Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
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524US2

Unit: $U97

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UNITED STATES v. BALSYS

Breyer, J., dissenting

Campbell, 1 Ves. sen. 246, 27 Eng. Rep. 1010 (Ex. 1749);
Brownsword v. Edwards, 2 Ves. sen. 243, 28 Eng. Rep.
157 (Ch. 1750). Those cases said nothing about whether
or not the law of Calcutta, church law, and English law
all emanate from a single sovereign. But Murdock had
cited a famous later English case, King of Two Sicilies
v. Willcox, 1 Sim. (N. S.) 301, 61 Eng. Rep. 116 (Ch.
1851), as standing for the “same sovereign” principle.

It is true that one of the English judges in that case,
Lord Cranworth, said that the privilege involves only
“matters [made] penal by [English] . . . law.”
Id., at 329,
61 Eng. Rep., at 128. But Lord Cranworth immediately
qualiﬁed that conclusion by restating the conclusion in
terms of its rationale, namely, that the privilege applies
“to matters as to which, if disclosed, the Judge would be
able to say, as matter of law, whether it could or could
Ibid. And, 16 years
not entail penal consequences.”
later, the English courts sustained a claim of privilege
involving a threatened forfeiture in America. United
States of America v. McRae, 3 L. R. Ch. 79 (1867).
In
doing so, the McRae court said both that Lord Cran-
worth’s statement in King of the Two Sicilies “la[id]
down . . . a proposition” that was “broad[er]” than neces-
sary to “support the judgment,” and that the true rea-
son the privilege had not applied in the earlier case was
because the judge did not “know . . . with certainty . . .
the [foreign law, hence] whether the acts . . . had ren-
dered [the defendants] amenable to punishment” and
“it was doubtful whether the Defendants would ever
be within the reach of a prosecution, and their being so
depended on their voluntary return to [Sicily].” United
States of America v. McRae, supra, at 85, 87.

Thus, the true English rule as of the time of Murdock,
insofar as any of these cases reveal that rule, was not a
“same sovereign” rule, but a rule that the privilege did
not apply to prosecutions by another sovereign where