Court Opinion

ID: 9426391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:45.579297+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.671460
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
with whom Mr. Justice Blackmun joins, concurring in the judgment.
The Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination provides no protection for the commission of perjury. “Our legal system provides methods for challenging the Government’s right to ask questions — lying is not one of them. A citizen may decline to answer the question, or answer it honestly, but he cannot with impunity knowingly and willfully answer with a falsehood.” Bryson v. United States, 396 U. S. 64, 72 (footnote omitted). See United States v. Knox, 396 U. S. 77, 82; Glickstein v. United States, 222 U. S. 139, 142. The respondent’s grand jury testimony is relevant only to his prosecution for perjury and was not introduced in the prosecution for attempting to distribute heroin. Since this is not a case where it could plausibly be argued that the perjury prosecution must be barred because of prosecutorial conduct amounting to a denial of due process,* I would reverse the judgment without reaching the other issues explored in The Chief Justice’s opinion and in Mr. Justice Brennan’s separate opinion.

Cf. Brown v. United States, 245 F. 2d 549 (CA8).