Opinion ID: 106864
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the early english and american cases.

Text: In 1749 the Court of Exchequer decided East India Co. v. Campbell , 1 Ves. sen. 246, 27 Eng. Rep. 1010. The defendant in that case refused to discover certain information in a proceeding in an English court on the ground that it might subject him to punishment in the courts of India. The court unanimously held that the privilege against self-incrimination protected a witness in an English court from being compelled to give testimony which could be used to convict him in the courts of another jurisdiction. The court stated the rule to be: that this court shall not oblige one to discover that, which, if he answers in the affirmative, will subject him to the punishment of a crime . . . and that he is punishable appears from the case of Omichund v. Barker, [1 Atk. 21.] as a jurisdiction is erected in Calcutta for criminal facts: where he may be sent to government and tried, though not punishable here; like the case of one who was concerned in a rape in Ireland, and sent over there by the government to be tried, although the court of B. R. here refused to do it . . . for the government may send persons to answer for a crime wherever committed, that he may not involve his country; and to prevent reprisals. 1 Ves. sen., at 247, 27 Eng. Rep., at 1011. In the following year, this rule was applied in a case involving separate systems of courts and law located within the same geographic area. The defendant in Brownsword v. Edwards, 2 Ves. sen. 243, 28 Eng. Rep. 157, refused to discover, whether she was lawfully married to a certain individual, on the ground that if she admitted to the marriage she would be confessing to an act which, although legal under the common law, would render her liable to prosecution in ecclesiastical court. The Lord Chancellor said: This appears a very plain case, in which defendant may protect herself from making a discovery of her marriage; and I am afraid, if the court should over-rule such a plea, it would be setting up the oath ex officio; which then the parliament in the time of Charles I. would in vain have taken away, if the party might come into this court for it. The general rule is, that no one is bound to answer so as to subject himself to punishment, whether that punishment arises by the ecclesiastical law of the land. 2 Ves. sen., at 244-245, 28 Eng. Rep., at 158.
It was against this background of English case law that this Court in 1828 decided United States v. Saline Bank of Virginia, 1 Pet. 100. The Government, seeking to recover certain bank deposits, brought suit in the District Court against the bank and a number of its stock-holders. The defendants resisted discovery of any matters, whereby they may impeach or accuse themselves of any offence or crime, or be liable by the laws of the commonwealth of Virginia, to penalties and grievous fines . . . . Id., at 102. The unanimous opinion of the Court, delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, reads as follows: This is a bill in equity for a discovery and relief. The defendants set up a plea in bar, alleging that the discovery would subject them to penalties under the statute of Virginia. The Court below decided in favour of the validity of the plea, and dismissed the bill. It is apparent that in every step of the suit, the facts required to be discovered in support of this suit would expose the parties to danger. The rule clearly is, that a party is not bound to make any discovery which would expose him to penalties, and this case falls within it. The decree of the Court below is therefore affirmed. Id., at 104. This case squarely holds that the privilege against self-incrimination protects a witness in a federal court from being compelled to give testimony which could be used against him in a state court.
In 1851, the English Court of Chancery decided King of the Two Sicilies v. Willcox, 1 Sim. (N. S.) 301, 61 Eng. Rep. 116, a case which this Court in United States v. Murdock, 284 U. S. 141, erroneously cited as representing the settled English rule that a witness is not protected against disclosing offenses in violation of the laws of another country. Id., at 149. Defendants in that case resisted discovery of information, which, they asserted, might subject them to prosecution under the laws of Sicily. In denying their claim, the Vice Chancellor said: The rule relied on by the Defendants, is one which exists merely by virtue of our own municipal law, and must, I think, have reference, exclusively, to matters penal by that law: to matters as to which, if disclosed, the Judge would be able to say, as matter of law, whether it could or could not entail penal consequences. 1 Sim. (N. S.), at 329, 61 Eng. Rep., at 128. Two reasons were given in support of this statement: (1) The impossibility of knowing, as matter of law, to what cases the objection, when resting on the danger of incurring penal consequences in a foreign country, may extend. . . , id., at 331, 61 Eng. Rep., at 128; and (2) the fact that in such a case, in order to make the disclosure dangerous to the party who objects, it is essential that he should first quit the protection of our laws, and wilfully go within the jurisdiction of the laws he has violated. [7] ibid., 61 Eng. Rep., at 128. Within a few years, the pertinent part of King of the Two Sicilies was specifically overruled by the Court of Chancery Appeal in United States of America v. McRae, L. R., 3 Ch. App. 79 (1867), a case not mentioned by this Court in United States v. Murdock, supra . In McRae, the United States sued in an English court for an accounting and payment of moneys allegedly received by the defendant as agent for the Confederate States during the Civil War. The defendant refused to answer questions on the ground that to do so would subject him to penalties under the laws of the United States. The United States argued that the protection from answering applies only where a person might expose himself to the peril of a penal proceeding in this country [England], and not to the case where the liability to penalty or forfeiture is incurred by the breach of the laws of a foreign country [the United States]. L. R., 3 Ch. App., at 83-84. The United States relied on King of the Two Sicilies v. Willcox, supra . The Lord Chancellor sustained the claim of privilege and limited King of the Two Sicilies to its facts. He said: I quite agree in the general principles stated by Lord Cranworth, and in their application to the particular case before him.. . . [The defendants there] did not furnish the least information what the foreign law was upon the subject, though it was necessary for the Judge to know this with certainty before he could say whether the acts done by the persons who objected to answer had rendered them amenable to punishment by that law or not.. . . [Moreover,] 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]. L. R., 3 Ch. App., at 84-87. In refusing to follow King of the Two Sicilies beyond its particular facts, the court said: But in giving judgment Lord Cranworth went beyond the particular case, and expressed his opinion that the rule upon which the Defendants relied to protect them from answering was one which existed merely by virtue of our own municipal law, and which must have reference exclusively to matters penal by that law. It was unnecessary to lay down so broad a proposition to support the judgment which he pronounced . . . . What would have been Lord Cranworth's opinion upon [the present] state of circumstances it is impossible for me to conjecture; but it is very different from that which was before his mind in that case, and I cannot feel that there is any judgment of his which ought to influence my decision upon the present occasion. Id., at 85. The court then concluded that under the circumstances it could not distinguish the case in principle from one where a witness is protected from answering any question which has a tendency to expose him to forfeiture for a breach of our own municipal law. Id., at 87. This decision, not King of the Two Sicilies, represents the settled English rule regarding self-incrimination under foreign law. See Heriz v. Riera, 11 Sim. 318, 59 Eng. Rep. 896.