Source: http://www.joeldufresnecase.com/supreme-court-opinions-federal/citizenship-opinions/twining-v-state
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 18:01:18+00:00

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In the view we take of the case, we do not deem it necessary to consider whether, with respect to the Federal question, there is any difference in the situation of the two defendants. It is assumed, in respect of each, that the jury were instructed that they might draw an unfavorable inference against him from his failure to testify, where it was within his power, in denial af the evidence which tended to incriminate him. The law of the State, as declared in the case at bar, which accords with other decisions (Parker v. State, 61 N.J.L. 308; State v. Wines, 65 N.J.L. 31; State v. Zdanowicz, 69 N.J.L. 619; State v. Banuski, 64 Atl. Rep. 994), permitted such an inference to be drawn. The judicial act of the highest court of the [p91] State, in authoritatively construing and enforcing its laws, is the act of the State. Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339; Scott v. McNeal, 154 U.S. 34; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226. The general question, therefore, is whether such a law violates the Fourteenth Amendment either by abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States or by depriving persons of their life, liberty or property without due process of law. In order to bring themselves within the protection of the Constitution, it is incumbent on the defendants to prove two propositions: first, that the exemption from compulsory self-incrimination is guaranteed by the Federal Constitution against impairment by the States; and, second, if it be so guaranteed, that the exemption was, in fact, impaired in the case at bar. The first proposition naturally presents itself for earlier consideration. If the right here asserted is not a Federal right, that is the end of the case. We have no authority to go further and determine whether the state court has erred in the interpretation and enforcement of its own laws.
that there is a citizenship of the United States and a citizenship of a State, which are distinct from each other, and which depend upon different characteristics or circumstances in the individual.
The opinion upon the matters actually involved and maintained by the judgment in the case has never been doubted or overruled by any judgment of this court.
The distinction between National and state citizenship and their respective privileges there drawn has come to be firmly established. And so it was held that the right of peaceable assembly [p97] for a lawful purpose (it not appearing that the purpose had any reference to the National Government) was not a right secured by the Constitution of the United States, although it was said that the right existed before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, and that "it is and always has been one of the attributes of citizenship under a free government." United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 551. And see Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1. In each case, the Slaughter-House Cases were cited by the court, and in the latter case, the rights described by Mr. Justice Washington were again treated as rights of state citizenship under state protection. If then it be assumed, without deciding the point, that an exemption from compulsory self-incrimination is what is described as a fundamental right belonging to all who live under a free government, and incapable of impairment by legislation or judicial decision, it is, so far as the States are concerned, a fundamental right inherent in state citizenship, and is a privilege or immunity of that citizenship only. Privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, on the other hand, are only such as arise out of the nature and essential character of the National Government, or are specifically granted or secured to all citizens or persons by the Constitution of the United States. Slaughter-House Cases, supra, p. 79; In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 448; Duncan v. Missouri, 152 U.S. 377, 382.
