Court Opinion

ID: 9932402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 18:40:45.092363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:51.611441
License: Public Domain

I respectfully dissent from the issuance of a writ of mandamus directing the Honorable John Lockett, Circuit Judge, to stay the civil proceedings against the petitioner Williams in order to preserve his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Williams made only a scant and *Page 149 
conclusionary showing of a threat of criminal prosecution last August — August 1999. The charge brought by the Daphne police has been withdrawn. Nothing before us suggests that any other threat or prospect of criminal prosecution has materialized in the seven months or so since Williams initially sought this stay.
Williams has not supplied us a copy of Judge Lockett's order denying the stay, although Williams purports to describe a part of the order. Williams hardly makes a persuasive case that Judge Lockett abused his discretion when Williams does not provide us a copy of Judge Lockett's order.
Our better course would be either to deny the petition for the writ or to direct further development of the record on the issue of the present existence or nonexistence of a prospect that Williams will be prosecuted on a criminal charge.