Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 746.0

524US2

Unit: $U97

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

701

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

little, if any, impact on the fairness of trials conducted in
other countries. Whether or not that suggestion is accu-
rate, I do not believe our Bill of Rights was intended to have
any effect on the conduct of foreign proceedings.
If, how-
ever, we were to accept respondent’s interpretation of the
Clause, we would confer power on foreign governments to
impair the administration of justice in this country. A law
enacted by a foreign power making it a crime for one of its
citizens to testify in an American proceeding against another
citizen of that country would immunize those citizens from
being compelled to testify in our courts. Variants of such a
hypothetical law are already in existence. See Socie´te´ Na-
tionale Industrielle Ae´rospatiale v. United States Dist.
Court for Southern Dist. of Iowa, 482 U. S. 522, 526, n. 6
(1987); see also id., at 544–545, n. 29. Of course, the Court
might craft exceptions for such foreign criminal laws, but it
seems far wiser to adhere to a clear limitation on the cover-
age of the Fifth Amendment, including its privilege against
self-incrimination. That Amendment prescribes rules of
conduct that must attend any deprivation of life, liberty, or
property in our Nation’s courts.

Justice Ginsburg, dissenting.

The privilege against self-incrimination, “closely linked
historically with the abolition of torture,” is properly re-
garded as a “landmar[k] in man’s struggle to make himself
civilized.” E. Griswold, The Fifth Amendment Today 7
(1955); see id., at 8 (Fifth Amendment expresses “one of the
fundamental decencies in the relation we have developed
between government and man”).
In my view, the Fifth
Amendment privilege against self-incrimination prescribes a
rule of conduct generally to be followed by our Nation’s ofﬁ-
cialdom.
It counsels ofﬁcers of the United States (and of
any State of the United States) against extracting testimony
when the person examined reasonably fears that his words
would be used against him in a later criminal prosecution.