Court Opinion

ID: 9423323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:07:06.941128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:43.549435
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
dissenting.*
In No. 13, Garrity v. New Jersey, the Court apparently holds that in every imaginable circumstance the threat *531of discharge issued by one public officer to another will be impermissible compulsion sufficient to render subsequent answers to questions inadmissible in a criminal proceeding. I would agree that in some, if not in most, cases this would be the proper result. But the circumstances of such confrontations are of infinite variety. Rather than the Court’s inflexible, per se rule, the matter should be decided on the facts of each particular case. In the situation before us now, I agree with my Brother Harlan that the findings of the two courts below should not be overturned.
However that may be, with Garrity on the books, the Court compounds its error in Spevack v. Klein, No. 62. The petitioner in that case refused to testify and to produce any of his records. He incriminated himself in no way whatsoever. The Court nevertheless holds that he may not be disbarred for his refusal to do so. Such a rule would seem justifiable only on the ground that it is an essential measure to protect against self-incrimination— to prevent what may well be a successful attempt to elicit incriminating admissions. But Garrity excludes such statements, and their fruits, from a criminal proceeding and therefore frustrates in advance any effort to compel admissions which could be used to obtain a criminal conviction. I therefore see little legal or practical basis, in terms of the privilege against self-incrimination protected by the Fifth Amendment, for preventing the discharge of a public employee or the disbarment of a lawyer who refuses to talk about the performance of his public duty.†
*532In Murphy v. Waterfront Comm’n, 378 U. S. 52, the Court held that “a state witness may not be compelled to give testimony which may be incriminating under federal law unless the compelled testimony and its fruits cannot be used in any manner by federal officials in connection with a criminal prosecution against him.” 378 U. S., at 79. To implement this holding the Court further ruled that the Federal Government would be constitutionally prohibited from making any such use of compelled testimony and its fruits. This holding was based on the desirability of accommodating the interests of the State and the Federal Government in investigating and prosecuting crime.
A similar accommodation should be made here, although the multiple interests involved are those of the State alone. The majority does not deny that the State and its citizens have a legitimate interest in ridding themselves of faithless officers. Admittedly, however, in attempting to determine the present qualifications of an employee by consultation with the employee himself, the State may ask for information which, if given, would not only result in a discharge but would be very useful evidence in a criminal proceeding. Garrity, in my view, protects against the latter possibility. Consequently, I see no reason for refusing to permit the State to pursue its other valid interest and to discharge an employee who refuses to cooperate in the State’s effort to determine his qualifications for continued employment.
In my view, Spevack was properly disbarred. With all due respect, I therefore dissent.

[This opinion applies also to No. 13, Garrity v. New Jersey, ante, p. 493.]

 The opinion of my Brother Douglas professes not to resolve whether policemen may be discharged for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into alleged misconduct. However, the reasoning used to reach his result in the case of lawyers would seemingly apply with equal persuasiveness in the case of public employees.