Thus, among the rights and privileges of National citizenship recognized by this court are the right to pass freely from State to State, Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35; the right to petition Congress for a redress of grievances, United States v. Cruikshank, supra; the right to vote for National officers, Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651; Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U.S. 58; the right to enter the public lands, United States v. Waddell, 112 U.S. 76; the right to be protected against violence while in the lawful custody of a United States marshal, Logan v. United States, 144 U.S. 263, and the right to inform the United States authorities of violation of its laws, In re Quarles, 158 U.S. 532. [p98] Most of these cases were indictments against individuals for conspiracies to deprive persons of rights secured by the Constitution of the United States, and met with a different fate in this court from the indictments in United States v. Cruikshank and Hodges v. United States, because the rights in the latter cases were rights of state, and not of National, citizenship. But assuming it to be true that the exemption from self-incrimination is not, as a fundamental right of National citizenship, included in the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, counsel insist that, as a right specifically granted or secured by the Federal Constitution, it is included in them. This view is based upon the contention which must now be examined, that the safeguards of personal rights which are enumerated in the first eight Articles of amendment to the Federal Constitution, sometimes called the Federal Bill of Rights, though they were by those Amendments originally secured only against National action, are among the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, which this clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state action. This view has been, at different times, expressed by justices of this court (Mr. Justice Field in O'Niel v. Vermont, 144 U.S. 323, 361; Mr. Justice Harlan in the same case, 370, and in Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 606, 617), and was undoubtedly that entertained by some of those who framed the Amendment. It is, however, not profitable to examine the weighty arguments in its favor, for the question is no longer open in this court. The right of trial by jury in civil cases, guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment (Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U.S. 90), and the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment (Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252), have been distinctly held not to be privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment against abridgment by the State, and, in effect, the same decision was made in respect of the guarantee against prosecution, except by indictment of a grand jury, contained in the Fifth Amendment (Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516), [p99] and in respect of the right to be confronted with witnesses, contained in the Sixth Amendment. West v. Louisiana, 194 U.S. 258. In Maxwell v. Dow, supra, where the plaintiff in error had been convicted in a state court of a felony upon an information, and by a jury of eight persons, it was held that the indictment, made indispensable by the Fifth Amendment, and the trial by jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, were not privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, as those words were used in the Fourteenth Amendment. The discussion in that case ought not to be repeated. All the arguments for the other view were considered and answered, the authorities were examined and analyzed, and the decision rested upon the ground that this clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not forbid the States to abridge the personal rights enumerated in the first eight Amendments, because those rights were not within the meaning of the clause "privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States." If it be possible to render the principle which governed the decision more clear, it is done so by the dissent of Mr. Justice Harlan. We conclude, therefore, that the exemption from compulsory self-incrimination is not a privilege or immunity of National citizenship guaranteed by this clause of the Fourteenth Amendment against abridgment by the States.
no freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or any wise destroyed; nor shall we go upon him, nor send upon him, but by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
which is not otherwise forbidden, must be taken to be due process of law, if it can show the sanction of settled usage both in England and this country.
Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 528.
Second. It does not follow, however, that a procedure settled in English law at the time of the emigration, and brought to this country and practiced by our ancestors, is an essential element of due process of law. If that were so, the procedure of the first half of the seventeenth century would be fastened upon the American jurisprudence like a straightjacket, only to be unloosed by constitutional amendment. That, said Mr. Justice Matthews, in the same case, p. 529, "would be to deny every quality of the law but its age, and to render it incapable of progress or improvement." Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, 388; Brown v. New Jersey, 175 U.S. 172, 175.
were intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private rights and distributive justice.
Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 4 Wh. 235, 244 (approved in Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 527; Leeper v. Texas, 139 U.S. 462, 468; Scott v. McNeal, 154 U.S. 34, 45).
This court has never attempted to define [p102] with precision the words "due process of law." . . . It is sufficient to say that there are certain immutable principles of justice which inhere in the very idea of free government which no member of the Union may disregard.
The same words refer to that law of the land in each State, which derives its authority from the inherent and reserved powers of the State, exerted within the limits of those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions.
In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 448.
The limit of the full control which the State has in the proceedings of its courts, both in civil and criminal cases, is subject only to the qualification that such procedure must not work a denial of fundamental rights or conflict with specific and applicable provisions of the Federal Constitution.
West v. Louisiana, 194 U.S. 258, 263.
The question under consideration may first be tested by the application of these settled doctrines of this court. If the statement of Mr. Justice Curtis, as elucidated in Hurtado v. California, is to be taken literally, that alone might almost be decisive. For nothing is more certain, in point of historical fact, than that the practice of compulsory self-incrimination in the courts and elsewhere existed for four hundred years after the granting of Magna Carta, continued throughout the reign of Charles I (though then beginning to be seriously questioned), gained at least some foothold among the early colonists of this country, and was not entirely omitted at trials in England until the eighteenth century. Wigmore on Evidence, § 2250 (see, for the Colonies, note 108); Hallam's Constitutional History of England, ch. VIII, 2 Widdleton's American ed., 37 (describing the criminal jurisdiction of the Court of Star Chamber); Bentham's Rationale of Judicial Evidence, book IX, ch. III, § IV.
