Opinion ID: 2831059
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: introduction

Text: The government's power to compel testimony before grand juries is not absolute. Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 444 (1972). There are a number of exemptions from the testimonial duty, the most important of which is the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. Id. (emphasis added). The privilege reflects a complex of our fundamental values and aspirations, and marks an important advance in the development of our liberty. It can be asserted in any proceeding, civil or criminal, administrative or judicial, investigatory or adjudicatory; and it protects against any disclosures which the witness reasonably believes could be used in a criminal prosecution or could lead to other evidence that might be so used. Id. at 444-45. The applicable standard to determine the availability of the Fifth Amendment is set forth in Ohio v. Reiner where the Supreme Court stated that the privilege extends to witnesses who have reasonable cause to apprehend danger from a direct answer. 532 U.S. 17, 21 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). The privilege afforded not only extends to answers that would in themselves support a conviction under a federal criminal statute but likewise embraces those which would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute the claimant for a federal crime. Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479,486 (1951). Far from requiring an admission of guilt by the witness, the Fifth Amendment standard permits the invocation of the privilege by a witness professing innocence: [W]e have never held... that the privilege is unavailable to those who claim innocence. To the contrary, one of the Fifth Amendment's basic functions... is to protect innocent men...'who might otherwise be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.' Reiner, 532 U.S. at 21. Too many, even those who should be better advised, view this privilege as a shelter for wrongdoers. They too readily assume that those who invoke it are either guilty of crime or commit perjury in claiming the privilege. Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 421 (1957). Innocent men are more likely to plead the privilege in secret proceedings, where they testify without advice of counsel and without opportunity for cross-examination, than in open court proceedings, where cross-examination and judicially supervised procedure provide safeguards for the establishing of the whole, as against the possibility of merely partial, truth. Id. at 422-23.