11United States v. White, 322 U.S. 694, 701 (1944); Baltimore & Ohio R.R. v. ICC, 221 U.S. 612 (1911); Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43, 69–70, 74–75 (1906).
  12.  Jump to essay-12United States v. White, 322 U.S. 694, 699–700 (1944); Wilson v. United States, 221 U.S. 361, 384–385 (1911). But the government may make no evidentiary use of the act of production in proceeding individually against the corporate custodian. Braswell v. United States, 487 U.S. 99 (1988). Cf. George Campbell Painting Corp. v. Reid, 392 U.S. 286 (1968); United States v. Rylander, 460 U.S. 752 (1983) (witness who had failed to appeal production order and thus had burden in contempt proceeding to show inability to then produce records could not rely on privilege to shift this evidentiary burden).
  13.  Jump to essay-13Thus, not only may a defendant or a witness in a criminal trial, including a juvenile proceeding, In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 42–57 (1967), claim the privilege but so may a party or a witness in a civil court proceeding, McCarthy v. Arndstein, 266 U.S. 34 (1924), a potential defendant or any other witness before a grand jury, Reina v. United States, 364 U.S. 507 (1960); Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U.S. 547, 563 (1892), or a witness before a legislative inquiry, Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 195–96 (1957); Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155 (1955); Emspak v. United States, 349 U.S. 190 (1955), or before an administrative body. In re Groban, 352 U.S. 330, 333, 336–37, 345–46 (1957); ICC v. Brimson, 154 U.S. 447, 478–80 (1894).
  14.  Jump to essay-14Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 462–63 (1981) (We can discern no basis to distinguish between the guilt and penalty phases of respondent’s capital murder trial so far as the protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege is concerned); Mitchell v. United States, 526 U.S. 314 (1999) (non-capital sentencing).
  15.  Jump to essay-15Allen v. Illinois, 478 U.S. 364 (1986) (declaration that person is sexually dangerous under Illinois law is not a criminal proceeding); Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420, 435 n.7 (1984) (revocation of probation is not a criminal proceeding, hence there can be no valid claim of the privilege on the ground that the information sought can be used in revocation proceedings). In Murphy, the Court went on to explain that a State may validly insist on answers to even incriminating questions and hence sensibly administer its probation system, as long as it recognizes that the required answers may not be used in a criminal proceeding and thus eliminates the threat of incrimination. Under such circumstances, a probationer’s ‘right to immunity as a result of his compelled testimony would not be at stake,’ and nothing in the Federal Constitution would prevent a State from revoking probation for a refusal to answer . . . . Id. (citations omitted).
  16.  Jump to essay-16Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760 (2003) (rejecting damages claim brought by suspect interrogated in hospital but not prosecuted).
  17.  Jump to essay-17Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
  18.  Jump to essay-18Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 764 (1966); United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 221–23 (1967); Holt v. United States, 218 U.S. 245, 252 (1910). In California v. Byers, 402 U.S. 424 (1971), four Justices believed that requiring any person involved in a traffic accident to stop and give his name and address did not involve testimonial compulsion and therefore the privilege was inapplicable, id. at 431–34 (Chief Justice Burger and Justices Stewart, White, and Blackmun), but Justice Harlan, id. at 434 (concurring), and Justices Black, Douglas, Brennan, and Marshall, id. at 459, 464 (dissenting), disagreed. In South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553 (1983), the Court indicated as well that a state may compel a motorist suspected of drunk driving to submit to a blood alcohol test, and may also give the suspect a choice about whether to submit, but use his refusal to submit to the test as evidence against him. The Court rested its evidentiary ruling on the absence of coercion, preferring not to apply the sometimes difficult distinction between testimonial and physical evidence. In another case, involving roadside videotaping of a drunk driving suspect, the Court found that the slurred nature of the suspect’s speech, as well as his answers to routine booking questions as to name, address, weight, height, eye color, date of birth, and current age, were not testimonial in nature. Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 U.S. 582 (1990). On the other hand, the suspect’s answer to a request to identify the date of his sixth birthday was considered testimonial. Id. Two Justices challenged the interpretation limiting application to testimonial disclosures, claiming that the original understanding of the word witness was not limited to someone who gives testimony, but included someone who gives any kind of evidence. United States v. Hubbell, 530 U.S. 27, 49 (2000) (Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, concurring).