The prisoner, in nearly every instance, asked, as a favor, that he might not be overpowered by the eloquence of counsel denouncing him in a set speech, but, in consideration of the weakness of his memory, might be allowed to answer separately to the different matters which might be alleged against him. This was usually granted, and the result was that the trial became a series of excited altercations between the prisoner and the different counsel opposed to him. Every statement of counsel operated as a question to the prisoner, and indeed they were constantly thrown into the form of questions, the prisoner either admitting or denying or explaining what was alleged against him. The result was that, during the period in question, the examination of the prisoner, which is at present scrupulously and I think even pedantically avoided, was the very essence of the trial, and his answers regulated the production of the evidence; the whole trial, in fact, was a long argument between the prisoner and counsel for the Crown, in which they questioned each other and grappled with each other's arguments with the utmost eagerness and closeness of reasoning.
Stephen, 1 Hist. of the Crim.Law 325.
In some cases, the prisoner was questioned, but never to any greater extent than that which it is practically impossible to avoid when a man has to defend himself without counsel. When so questioned, the prisoners usually refused to answer.
He further says (Ib., 440): "Soon after the Revolution of 1688, the practice of questioning the prisoner died out." But committing magistrates were authorized to take the examination of persons suspected, which, if not under oath, was admissible against him on his trial, until, by the 11 & 12 Vict., ch. 2, the prisoner was given the option whether he would speak, and warned that what he said might be used against him. But even now, there seems to be a very well recognized and important exception in English law to the rule that no person can be compelled to furnish evidence against himself. A practice in bankruptcy has existed from ancient times, and still exists, which would not be constitutionally possible under our national bankruptcy law or under the insolvency law of any State whose constitution contains the customary prohibition of compulsory self-incrimination. The Bankruptcy Act of 1 James I, ch. 15, § 7 (1603), authorized the commissioners of bankruptcy to compel, by commitment if necessary, the bankrupt to submit to an examination touching his estate and dealings. The provision was continued in the subsequent acts, and in 1820, in Ex parte Cossens, Buck, Bkey. Cases, 531, 540, Lord Eldon, in the course of a discussion of the right to examine a bankrupt, held that he could be compelled to disclose his violations of law in respect of his trade and estate, and, while recognizing the general principle of English law that no one could be compelled to incriminate himself, said: "I have always understood the proposition to admit of a qualification with respect to the jurisdiction in bankruptcy." The act of 6 Geo. IV, ch. 16, § 36 (1825), authorized the compulsory examination of the bankrupt "touching all matters relating either to his trade, dealings, or estate, or which may tend to disclose any [p105] secret grant, conveyance or concealment of his lands." The act of 12 & 13 Vict., ch. 106, § 117 (1849), contained the same provision. Construing these acts, it was held that the bankrupt must answer, though his answer might furnish evidence of his crime, and even if an indictment were pending against him, and that the evidence thus compelled was admissible on his trial for crime. Re Heath, 2 D. & Ch. 214; Re Smith, 2 D. & Ch. 230, 235; Reg. v. Scott, Dearsley & Bell, 47; Reg. v. Cross, 7 Cox C.C. 226; Reg. v. Widdop, L.R. 2 C.C. R. 3. The act of 46 & 47 Vict., ch. 52, § 17 (1883), which we understand to be (with some amendment not material here) the present law, passed after the decisions cited, expressly provided that the examination shall be taken in writing and signed by the debtor, "and may thereafter be used in evidence against him." It has since been held that other evidence of his testimony than that written and signed by him may be used. Reg. v. Erdheim (1896), 2 Q.B.D. 260, and see Rex v. Pike (1902), 1 K.B. 552. [*] It is to be observed that not until 1883 did Parliament, which has an unlimited legislative power, expressly provide that the evidence compelled from the bankrupt could be used in proof of an indictment against him. The rule had been previously firmly established by judicial decisions upon statutes simply authorizing a compulsory examination. If the rule had been thought to be in conflict with "the law of the land" of Magna Carta, "a sacred text, the nearest approach to an irrepealable, ‘fundamental statute' that England has ever had," 1 Pollock & Maitland, 152, it is inconceivable that such a consideration would not have received some attention from counsel and judges. We think it is manifest, from this review of the origin, growth, extent and limits of the exemption from compulsory self-incrimination in the English law, that it is not regarded as a part of the law of the land of Magna Carta or the due process of law, which [p106] has been deemed an equivalent expression, but, on the contrary, is regarded as separate from and independent of due process. It came into existence not as an essential part of due process, but as a wise and beneficent rule of evidence developed in the course of judicial decision. This is a potent argument when it is remembered that the phrase was borrowed from English law, and that to that law we must look at least for its primary meaning.
