Court Opinion

ID: 9449813
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:23:52.921125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:59.965478
License: Public Domain

BIGGS, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I too must respectfully dissent for the following reasons. Assuming arguendo that Testa was guilty of contempt when he refused to answer the questions put to him in the court below, the order committing him until he has purged himself of his contempt may have become unenforceable by reason of his indictment. If he purges himself by answering the questions put to him he could, possibly, under the compulsion of the continuing contempt sanction, be compelled to testify against himself. This question was not adjudicated in Marcus v. United States, 310 F.2d 143 (3 Cir. 1962), and as Judge Kalodner points out in his dissent here, was not regarded as an issue in the opinion of the Supreme Court in Piemonte v. United States, 367 U.S. 556, 81 S.Ct. 1720, 6 L.Ed.2d 1028 (1961), because the indictment there had been quashed prior to argument of the appeal.
The issue seems to me to be of such importance as to warrant rehearing. I therefore join in Judge Kalodner’s request for a rehearing, which I assume, is to be one en banc.