Court Opinion

ID: 9457741
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:32:04.177657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:29.732376
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
The Government advances two grounds in support of its petition for rehearing. Finding no merit in either contention, we deny the petition.
The Government’s first ground is an asserted conflict between the original panel decision in this case and the opinion of another panel of this court in Widmer v. Stokes, No. 71-2808, decided one day later. Widmer involves an action for a declaratory judgment challenging the constitutional validity of 18 U.S.C. §§ 6001, et seq. the same statute that was attacked in this case. In the district court, Widmer sought a stay of any prosecution against him pending adjudication of his constitutional claim on the merits. The district court granted a temporary restraining order on August 30, 1971, but later dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Wid-mer appealed, and the district court issued an injunction against prosecution of Widmer pending appeal. On September 17, 1971, a panel of this court granted the Government’s motion to vacate the injunction against prosecution pending appeal. The panel’s reason for granting the motion was as follows:
Representations have been made to the court by counsel for Appellant that should the stay pending appeal be vacated the Government has stated that it will immediately cause the arrest of the appellant and oppose his release on bond; that this Court should protect Appellant’s rights in this regard. We cannot act upon prognostications nor can we preempt the jurisdiction of the District Court to make determinations in the first instance concerning bail.
The Government asserts that the panel action in vacating the injunction is in conflict with our decision in this case since it opened the way for a government prosecution of Widmer for his refusal to testify after being offered a grant of immunity under 18 U.S.C. § 6002. It is apparent, however, from the language quoted from the panel’s order, that the panel never reached or decided the underlying constitutional question and thus *218that Widmer represents no conflict with our decision in this case.
Appellee’s second contention is that this court misapprehended the holding of the Supreme Court in Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, 378 U.S. 52, 84 S.Ct. 1594, 12 L.Ed.2d 678 (1964). Appellee argues that Murphy gives constitutional sanction to a “use” immunity statute. Although we considered and rejected this argument in our earlier opinion, we take this opportunity to further elaborate our views on the scope of the Murphy decision.
To understand Murphy, it is important to understand what it decided and what it did not decide. The Murphy case cannot be read as a carte blanche sanction of “use” immunity statutes as a constitutionally permissible means of compelling testimony over a claim of privilege because it decided a different, albeit related question. The instant case concerns the constitutional restrictions upon the power of a single jurisdiction to compel an individual to give testimony which may incriminate him under the laws of that jurisdiction. Murphy, on the other hand, addressed the problem of immunity statutes in a multiple jurisdictional context. More precisely, Murphy defined the limitations imposed by the Constitution on a second jurisdiction where immunity has been granted and testimony compelled by a different jurisdiction.
The appellant in Murphy was a recalcitrant witness who had refused to testify in a New Jersey state investigation despite a grant of full transactional immunity from future state prosecutions. However, he argued that the New Jersey immunity statute was constitutionally insufficient in that the statute did not protect him from a federal prosecution or other incriminating use of his testimony by federal authorities.1 The Court held that once New Jersey had granted immunity, the United States was barred from using the compelled testimony or its fruits against the witness in a federal prosecution. The Court added, however, that the United States could still prosecute the witness for a federal crime related to the transaction about which he had testified if that prosecution was based upon independently obtained evidence of guilt.
The Government now argues that from the Murphy holding that the second jurisdiction must, at minimum, refrain from using compelled testimony and its fruits against the witness, flows the conclusion that the same standard is applicable to the first jurisdiction. But such a conclusion does not follow. There are substantial policy reasons why the immunity granted by the second jurisdiction need not be as broad as that granted by the interrogating jurisdiction. Considerations of federalism enter the picture. It may well be unfair to bar the second jurisdiction absolutely from prosecuting the defendant because it played no role in the decision to grant immunity in the first place. Such an absolute prohibition may represent a serious interference with the administration of justice in the second jurisdiction. Thus, Murphy merely applies an exclusionary rule which prevents the second jurisdiction from using the coerced testimony or its fruits against the individual. Such a rule is far less likely to obstruct the normal administration of justice in the second jurisdiction.
The purpose of the Murphy ruling was to broaden the scope of the privilege against self-incrimination by requiring that even jurisdictions which never granted immunity to a witness respect the interrogating jurisdiction’s grant of immunity to the extent of refraining from using the testimony or its *219fruits against the witness. Murphy cannot be read as narrowing the constitutional requirements of immunity in the interrogating jurisdiction.
Accordingly, the petition for rehearing is denied.

. Under prior law, the privilege against self-incrimination was weakened by the fact that a witness could be compelled to testify after a grant of immunity from a state even though that testimony subjected him to a potential federal prosecution.