But without repudiating or questioning the test proposed by Mr. Justice Curtis for the court, or rejecting the inference drawn from English law, we prefer to rest our decision on broader grounds, and inquire whether the exemption from self-incrimination is of such a nature that it must be included in the conception of due process. Is it a fundamental principle of liberty and justice which inheres in the very idea of free government and is the inalienable right of a citizen of such a government? If it is, and if it is of a nature that pertains to process of law, this court has declared it to be essential to due process of law. In approaching such a question, it must not be forgotten that, in a free representative government, nothing is more fundamental than the right of the people through their appointed servants to govern themselves in accordance with their own will, except so far as they have restrained themselves by constitutional limits specifically established, and that, in our peculiar dual form of government, nothing is more fundamental than the full power of the State to order its own affairs and govern its own people, except so far as the Federal Constitution expressly or by fair implication has withdrawn that power. The power of the people of the States to make and alter their laws at pleasure is the greatest security for liberty and justice, this court has said in Hurtado v. California, supra. We are not invested with the jurisdiction to pass upon the expediency, wisdom or justice of the laws of the States as declared by their courts, but only to determine their conformity with the Federal Constitution and the paramount laws enacted pursuant to it. Under the guise of interpreting the Constitution we must [p107] take care that we do not import into the discussion our own personal views of what would be wise, just and fitting rules of government to be adopted by a free people and confound them with constitutional limitations. The question before us is the meaning of a constitutional provision which forbids the States to deny to any person due process of law. In the decision of this question, we have the authority to take into account only those fundamental rights which are expressed in that provision, not the rights fundamental in citizenship, state or National, for they are secured otherwise, but the rights fundamental in due process, and therefore an essential part of it. We have to consider whether the right is so fundamental in due process that a refusal of the right is a denial of due process. One aid to the solution of the question is to inquire how the right was rated during the time when the meaning of due process was in a formative state and before it was incorporated in American constitutional law. Did those who then were formulating and insisting upon the rights of the people entertain the view that the right was so fundamental that there could be no due process without it? It has already appeared that, prior to the formation of the American Constitutions, in which the exemption from compulsory self-incrimination was specifically secured, separately, independently, and side by side with the requirement of due process, the doctrine was formed, as other doctrines of the law of evidence have been formed, by the course of decision in the courts covering a long period of time. Searching further, we find nothing to show that it was then thought to be other than a just and useful principle of law. None of the great instruments in which we are accustomed to look for the declaration of the fundamental rights made reference to it. The privilege was not dreamed of for hundreds of years after Magna Carta (1215), and could not have been implied in the "law of the land" there secured. The Petition of Right (1629), though it insists upon the right secured by Magna Carta to be condemned only by the law of the land, and sets forth by way of grievance divers violations of [p108] it, is silent upon the practice of compulsory self-incrimination, though it was then a matter of common occurrence in all the courts of the realm. The Bill of Rights of the first year of the reign of William and Mary (1689) is likewise silent, though the practice of questioning the prisoner at his trial had not then ceased. The negative argument which arises out of the omission of all reference to any exemption from compulsory self-incrimination in these three great declarations of English liberty (though it is not supposed to amount to a demonstration) is supported by the positive argument that the English Courts and Parliaments, as we have seen, have dealt with the exemption as they would have dealt with any other rule of evidence, apparently without a thought that the question was affected by the law of the land of Magna Carta, or the due process of law which is its equivalent.