  19.  Jump to essay-19Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391 (1976). Compelling a taxpayer by subpoena to produce documents produced by his accountants from his own papers does not involve testimonial self-incrimination and is not barred by the privilege. [T]he Fifth Amendment does not independently proscribe the compelled production of every sort of incriminating evidence but applies only when the accused is compelled to make a testimonial communication that is incriminating. Id. at 408 (emphasis by Court). Even further removed from the protection of the privilege is seizure pursuant to a search warrant of business records in the handwriting of the defendant. Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463 (1976). A court order compelling a target of a grand jury investigation to sign a consent directive authorizing foreign banks to disclose records of any and all accounts over which he had a right of withdrawal is not testimonial in nature, since the factual assertions are required of the banks and not of the target. Doe v. United States, 487 U.S. 201 (1988).
  20.  Jump to essay-20In United States v. Doe, 465 U.S. 605 (1984), the Court distinguished Fisher, upholding lower courts’ findings that the act of producing tax records implicates the privilege because it would compel admission that the records exist, that they were in the taxpayer’s possession, and that they are authentic. Similarly, a juvenile court’s order to produce a child implicates the privilege, because the act of compliance would amount to testimony regarding [the subject’s] control over and possession of [the child]. Baltimore Dep’t of Social Services v. Bouknight, 493 U.S. 549, 555 (1990).
  21.  Jump to essay-21United States v. Hubbell, 530 U.S. 27 (2000).
  22.  Jump to essay-22E.g., Marchetti v. United States, 390 U.S. 39 (1968) (criminal penalties attached to failure to register and make incriminating admissions); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 (1964) (contempt citation on refusal to testify). See also South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553 (1983) (no compulsion in introducing evidence of suspect’s refusal to submit to blood alcohol test, since state could have forced suspect to take test and need not have offered him a choice); Selective Service System v. Minnesota PIRG, 468 U.S. 841 (1984) (no coercion in requirement that applicants for federal financial assistance for higher education reveal whether they have registered for draft).
  23.  Jump to essay-23Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493 (1967); Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U.S. 273 (1968); Uniformed Sanitation Men Ass’n v. Commissioner of Sanitation, 392 U.S. 280 (1968). See also Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U.S. 70 (1973), holding unconstitutional state statutes requiring the disqualification for five years of contractors doing business with the state if at any time they refused to waive immunity and answer questions respecting their transactions with the state. The state may require employees or contractors to respond to inquiries, but only if it offers them immunity sufficient to supplant the privilege against self-incrimination. See also Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, 431 U.S. 801 (1977).
  24.  Jump to essay-24Spevack v. Klein, 385 U.S. 511 (1967).
  25.  Jump to essay-25McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24 (2002). The transfer was mandated for refusal to participate in a sexual abuse treatment program that required revelation of sexual history and admission of responsibility. The plurality declared that rehabilitation programs are permissible if the adverse consequences for non-participation are related to the program objectives and do not constitute atypical and significant hardships in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life. 536 U.S. at 38 (opinion of Justice Kennedy). Concurring Justice O’Connor stated her belief that the minor change in living conditions seemed very unlikely to actually compel [the prisoner] to [participate]. Id. at 51.
  26.  Jump to essay-26See, in addition to McKune v. Lile, Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308 (1976) (adverse inference from inmate’s silence at prison disciplinary hearing); and Ohio Adult Parole Auth. v. Woodard, 523 U.S. 272, 286 (1998) (adverse inference from inmate’s silence at clemency hearing).
  27.  Jump to essay-27Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420 (1984) (the possibility of revocation of probation was not so coercive as to compel a probationer to provide incriminating answers to probation officer’s questions).
  28.  Jump to essay-28The Court in McKune v. Lile split 5-to-4, with no opinion of the Court.
  29.  Jump to essay-29Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591, 597–98 (1896); Fitzpatrick v. United States, 178 U.S. 304, 314–16 (1900); Brown v. United States, 356 U.S. 148 (1958). See also Ohio Adult Parole Auth. v. Woodard, 523 U.S. 272, 286 (1998) (testimony at a clemency interview is voluntary, and cannot be compelled).
  30.  Jump to essay-30Spencer v. Texas, 385 U.S. 554, 561 (1967); cf. Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469 (1948).
  31.  Jump to essay-31380 U.S. 609, 614 (1965). The result had been achieved in federal court through statutory enactment. 18 U.S.C. § 3481. See Wilson v. United States, 149 U.S. 60 (1893). In Carter v. Kentucky, 450 U.S. 288 (1981), the Court held that the Self-Incrimination Clause required a state, upon defendant’s request, to give a cautionary instruction to the jurors that they must disregard defendant’s failure to testify and not draw any adverse inferences from it. This result, too, had been accomplished in the federal courts through statutory construction. Bruno v. United States, 308 U.S. 287 (1939). In Lakeside v. Oregon, 435 U.S. 333 (1978), the Court held that a court may give such an instruction, even over defendant’s objection. Carter v. Kentucky was applied in James v. Kentucky, 466 U.S. 341 (1983) (request for jury admonition sufficient to invoke right to instruction).
