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Cite as: 524 U. S. 666 (1998)

711

Breyer, J., dissenting

from the brief of counsel”); and it is plausible now. That
minimalist conclusion is sufﬁcient for present purposes.
Even if Murdock’s 3-sentence, and Murphy’s 20-page, histor-
ical analyses were equally plausible, we would need some-
thing more to abandon Murphy, for it is the most recent, and
thereby governing, precedent.

Nor can I ﬁnd any other reason for rejecting Murphy and,
thereby, resurrecting Murdock. The Fifth Amendment’s
language permits Murphy’s construction, for it says “any
criminal case.” The history of the Amendment’s enactment
simply does not answer the question about whether or not it
applied where there is a substantial danger of prosecution in
another jurisdiction. See United States v. Gecas, 120 F. 3d
1419, 1435 (CA11 1997) (en banc) (Fifth Amendment privi-
lege “has virtually no legislative history”); Moglen, Taking
the Fifth: Reconsidering the Origins of the Constitutional
Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, 92 Mich. L. Rev. 1086,
1123 (1994) (Fifth Amendment’s legislative history “adds lit-
tle to our understanding of the history of the privilege”).
It
is possible that the language, “in any criminal case,” was
aimed at limiting protection to compelled testimony against
penal interests, a reading consistent with the Court’s con-
temporary understanding of the Clause. See, e. g., United
States v. Ward, 448 U. S. 242, 248–255 (1980) (rejecting claim
to privilege based on fear of civil penalty, in part, because
Clause “is expressly limited to ‘any criminal case’ ”); 5 The
Founders’ Constitution 262 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds.
1987) (indicating that phrase “in any criminal case” was pro-
posed by Representative Lawrence to ensure that the Clause
was not “in some degree contrary to laws passed”). And it
is also possible that the language was intended to limit the
proceedings in which the privilege could be claimed to crimi-
nal cases, which understanding the Court rejected long ago.
See McCarthy v. Arndstein, 266 U. S. 34, 40 (1924) (The priv-
ilege “applies alike to civil and criminal proceedings, wher-
ever the answer might tend to subject to criminal responsi-