We pass by the meager records of the early colonial time, so far as they have come to our attention, as affording light too uncertain for guidance. See Wigmore, § 2250, note 108; 2 Hennings St. at Large, 422 (Va. 1677); 1 Winthrop's History of New England, 47, Provincial Act, 4 W. & M. Ancient Charters, Massachusetts, 214. Though it is worthy of note that neither the declaration of rights of the Stamp Act Congress (1765) nor the declaration of rights of the Continental Congress (1774) nor the ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory included the privilege in their enumeration of fundamental rights.
and another was that, "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused . . . should not be compelled to give evidence against himself." North Carolina and Rhode Island were the last to ratify, each proposing a large number of amendments, including the provision that no man "can be compelled to give evidence against himself;" and North Carolina, that "no freeman ought to be . . . deprived of his life, liberty or property but by the law of the land;" and Rhode Island, that "no freeman ought to be . . . deprived of his life, liberty or property but by the trial by jury, or by the law of the land."
Thus, it appears that four only of the thirteen original States insisted upon incorporating the privilege in the Constitution, and they separately and simultaneously with the requirement of due process of law, and that three States proposing amendments were silent upon this subject. It is worthy of note that two of these four States did not incorporate the privilege in their own constitutions, where it would have had a much wider field of usefulness, until many years after. New York [p110] in 1821 and Rhode Island in 1842 (its first constitution). This survey does not tend to show that it was then in this country the universal or even general belief that the privilege ranked among the fundamental and inalienable rights of mankind, and, what is more important here, it affirmatively shows that the privilege was not conceived to be inherent in due process of law, but, on the other hand, a right separate, independent and outside of due process. Congress, in submitting the amendments to the several States, treated the two rights as exclusive of each other. Such also has been the view of the States in framing their own constitutions, for in every case, except in New Jersey and Iowa, where the due process clause or its equivalent is included, it has been thought necessary to include separately the privilege clause. Nor have we been referred to any decision of a state court save one (State v. Height, 117 Iowa, 650), where the exemption has been held to be required by due process of law. The inference is irresistible that it has been the opinion of constitution makers that the privilege, if fundamental in any sense, is not fundamental in due process of law, nor an essential part of it. We believe that this opinion is proved to have been correct by every historical test by which the meaning of the phrase can be tried.
The decisions of this court, though they are silent on the precise question before us, ought to be searched to discover if they present any analogies which are helpful in its decision. The essential elements of due process of law, already established by them, are singularly few, though of wide application and deep significance. We are not here concerned with the effect of due process in restraining substantive laws, as, for example, that which forbids the taking of private property for public use without compensation. We need notice now only those cases which deal with the principles which must be observed in the trial of criminal and civil causes. Due process requires that the court which assumes to determine the rights of parties shall have jurisdiction, Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 733; Scott v. McNeal, 154 U.S. 34; Old Wayne Life Association [p111] v. McDonough, 204 U.S. 8, and that there shall be notice and opportunity for hearing given the parties, Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U.S. 409; Roller v. Holly, 176 U.S. 398, and see Londoner v. Denver, 210 U.S. 373. Subject to these two fundamental conditions, which seem to be universally prescribed in all systems of law established by civilized countries, this court has up to this time sustained all state laws, statutory or judicially declared, regulating procedure, evidence and methods of trial, and held them to be consistent with due process of law. Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U.S. 90; Re Converse, 137 U.S. 624; Caldwell v. Texas, 137 U.S. 692; Leeper v. Texas, 139 U.S. 462; Hallinger v. Davis, 146 U.S. 314; McNulty v. California, 149 U.S. 645; McKane v. Durston, 153 U.S. 684; Iowa Central v. Iowa, 160 U.S. 389; Lowe v. Kansas, 163 U.S. 81; Allen v. Georgia, 166 U.S. 138; Hodgson v. Vermont, 168 U.S. 262; Brown v. New Jersey, 175 U.S. 172; Bollin v. Nebraska, 176 U.S. 83; Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581; Simon v. Craft, 182 U.S. 427; West v. Louisiana, 194 U.S. 258; Marvin v. Trout, 199 U.S. 212; Rogers v. Peck, 199 U.S. 425; Howard v. Kentucky, 200 U.S. 164; Rawlins v. Georgia, 201 U.S. 638; Felts v. Murphy, 201 U.S. 123.