  32.  Jump to essay-32Although the Griffin rule continues to apply when the prosecutor on his own initiative asks the jury to draw an adverse inference from a defendant’s silence, it does not apply to a prosecutor’s fair response to a defense counsel’s allegation that the government had denied his client the opportunity to explain his actions. United States v. Robinson, 485 U.S. 25, 32 (1988).
  33.  Jump to essay-33Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967); United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499 (1983).
  34.  Jump to essay-34Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976). Post-arrest silence, the Court stated, is inherently ambiguous, and to permit use of the silence would be unfair since the Miranda warning told the defendant he could be silent. The same result had earlier been achieved under the Court’s supervisory power over federal trials in United States v. Hale, 422 U.S. 171 (1975). The same principles apply to bar a prosecutor’s use of Miranda silence as evidence of an arrestee’s sanity. Wainwright v. Greenfield, 474 U.S. 284 (1986). In determining whether a state prisoner is entitled to federal habeas corpus relief because the prosecution violated due process by using his post-Miranda silence for impeachment purposes at trial, the proper standard for harmless-error review is that announced in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776 (1946)—whether the due process error had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict—not the stricter harmless beyond a reasonable doubt standard of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967), applicable on direct review. Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619 (1993). See also Fry v. Pliler, 551 U.S. 112, 114 (2007) (the substantial and injurious effect standard is to be applied in federal habeas proceedings even when the state appellate court failed to recognize the error and did not review it for harmlessness under the 'harmless beyond a reasonable doubt' standard set forth in Chapman v. California).
  35.  Jump to essay-35Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231 (1980). Cf. Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308 (1976) (prison disciplinary hearing may draw adverse inferences from inmate’s assertion of privilege so long as this was not the sole basis of decision against him).
  36.  Jump to essay-36Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377 (1968). The rationale of the case was subsequently limited to Fourth Amendment grounds in McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 210–13 (1971).
  37.  Jump to essay-37Harrison v. United States, 392 U.S. 219 (1968).
  38.  Jump to essay-38Jackson v. United States, 390 U.S. 570, 583 (1968).
  39.  Jump to essay-39Parker v. North Carolina, 397 U.S. 790 (1970); Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742 (1970); McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759 (1970). Parker and Brady entered guilty pleas to avoid the death penalty when it became clear that the prosecution had solid evidence of their guilt; Richardson pled guilty because of his fear that an allegedly coerced confession would be introduced into evidence.
  40.  Jump to essay-40McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 210–20 (1971). When the Court subsequently required bifurcated trials in capital cases, it was on the basis of the Eighth Amendment, and represented no withdrawal from the position described here. Cf. Corbitt v. New Jersey, 439 U.S. 212 (1978); Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357 (1978).
  41.  Jump to essay-41Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 80–86 (1970). The compulsion of choice, Justice White argued for the Court, proceeded from the strength of the state’s case and not from the disclosure requirement. That is, the rule did not affect whether or not the defendant chose to make an alibi defense and to call witnesses, but merely required him to accelerate the timing. It appears, however, that in Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U.S. 605 (1972), the Court used the needless encouragement test in striking down a state rule requiring the defendant to testify before any other defense witness or to forfeit the right to testify at all. In the Court’s view, this impermissibly burdened the defendant’s choice whether to testify or not. Another prosecution discovery effort was approved in United States v. Nobles, 422 U.S. 233 (1975), in which a defense investigator’s notes of interviews with prosecution witnesses were ordered disclosed to the prosecutor for use in cross-examination of the investigator. The Court discerned no compulsion upon defendant to incriminate himself.
  42.  Jump to essay-42The same situation might present itself if there were no statutory presumption and a prima facie case of concealment with knowledge of unlawful importation were made by the evidence. The necessity of an explanation by the accused would be quite as compelling in that case as in this; but the constraint upon him to give testimony would arise there, as it arises here, simply from the force of circumstances and not from any form of compulsion forbidden by the Constitution. Yee Hem v. United States, 268 U.S. 178, 185 (1925), quoted with approval in Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 418 n.35 (1970). Justices Black and Douglas dissented on self-incrimination grounds. Id. at 425. See also United States v. Gainey, 380 U.S. 63, 71, 74 (1965) (dissenting opinions). For due process limitations on such presumptions, see discussion under the Fourteenth Amendment, Proof, Burden of Proof, and Presumptions, infra.
