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524US2

Unit: $U97

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712

UNITED STATES v. BALSYS

Breyer, J., dissenting

bility him who gives it”). Neither of these readings is any
more speculative, as a textual or historical matter, than read-
ing the Clause as the majority does, against its text, to re-
strict the universe of feared prosecutions upon which basis
the privilege may be asserted.

What is more, there is no suggestion that Murphy’s
rule, applied to state and federal prosecutions, “has proven
to be intolerable simply in defying practical workability.”
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S.
833, 854 (1992) (citing Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U. S. 111,
116 (1965)). Nor have the facts, or related principles of law,
subsequently changed so much “as to have robbed the old
rule of signiﬁcant application or justiﬁcation.” 505 U. S., at
855 (citing Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164,
173–174 (1989), and Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285
U. S. 393, 412 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)).
Indeed, it
was the Murdock rule’s legitimacy that, prior to Murphy,
consistently divided the Court. See, e. g., Irvine v. Califor-
nia, 347 U. S. 128, 139–142 (1954) (Black, J., joined by Doug-
las, J., dissenting) (“I cannot agree that the [Fifth] Amend-
ment’s guarantee against self-incrimination testimony can be
spirited away by the ingenious contrivance of using federally
extorted confessions to convict of state crimes and vice
versa”); Feldman v. United States, 322 U. S. 487, 494–503
joined by Douglas and Rutledge, JJ.,
(1944)
dissenting).

(Black, J.,

The conclusion that I draw is that the rationale established
through Murphy’s precedent governs. That rationale inter-
prets the privilege as applicable at the least where a person
faces a substantial threat of prosecution in another jurisdic-
tion. And that reading of the privilege favors Balsys here.

II

Precedent aside, I still disagree with the Court’s conclu-
sion. As Murphy said, and as the Second Circuit reiterated,
the Fifth Amendment reﬂects not one, but several different