Opinion ID: 744057
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Direct Case Law

Text: In answering this question, we have no explicit guidance from either the Supreme Court or from this court. Although the issue was before the Supreme Court in Zicarelli v. New Jersey State Comm'n of Investigation, 406 U.S. 472, 92 S.Ct. 1670, 32 L.Ed.2d 234 (1972), 1 the Court held that since no real and substantial risk of foreign prosecution existed in that case, it was unnecessary to decide the question. See id. at 478-81, 92 S.Ct. at 1674-76. 2 Since Zicarelli, and until this case, this court has never had to reach the issue, because each of the claimants advancing the argument lacked the real and substantial fear of foreign prosecution required by the Supreme Court. See, e.g., United States v. Chevrier (In re Grand Jury Proceedings), 748 F.2d 100, 104-05 (2d Cir.1984); United States v. Gilboe, (In re Gilboe), 699 F.2d 71, 74-75 (2d Cir.1983); United States v. Flanagan (In re Flanagan), 691 F.2d 116, 121-22 (2d Cir.1982). Three other circuits have considered whether the Fifth Amendment privilege applies to fear of incrimination in foreign countries, and they have come to divergent conclusions. In United States v. (Under Seal) (Araneta), 794 F.2d 920 (4th Cir.1986), the Fourth Circuit held that the Fifth Amendment does not protect a witness facing a substantial risk of foreign prosecution from compelled self-incrimination. It reasoned that when the Fifth Amendment applied only to the federal government, and not to the states, the Supreme Court had held that the amendment did not forbid the federal government from compelling testimony that would incriminate a witness under state law or forbid a state government from compelling testimony that would incriminate the witness under federal law. Since [o]nly when the Fifth Amendment was held applicable to the states was the privilege held to protect a witness in state or federal court from incriminating himself under either federal or state law, the court concluded that the Fifth Amendment privilege applies only where the sovereign compelling the testimony and the sovereign using the testimony are both restrained by the Fifth Amendment from compelling self-incrimination. Araneta, 794 F.2d at 926 (citation omitted). The Fourth Circuit has since reaffirmed this holding in United States v. (Under Seal), 807 F.2d 374, 375-76 (4th Cir.1986) (per curiam). The Tenth Circuit also held in a brief opinion that the Fifth Amendment does not protect against self-incrimination for acts made criminal by the laws of a foreign nation. See In re Parker, 411 F.2d 1067 (10th Cir.1969), vacated as moot sub nom., Parker v. United States, 397 U.S. 96, 90 S.Ct. 819, 25 L.Ed.2d 81 (1970). 3 The court stated: The ideology of some nations considers failure itself to be a crime and could provide punishment for the failure, apprehension, or admission of a traitorous saboteur acting for such a nation within the United States. In such a case the words privilege against self-incrimination, engraved in our history and law as they are, may turn sour when triggered by the law of a foreign nation. Id. at 1070 (footnote omitted). The Eleventh Circuit considered the issue in a case with facts very similar to those in the case before us. See United States v. Gecas, 50 F.3d 1549 (11th Cir.1995), reh'g en banc granted, op. vacated, 81 F.3d 1032 (11th Cir.1996). Vytautas Gecas invoked the privilege during a deposition by OSI that was part of a investigation into whether Gecas, a resident alien, lied on his visa application in 1962 about his activities in Lithuania during World War II. Reasoning that the Fifth Amendment has multiple purposes, which include protecting individual dignity as well as preventing overzealous prosecution, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit permitted Gecas to invoke the privilege. Allowing the privilege where the fear of foreign prosecution is real and substantial promotes, the court concluded, an appropriate balance between these purposes and the important government interest in domestic law enforcement. See id. at 1564-65. A number of district courts, in this circuit and elsewhere, have also considered the question that the court faces today. In 1972, after the Supreme Court in Zicarelli had indicated that the issue remained open, Chief Judge Newman of this court, then a district court judge for the District of Connecticut, held that, when a witness has a reasonable fear of foreign prosecution, he can invoke the privilege against self-incrimination, despite a grant of use immunity. See In re Cardassi, 351 F.Supp. 1080, 1086 (D.Conn.1972). In reaching that conclusion, Judge Newman relied heavily on the earlier Supreme Court opinion in Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n of New York Harbor, 378 U.S. 52, 84 S.Ct. 1594, 12 L.Ed.2d 678 (1964). See Cardassi, 351 F.Supp. at 1084-86. His ruling was not appealed. Another member of this court also addressed this issue as a district court judge. In In re Flanagan, 533 F.Supp. 957 (E.D.N.Y.), rev'd on other grounds, 691 F.2d 116 (2d Cir.1982), Judge McLaughlin, then of the Eastern District of New York, found that Martin Flanagan had a real and substantial fear of being prosecuted in the Republic of Ireland or in Northern Ireland for being a member of the Irish Republican Army, and went on to hold that the privilege could be invoked in the face of such a fear. See id. at 962-66. This court, however, held that the district court had erred in finding a real and substantial fear of foreign prosecution. We therefore reversed the district court without reaching the issue of the applicability of the privilege. See Flanagan, 691 F.2d at 121-22. District courts in other circuits have also found the privilege to extend to fear of foreign prosecution. See, e.g., Moses v. Allard (In re Moses), 779 F.Supp. 857, 870-83 (E.D.Mich.1991) (refusing in a domestic bankruptcy proceeding to compel the testimony of a debtor who feared prosecution in Switzerland); Yves Farms, Inc. v. Rickett, 659 F.Supp. 932, 939-41 (M.D.Ga.1987) (holding that a foreign citizen was entitled to invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege against private-party defendants seeking testimony on a collateral issue); Mishima v. United States, 507 F.Supp. 131, 135 (D.Alaska 1981) (relying on the analysis of English common law in Murphy to conclude that the privilege could be invoked where a real fear of foreign prosecution exists). And a number of district courts have found the privilege applicable in the particular context of OSI investigations. See, e.g., United States v. Kirsteins, No. 87-CV-964, 1989 WL 49796, at  10 (N.D.N.Y. May 10, 1989) (noting an earlier decision to allow the witness to invoke the privilege); United States v. Trucis, 89 F.R.D. 671, 673 (E.D.Pa.1981) (Pollak, J.) (relying on Judge Newman's discussion in Cardassi). But other district courts have refused to allow the privilege to be invoked against questioning by OSI. See, e.g., Lileikis, 899 F.Supp. at 809 (holding that the privilege cannot be asserted if there is a governmental interest in enforcing domestic law and the witness's testimony furthers that interest). Although the Supreme Court has not squarely addressed the issue faced by this court today, the Court has considered an analogous and related issue: whether one jurisdiction in our federal structure may compel a witness to give testimony which might incriminate him under the laws of another jurisdiction. Murphy, 378 U.S. at 54, 84 S.Ct. at 1596. The Court's answer to this question guides us in two ways. First, like the Supreme Court in Murphy, we will begin by considering the question in the light of the purposes of the Fifth Amendment, and then in the light of Supreme Court cases and of English common law. Second, the Murphy decision, in and of itself, provides considerable support for the holding that the Fifth Amendment protects Balsys from being compelled to testify.