  43.  Jump to essay-43Prosecution may be precluded by tender of immunity (see next topic for discussion of immunity), or by pardon, Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591, 598–99 (1896). The effect of a mere tender of pardon by the President remains uncertain. Cf. Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915) (acceptance necessary, and self-incrimination is possible in absence of acceptance); Biddle v. Perovich, 274 U.S. 480 (1927) (acceptance not necessary to validate commutation of death sentence to life imprisonment).
  44.  Jump to essay-44Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591, 605–06 (1896); Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 430–31 (1956). Minorities in both cases had contended for a broader rule. Walker, 161 U.S. at 631 (Justice Field dissenting); Ullmann, 350 U.S. at 454 (Justice Douglas dissenting).
  45.  Jump to essay-45Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U.S. 273, 278 (1968). Testimony compelled under such circumstances is, even in the absence of statutory immunity, barred from use in a subsequent criminal trial by force of the Fifth Amendment itself. Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493 (1967). However, unlike public employees, persons subject to professional licensing by government appear to be able to assert their privilege and retain their licenses. Cf. Spevack v. Klein, 385 U.S. 511 (1967) (lawyer may not be disbarred solely because he refused on self-incrimination grounds to testify at a disciplinary proceeding), approved in Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U.S. at 277–78. Justices Harlan, Clark, Stewart, and White dissented generally. 385 U.S. 500, 520, 530.
  46.  Jump to essay-46See Slochower v. Board of Higher Education, 350 U.S. 551 (1956), limited by Lerner v. Casey, 357 U.S. 468 (1958), and Nelson v. County of Los Angeles, 362 U.S. 1 (1960), which were in turn apparently limited by Garrity and Gardner.
  47.  Jump to essay-47Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 (1964) (overruling Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78 (1908), and Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46 (1947)).
  48.  Jump to essay-48Murphy v. Waterfront Comm’n, 378 U.S. 52 (1964), (overruling United States v. Murdock, 284 U.S. 141 (1931) (Federal Government could compel a witness to give testimony that might incriminate him under state law), Knapp v. Schweitzer, 357 U.S. 371 (1958) (state may compel a witness to give testimony that might incriminate him under federal law), and Feldman v. United States, 322 U.S. 487 (1944) (testimony compelled by a state may be introduced into evidence in the federal courts)). Murphy held that a state could compel testimony under a grant of immunity but that, because the state could not extend the immunity to federal courts, the Supreme Court would not permit the introduction of evidence into federal courts that had been compelled by a state or that had been discovered because of state compelled testimony. The result was apparently a constitutionally compelled one arising from the Fifth Amendment itself, 378 U.S. at 75–80, rather than one taken pursuant to the Court’s supervisory power as Justice Harlan would have preferred. Id. at 80 (concurring). Congress has power to confer immunity in state courts as well as in federal in order to elicit information, Adams v. Maryland, 347 U.S. 179 (1954), but whether Congress must do so or whether the immunity would be conferred simply through the act of compelling the testimony Murphy did not say.

    Whether testimony could be compelled by either the Federal Government or a state that could incriminate a witness in a foreign jurisdiction is unsettled. See Zicarelli v. New Jersey State Comm’n of Investigation, 406 U.S. 472, 480, 481 (1972) (reserving question), but an affirmative answer seems unlikely. Cf. Murphy, 378 U.S. at 58–63, 77.

  49.  Jump to essay-49United States v. Balsys, 524 U.S. 666 (1998).
  50.  Jump to essay-50Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886). But see Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391 (1976).
  51.  Jump to essay-51See discussion, supra, under Development and Scope.
  52.  Jump to essay-52Shapiro v. United States, 335 U.S. 1, 33 (1948) (quoting Davis v. United States, 328 U.S. 582, 589–90 (1946), which quoted Wilson v. United States, 221 U.S. 361, 380 (1911)). Dicta in Wilson is the source of the required-records doctrine, the holding of the case being the familiar one that a corporate officer cannot claim the privilege against self-incrimination to refuse to surrender corporate records in his custody. Cf. Heike v. United States, 227 U.S. 131 (1913). Davis was a search and seizure case and dealt with gasoline ration coupons which were government property even though in private possession. See Shapiro, 335 U.S. at 36, 56–70 (Justice Frankfurter dissenting).
  53.  Jump to essay-53335 U.S. at 51.
  54.  Jump to essay-54335 U.S. at 32.
  55.  Jump to essay-55335 U.S. at 32.
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