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UNITED STATES v. BALSYS

Opinion of the Court

case, we addressed the question whether a self-incrimination
privilege could be invoked in the one jurisdiction based on
fear of prosecution by the other, saying that “[w]e think the
legal immunity is in regard to a prosecution in the same ju-
risdiction, and when that is fully given it is enough.”
Id., at
382. A year later, in the course of considering whether a
federal witness, immunized from federal prosecution, could
invoke the privilege based on fear of state prosecution, we
adopted the general proposition that “the possibility that in-
formation given by the witness might be used” by the other
government is, as a matter of law, “a danger so unsubstantial
and remote” that it fails to trigger the right to invoke the
privilege. Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, 69 (1906).

“[I]f the argument were a sound one it might be carried
still further and held to apply not only to state prosecu-
tions within the same jurisdiction, but to prosecutions
under the criminal laws of other States to which the
witness might have subjected himself. The question
has been fully considered in England, and the conclusion
reached by the courts of that country [is] that the only
danger to be considered is one arising within the same
jurisdiction and under the same sovereignty. Queen v.
Boyes, 1 B. & S. 311[, 121 Eng. Rep. 730]; King of the
Two Sicilies v. Willcox, 7 State Trials (N. S.), 1049, 1068;
State v. March, 1 Jones (N. Car.), 526; State v. Thomas,
98 N. Car. 599.”

Ibid.

A holding to this effect came when United States v. Mur-
dock, 284 U. S. 141 (1931), “deﬁnitely settled” the question
whether in a federal proceeding the privilege applied on ac-
count of fear of state prosecution, concluding “that one under
examination in a federal tribunal could not refuse to answer
on account of probable incrimination under state law.”
United States v. Murdock, 290 U. S. 389, 396 (1933).

“The English rule of evidence against compulsory self-
incrimination, on which historically that contained in