Court Opinion

ID: 9682796
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:17:13.74479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:41.798116
License: Public Domain

McCALEB, Justice
(dissenting).
In my view, the evidence given by Kimberlin before the Civil Service Commission was not secured by compulsion. On the contrary, the transcript of that evidence shows that Kimberlin, a mature (45 years of age) and highly intelligent man (degrees in Chemistry and Physics, Reserve Lieutenant Commander in U. S. Navy who had served as a Naval Intelligence Officer in the Korean War), was well aware of his constitutional rights to protection against self incrimination at the time he testified and that he refused to answer questions whenever he thought it was not to his advantage to do so.1 Hence, it would have been superfluous for the Commission to have advised Kimberlin of rights of which he was perfectly cognizant and I know of no reason, under the circumstances, why the evidence he knowlingly gave should not' have been used against him in the grand-jury proceedings. See Crooker v. California (1958) 357 U.S. 433, 78 S.Ct. 1287, 2 L.Ed.2d 1448.
I respectfully dissent.

. Time and time again, upon being interrogated, Kimberlin would state “I don’t think I should answer that question”. At one point in bis examination be said “A. And I think when I first made my statement that I was hired, retained in an advisory capacity, I think that I have stated that very plainly and I think that is as far as I want to go.” And, when he continued to respond by saying that he did not think he should answer, one of the members of the Civil Service Commission advised him that he should say “I decline to answer” and, from then on, he adopted this suggestion and “declined” to answer the questions he thought objectionable.