friedo:
Please don’t issue blanket statements like “You can never ben compelled to testify against yourself,” especially when they are flat out wrong. If you don’t know, at the very least, qualify your statement with, "As far as I know… " or “This is a guess, but…”
In fact, the granting of immunity removes the protections of the Fifth Amendment. Once granted immunity, the privilege against self-incrimination is gone, and a person may be compelled to testify against themselves. The reasoning is simple: the Fifth Amendment exists to prevent prosecutions based on self-incriminating testimony. Once the possibility of prosecution is gone, so is the privilege.
There are two basic varieties of immunity: use immunity and transactional immunity.
Use immunity means that any testimony you give cannot be used against you. It would still be possible to prosecute you for the crimes that you testified about, as long as no evidence used in the prosecution was derived from your testimony, directly or indirectly.
Transactional immunity is absolute immunity from prosecutions on the transactions that you testify about, no matter the source of the evidence.
The Supreme Court has held that use immunity is coterminous with Fifth Amendment protections - that is, you can be forced to testify after a grant of use immunity, and cannot “hold out” for transactional immunity. See Kastigar v. U.S., 406 U.S. 441 (1972). See also Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor (compelled incriminating testimony in the context of state and federal prosecutions); Sarno v. Illinois Crime Commission; Zicarelli v. New Jersey State Commission of Investigation.
Fighting ignorance means holding off on posting a fact as an answer in GQ unless you’re sure of that fact.
- Rick