Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 728.0

524US2

Unit: $U97

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

683

Opinion of the Court

Part IV, infra, at its heart lies the principle that the courts
of a government from which a witness may reasonably fear
prosecution may not in fairness compel the witness to furnish
testimonial evidence that may be used to prove his guilt.
After Murphy, the immunity option open to the Executive
Branch could be exercised only on the understanding that
the state and federal jurisdictions were as one, with a fed-
erally mandated exclusionary rule ﬁlling the space between
the limits of state immunity statutes and the scope of the
privilege.8 As so understood, Murphy stands at odds with
Balsys’s claim.

There is, however, a competing rationale in Murphy, in-
vesting the Clause with a more expansive promise. The
Murphy majority opened the door to this view by reject-
ing this Court’s previous understanding of the English
common-law evidentiary privilege against compelled self-
incrimination, which could have informed the Framers’ un-
derstanding of the Fifth Amendment privilege. See, e. g.,
Murphy, 378 U. S., at 67 (rejecting Murdock’s analysis of the
scope of the privilege under English common law). Having
removed what it saw as an unjustiﬁed, historically derived

8 Of course, the judicial exclusion of compelled testimony functions as
a fail-safe to ensure that compelled testimony is not admitted in a crim-
inal proceeding. The general rule requires a grant of immunity prior to
the compelling of any testimony. We have said that the prediction that
a court in a future criminal prosecution would be obligated to protect
against the evidentiary use of compelled testimony is not enough to satisfy
the privilege against compelled self-incrimination. Pillsbury Co. v. Con-
boy, 459 U. S. 248, 261 (1983). The suggestion that a witness should rely
on a subsequent motion to suppress rather than a prior grant of immunity
“would [not] afford adequate protection. Without something more, [the
witness] would be compelled to surrender the very protection which the
privilege is designed to guarantee.” Maness v. Meyers, 419 U. S. 449, 462
(1975) (footnote and internal quotation marks omitted). This general rule
ensures that we do not “let the cat out with no assurance whatever of
putting it back,” id., at 463 (internal quotation marks omitted), and leaves
the decision whether to grant immunity to the Executive in accord with
congressional policy, see Pillsbury, supra, at 262.