Due process of law, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, does not require the State to adopt a particular form of procedure, so long as it appears that the accused has had sufficient notice of the accusation and an adequate opportunity to defend himself in the prosecution.
It is impossible to reconcile the reasoning of these cases and the rule which governed their decision with the theory that an exemption from compulsory self-incrimination is included in the conception of due process of law. Indeed, the reasoning for including indictment by a grand jury and trial by a petit jury in that conception, which has been rejected by this court in Hurtado v. California and Maxwell v. Dow, was historically and in principle much stronger. Clearly appreciating this, Mr. Justice Harlan, in his dissent in each of these cases, pointed out that the inexorable logic of the reasoning of the court was to allow the States, so far as the Federal Constitution was concerned, to compel any person to be a witness against himself. In Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U.S. 22, Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking [p113] for the whole court, said, in effect, that the Fourteenth Amendment would not prevent a State from adopting or continuing the civil law instead of the common law. This dictum has been approved and made an essential part of the reasoning of the decision in Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 387, 389, and Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 598. The statement excludes the possibility that the privilege is essential to due process, for it hardly need be said that the interrogation of the accused at his trial is the practice in the civil law.
Even if the historical meaning of due process of law and the decisions of this court did not exclude the privilege from it, it would be going far to rate it as an immutable principle of justice which is the inalienable possession of every citizen of a free government. Salutary as the principle may seem to the great majority, it cannot be ranked with the right to hearing before condemnation, the immunity from arbitrary power not acting by general laws, and the inviolability of private property. The wisdom of the exemption has never been universally assented to since the days of Bentham; many doubt it today, and it is best defended not as an unchangeable principle of universal justice, but as a law proved by experience to be expedient. See Wigmore, § 2251. It has no place in the jurisprudence of civilized and free countries outside the domain of the common law, and it is nowhere observed among our own people in the search for truth outside the administration of the law. It should, must and will be rigidly observed where it is secured by specific constitutional safeguards, but there is nothing in it which gives it a sanctity above and before constitutions themselves. Much might be said in favor of the view that the privilege was guaranteed against state impairment as a privilege and immunity of National citizenship, but, as has been shown, the decisions of this court have foreclosed that view. There seems to be no reason whatever, however, for straining the meaning of due process of law to include this privilege within it, because, perhaps, we may think it of great value. The States had guarded the privilege [p114] to the satisfaction of their own people up to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. No reason is perceived why they cannot continue to do so. The power of their people ought not to be fettered, their sense of responsibility lessened, and their capacity for sober and restrained self-government weakened by forced construction of the Federal Constitution. If the people of New Jersey are not content with the law as declared in repeated decisions of their courts, the remedy is in their own hands. They may, if they choose, alter it by legislation, as the people of Maine did when the courts of that State made the same ruling. State v. Bartlett, 55 Maine 200; State v.Lawrence, 57 Maine 574; State v. Cleaves, 59 Maine 298; State v. Banks, 78 Maine 490, 492; Rev.Stat. ch. 135, § 19.
We have assumed only for the purpose of discussion that what was done in the case at bar was an infringement of the privilege against self-incrimination. We do not intend, however, to lend any countenance to the truth of that assumption. The courts of New Jersey, in adopting the rule of law which is complained of here, have deemed it consistent with the privilege itself, and not a denial of it. The reasoning by which this view is supported will be found in the cases cited from New Jersey and Maine, and see Reg. v. Rhodes (1899), 1 Q.B. 77; Ex parte Kops (1894), A.C. 650. The authorities upon the question are in conflict. We do not pass upon the conflict, because, for the reasons given, we think that the exemption from compulsory self-incrimination in the courts of the States is not secured by any part of the Federal Constitution.
* I In certain offenses, which may be generally described as embezzlements, the evidence compelled from a bankrupt cannot be used against him. 24 & 25 Vict., ch. 96, § 85; 53 & 54 Vict., ch. 71, § 27.

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